Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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ROSE, Billy

(b William Samuel Rosenberg, 6 September 1899 NYC; d 10 February 1966, Jamaica, West Indies) Lyricist, producer, showman. He owned two theatres in New York, opened Billy Rose's Music Hall in 1934 and hired Benny Goodman's first band for a long gig; he opened the Diamond Horseshoe in 1938, a premier night spot for many years. He was also a broadcaster and a columnist, but basically a wheeler-dealer, widely disliked, and a lot of people wondered exactly what he did do, but he could enter a revolving door behind you and come out in front.

Many of the lyrics he got credit for were of their time and remained period pieces, from novelties like 'Barney Google' and 'Does The Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight' (early 1920s) to good-time tunes such as 'Don't Bring Lulu' (1925, with Brown and Henderson; see DeSylva), 'Me And My Shadow', 'Back In Your Own Back Yard', 'There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder' (all 1927-8 with Al Jolson, Dave Dreyer). But somehow he touched all the bases; there were ballads 'Without A Song' and 'More Than You Know' (1929, with Edward Eliscu and Vincent Youmans for show Great Day), 'It Happened In Monterey' (1930, with Mabel Wayne for film King Of Jazz), 'I Found A Million Dollar Baby (In A Five And Ten Cent Store)' (1931, with Harry Warren and Mort Dixon for show Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt), 'It's Only A Paper Moon' (1932, with Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, at first 'If You Believed In Me' in show The Great Magoo). 'Got The Jitters' was a patter/rhythm novelty recorded by Don Redman; the charming 'Have A Little Dream On Me' and 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' were both recorded by Fats Waller; there were many more. 

Frederick Nolan, in his biography Lorenz Hart, quoted the great songwriter Harry Warren, who remembered Rose well:

He was a great feeder. He'd sit with the boys, and he'd say something like, "Come on, gimme another line, nah, nah, you can do better than that, Come on, gimme something like..." then he'd come up with a phrase or a line, something. Somehow, a song would come out of all this, somehow. And nobody knew what Billy had done, but he's done something. The difference with him was that was only the beginning. Then he would go out and hustle the publishers. You never knew how much he got, he never told you. He'd go in and make a deal, come out, hand you some money, that was it! You never found out what he'd sold it for till the statement came. Then you'd find that you'd been rigged, he'd taken the biggest bite. And on the one hand you hated him, and on the other hand you knew you wouldn't have gotten any deal at all without him.

With the Second World War the times Rose loved best were receding; he quit show business in the 1950s and played the stock market.