Lew Brown | Biography

No songwriting team captured the spirit of the 1920s more perfectly than that of Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson. Although the three worked together for only six years, they wrote songs that embodied the giddiness, naughtiness, and optimism of the Jazz Age. While all three men had independent songwriting careers before and after their collaborative period, their fame rests primarily on their work as a team between 1925 and 1931, when they wrote songs for Broadway shows and Hollywood motion pictures. One of the few successful three-way collaborations in the history of American popular music, DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson shared credit for both lyrics and music, although Henderson was primarily responsible for the music and Brown and DeSylva for the lyrics. Together, they managed to wed catchphrases of the day--"keep your sunny side up," "button up your overcoat," "the best things in life are free"--to jazzy rhythms that...
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