Milton Ager

Milton Ager ( born October 6, 1893 in Chicago, † May 6, 1979 in Los Angeles ) was an American composer of Tin Pan Alley, who was known for songs such as Is not She Sweet.

Life and work

Ager began in 1900, after his sister had bought him a piano, self-taught to play the piano. In 1907, he left with the conclusion of McKinley High School in New York City, worked as a pianist break in movie theaters and vaudeville. As a song plugger in 1910 he found employment with the music publisher Watson, Berlin, and Synder. In 1914 he moved for the publisher to New York and began to arrange and compose songs. In the early 1920s he met the lyricist Jack Yellen, with the first Hiterfolge like Everything Is Peaches Down in Georgia ( 1918) and Anything Is Nice If it Comes from Dixieland (1919) emerged, both of which were interpreted by Grant Clarke. Sophie Tucker made ​​the Ager / Yellen songs Lovin ' Sam ( The Sheik of Alabam ') ( 1922), Louisville Lou (1923 ) and Mama Goes Where Papa Goes ( 1923) popular.

1927, Ager and Yellen with five songs in the Hitaparaden, with Is not That a Grand and Glorious Feeling, Crazy Word, Crazy Time, Is She Still My Girlfriend and Forgive Me; was the biggest hit of their cooperation this year, the song Is not She Sweet, a track number for Ben Bernie and in the early 1960s for The Beatles. 1929 attracted Ager and Yellen to Hollywood, where they wrote I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas for Sophie Tucker in the film Hony Tonk ( 1929). After the title song for the film Glad Rag Doll and the hit Happy Days Are Here Again (1928, known in Germany as a weekend and sunshine by the Comedian Harmonists ), the team Ager / Yellen separated. After film scores as The Jazz King (1930) and Napoleon of Broadway (1934 ) is Ager put to rest in 1944. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. His daughter is the journalist Shana Alexander (supposedly he composed 's Is not She Sweet for her as a baby). Ager, who died in 1979, is located on the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery buried in Los Angeles.