Along Broadway in the height of the theatrical season, but more particularly in that laggard time from June to September, when the great city is given over to those who may not travel, and to actors seeking engagements, there is ever to be seen a certain representative figure, now one individual and now another, of a world so singular that it might well engage the pen of a Balzac or that of a Cervantes. I have in mind an individual whose high hat and smooth Prince Albert coat are still a delicious presence. In his coat lapel is a ruddy boutonnière, in his hand a novel walking-stick. His vest is of a gorgeous and affluent pattern, his shoes shiny-new and topped with pearl-gray spats. With dignity he carries his body and his chin. He is the cynosure of many eyes, the envy of all men, and he knows it. He is the successful author of the latest popular song. Along Broadway, from union to Greeley Squares, any fair day during the period of his artistic elevation, he is to be seen. Past the rich shops and splendid theaters he betakes himself with leisurely grace. In Thirtieth Street he may turn for a few moments, but it is only to say good-morning to his publishers. In Twenty-eighth Street, where range the host of those who rival his successful house, he stops to talk with lounging actors and ballad singers. Well-known variety stars nod to him familiarly. Women whose sole claim to distinction139 lies in their knack of singing a song, smile in greeting as he passes. Occasionally there comes a figure of a needy ballad-monger, trudging from publisher to publisher with an unavailable manuscript, who turns upon him, in passing, the glint of an envious glance. To these he is an important figure, satisfied as much with their envy as with their praise, for is not this also his due, the reward of all who have triumphed?
I have in mind another figure, equally singular: a rouged and powdered little maiden, rich in feathers and ornaments of the latest vogue; gloved in blue and shod in yellow; pretty, self-assured, daring, and even bold. There has gone here all the traditional maidenly reserve you would expect to find in one so young and pleasing, and yet she is not evil. The daughter of a Chicago butcher, you knew her when she first came to the city—a shabby, wondering little thing, clerk to a music publisher transferring his business east, and all eyes for the marvels of city life.
Gradually the scenes and superlatives of elegance, those showy men and women coming daily to secure or sell songs, have aroused her longings and ambitions. Why may not she sing, why not she be a theatrical celebrity? She will. The world shall not keep her down. That elusive and almost imaginary company known as they, whose hands are ever against the young, shall not hold her back.
Behold, for a time, then, she has gone; and now, elegant, jingling with silver ornaments, hale and merry from good living, she has returned. To-day she is playing at one of the foremost vaudeville houses. To-morrow140 she leaves for Pittsburgh. Her one object is still a salary of five hundred or a thousand a week and a three-sheet litho of herself in every window and upon every billboard.
“I’m all right now,” she will tell you gleefully. “I’m way ahead of the knockers. They can’t keep me down. You ought to have seen the reception I got in Pittsburgh. Say, it was the biggest yet.”
Blessed be Pittsburgh, which has honored one who has struggled so hard, and you say so.
“Are you here for long?”
“Only this week. Come up and see my turn. Hey, cabbie!”
A passing cabman turns in close to the walk with considerable alacrity.
“Take me to Keith’s. So long. Come up and see my turn to-night.”
This is the woman singer, the complement of the male of the same art, the couple who make for the acceptance and spread of the popular song as well as the fame of its author. They sing them in every part of the country, and here in New York, returned from a long season on the road, they form a very important portion of this song-writing, song-singing world. They and the authors and the successful publishers—but we may simplify by yet another picture.
In Twenty-seventh or Twenty-eighth Street, or anywhere along Broadway from Madison to Greeley Squares, are the parlors of a score of publishers, gentlemen who co?rdinate this divided world for song publishing purposes. There is an office and a reception-room; a music-chamber, where songs are tried, and a141 stock room. Perhaps, in the case of the larger publishers, the music-rooms are two or three, but the air of each is much the same. Rugs, divans, imitation palms make this publishing house more bower than office. Three or four pianos give to each chamber a parlor-like appearance. The walls are hung with the photos of celebrities, neatly framed, celebrities of the kind described. In the private music-rooms, rocking-chairs. A boy or two waits to bring professional copies at a word. A salaried pianist or two wait to run over pieces which the singer may desire to hear. Arrangers wait to make orchestrations or take down newly schemed out melodies which the popular composer himself cannot play. He has evolved the melody by a process of whistling and must have its fleeting beauty registered before it escapes him forever. Hence the salaried arranger.
Into these parlors then, come the mixed company of this distinctive world: authors who have or have not succeeded, variety artists who have some word from touring fellows or know the firm, masters of small bands throughout the city or the country, of which the name is legion, orchestra-leaders of Bowery theaters and uptown variety halls, and singers.
“You haven’t got a song that will do for a tenor, have you?”
The inquirer is a little, stout, ruddy-faced Irish boy from the gas-house district. His common clothes are not out of the ordinary here, but they mark him as possibly a non-professional seeking free copies.
“Sure, let me see. For what do you want it?”
“Well, I’m from the Arcadia Pleasure Club. We’re142 going to give a little entertainment next Wednesday and we want some songs.”
“I think I’ve got just the thing you want. Wait till I call the boy. Harry! Bring me some professional copies of ballads.”
The youth is probably a representative of one of the many Tammany pleasure organizations, the members of which are known for their propensity to gather about east and west side corners at night and sing. One or two famous songs are known to have secured their start by the airing given them in this fashion on the street corners of the great city.
Upon his heels treads a lady whose ruffled sedateness marks her as one unfamiliar with this half-musical, half-theatrical atmosphere.
“I have a song I would like to have you try over, if you care to.”
The attending publisher hesitates before even extending a form of reception.
“What sort of a song is it?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know. I guess you’d call it a sentimental ballad. If you’d hear it I think you might——”
“We are so over-stocked with songs now, Madam, that I don’t believe there’s much use in our hearing it. Could you come in next Friday? We’ll have more leisure then and can give you more attention.”
The lady looks the failure she has scored, but retreats, leaving the ground clear for the chance arrival of the real author, the individual whose position is attested by one hit or mayhap many. His due is that deference143 which all publishers, if not the public, feel called upon to render, even if at the time he may have no reigning success.
 
Whence the Song
“Hello, Frank, how are you? What’s new?”
The author, cane in hand, may know of nothing in particular.
“Sit down. How are things with you, anyhow?”
“Oh, so-so.”
“That new song of yours will be out Friday. We have a rush order on it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and I’ve got good news for you. Windom is going to sing it next year with the minstrels. He was in here the other day and thought it was great.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“That song’s going to go, all right. You haven’t got any others, have you?”
“No, but I’ve got a tune. Would you mind having one of the boys take it down for me?”
“Surest thing you know. Here, Harry! Call Hatcher.”
Now comes the pianist and arranger, and a hearing and jotting down of the new melody in a private room. The favored author may have piano and pianist for an indefinite period any time. Lunch with the publishers awaits him if he remains until noon. His song, when ready, is heard with attention. The details which make for its publication are rushed. His royalties are paid with that rare smile which accompanies the payment of anything to one who earns money for another. He is to be petted, conciliated, handled with gloves.
At his heels, perhaps, another author, equally successful,144 maybe, but almost intolerable because of certain marked eccentricities of life and clothing. He is a negro, small, slangy, strong in his cups, but able to write a good song, occasionally a truly pathetic ballad.
“Say, where’s that gem o’ mine?”
“What?”
“That effusion.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That audience-killer—that there thing that’s goin’ to sweep the country like wildfire—that there song.”
Much laughter and apology.
“It will be here Friday, Gussie.”
“Thought it was to be here last Monday?”
“So it was, but the printers didn’t get it done. You know how those things are, Gussie.”
“I know. Gimme twenty-five dollars.”
“Sure. But what are you going to do with it?”
“Never you mind. Gimme twenty-five bones. To-morrow’s rent day up my way.”
Twenty-five is given as if it were all a splendid joke. Gussie is a bad negro, one day radiant in bombastic clothing, the next wretched from dissipation and neglect. He has no royalty coming to him, really. That is, he never accepts royalty. All his songs are sold outright. But these have earned the house so much that if he were to demand royalties the sum to be paid would beggar anything he has ever troubled to ask for.
“I wouldn’t take no royalty,” he announces at one time, with a bombastic and yet mellow negro emphasis, which is always amusing. “Doan want it. Too much145 trouble. All I want is money when I needs it and wants it.”
Seeing that nearly every song that he writes is successful, this is a most equitable arrangement. He could have several thousand instead of a few hundred, but being shiftless he does not care. Ready money is the thing with him, twenty-five or fifty when he needs it.
And then those “peerless singers of popular ballads,” as their programs announce them, men and women whose pictures you will see upon every song-sheet, their physiognomy underscored with their own “Yours Sincerely” in their own handwriting. Every day they are here, arriving and departing, carrying the latest songs to all parts of the land. These are the individuals who in their own estimation “make” the songs the successes they are. In all justice, they have some claim to the distinction. One such, raising his or her voice nightly in a melodic interpretation of a new ballad, may, if the music be sufficiently catchy, bring it so thoroughly to the public ear as to cause it to begin to sell. These individuals are not unaware of their services in the matter, nor slow to voice their claims. In flocks and droves they come, whenever good fortune brings “the company” to New York or the end of the season causes them to return, to tell of their success and pick new songs for the ensuing season. Also to collect certain pre-arranged bonuses. Also to gather news and dispense it. Then, indeed, is the day of the publisher’s volubility and grace. These gentlemen and ladies must be attended to with that deference which is the right146 of the successful. The ladies must be praised and cajoled.
“Did you hear about the hit I made with ‘Sweet Kitty Leary’ in Kansas City? I knocked ’em cold. Say, it was the biggest thing on the bill.”
The publisher may not have heard of it. The song, for all the uproarious success depicted, may not have sold an extra copy, and yet this is not for him to say. Has the lady a good voice? Is she with a good company? He may so ingratiate himself that she will yet sing one of his newer and as yet unheard of compositions into popularity.
“Was it? Well, I’m glad to hear it. You have the voice for that sort of a song, you know, Marie. I’ve got something new, though, that will just suit you—oh, a dandy. It’s by Harry Welch.”
For all this flood of geniality the singer may only smile indifferently. Secretly her hand is against all publishers. They are out for themselves. Successful singers must mind their P’s and Q’s. Payment is the word, some arrangement by which she shall receive a stated sum per week for singing a song. The honeyed phrases are well enough for beginners, but we who have succeeded need something more.
“Let me show you something new. I’ve got a song here that is fine. Come right into the music-room. Charlie, get a copy of ‘She May Have Seen Better Days.’ I want you to play it over for Miss Yaeger.”
The boy departs and returns. In the exclusive music-room147 sits the singer, critically listening while the song is played.
“Isn’t that a pretty chorus?”
“Well, yes, I rather like that.”
“That will suit your voice exactly. Don’t ever doubt............