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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Sheet music collectors have a wide variety of choices    List Jim Trautman Next   Sheet music an inexpensive collectible   By Jim Trautman Sheet music first saw the light in churches hundreds of years ago, but it was the late 1800s before it began making the transition to homes, bars, dance halls and other non-religious venues.   Starting in 1880, pianos began selling in record numbers and with that came the need to want to play old and new favourites on the piano. In the days before radio, the piano became the gathering spot for family and friends.   By 1900, several smart music were mass producing song sheets for sales in music stores, newspaper stands and 5&10-cent stores.   The public appetite for the newest musical hits grew larger with each passing week. The public wanted to be able to play on their own pianos the hit song that was in the silent movie houses and dance halls.   In New York City, Tin Pan Alley - located on Broadway and Sixth Avenue near 28th Street to this day - became home to 45 music publishers, including M. Witmark and Sons, Will Rossiter, Harry and Albert Von Tilzer.   The American music publishers were located near the Broadway theatre district and song pluggers made a career of performing songs for Broadway stars, who would buy a song in return for the promise that their picture would be featured on the cover of the music sheet.   Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and George Gershwin got their musical start as pluggers. In Toronto, the major music sheet publisher Gordon V. Thompson Limited set up business at 193 Yonge Street.   In the early days, many music stores employed a house pianist who would play songs that a customer requested. If successful, the customer would then purchase the music sheet and play it at home. Later, the marketing of sheet music was increased by placing the recording artists or movie stars on the front cover.   The early tradition of employing Broadway stars on song sheets evolved to the use of someone famous to increase the sales to the public.   The wonderful thing about collecting music ephemera is the vast amount of material. One’s collection can be confined to Broadway plays, sports, movies, war songs, Christmas songs, Walt Disney material, individual performers, or specific songwriters. The amount of collectible sheet music is endless and generally very affordable since so many were produced.   In 1914, when Great Britain declared war on Germany, songwriters swung into action. Patriotic music moved into the home, dance hall, vaudeville palaces and onto the battle front.   Some early favourites were contained in the Flag of Empire Dance Album. Its Dreadnought Polka, Scouts’ Patrol, Queen Mary, Sailors’ Hornpipe, Pageant of Empire, God Save the King and Coronation Blue were played on pianos in homes and dance halls across the British Empire.   To encourage enlistment and keep up morale, the hit song Khaki hit the music stores: “Khaki is a mighty popular, first class military song. Oh! The man who’s dressed in khaki is the man who fights the foe. For he fights to guard the empire, our gallant soldier lad.”   Popular wartime songs were issued on Songs of the Homeland sheet music, including Remember Nurse Cavell, Do Your Bit, Red Cross Nell and Khaki Jin, That Old Tipperary Tune, Fly the Flag, Every Soldier is My Sweetheart.   The songs and song sheet image were meant to create patriotism and, of course, a little propaganda did not hurt the war effort. The front cover of Remember Nurse Cavell features her sitting with the family dog.   But it was not all gloom and doom.   Gordon V. Thompson published Take Me To The Toronto Fair, a catchy waltz song very popular with orchestras and bands.   By 1916, when the end of the war did not appear to be near, new songs focused on yearning for home.   There was When Jack Comes Back: “When Jack comes back, there’ll be a mighty welcome for our soldier boy! And he will be the idol of the country.“   In late 1918, when it appeared the war was finally at a turning point, a piece of sheet music hit the music stores with a soldier holding a camera on the front cover: “When I Send You A Picture Of Berlin, You’ll Know It’s Over and I’m Coming Home.”   The advent of home radio in the early 1920s provided a new venue for singers, bands and the mass marketing of music to the public. Radio required programming and a lot of programming.   Across Canada, groups of talented, and not so talented individuals, formed bands. Many played in dance halls, but many others were featured on radio shows. Guy Lombardo, Mart Kenney, Luigi Romanelli, Stan Patton, Jack Slatter etc.   Two of Guy Lombardo’s hits were Dance With A Dolly With A Hole In Her Stocking and Dream Train.   In the 1930s and '40s, photographs of performers appeared more and more on sheet music, now an item intended not only to sell the song, but also the performer or the movie connected to it.   The movies and Broadway produced hit after hit: Lon Chaney in Laugh Clown Laugh, Coney Island and the hit, Cuddle Up A Little Closer. The movie starred Betty Grable.   Of course, the image of Canada was portrayed by Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in Rose Marie.   The movie featured the famous song Indian Love Call. On the red, white and blue song sheet, Jeanette and Nelson are shown in a romantic embrace.   World War II produced six years of patriotic songs, including I’m Sending You the Siegfried Line to Hang Your Washing On.   In 1940, with the Battle of Britain raging, there was Thumbs Up, with a front cover featuring a fighter pilot giving the thumbs up sign.   Who can forget Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again (Don’t Know Where - Don’t Know When, But I Know We’ll Meet Again Some Sunny Day?)   Gordon V. Thompson publishers of Toronto sold Soldier Songs of Canada with the note, “This Book Should Be In Every Canadian Home.”   Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbour, Tin Pan Alley swung into songwriting action. Bandleader Sammy Kaye wrote and recorded Remember Pearl Harbour. Published by Republic Music Corporation, the song sheet featured an Army bugler sounding the alarm for America to retaliate against the Japanese. The cover was in red, white and blue.   Sheet music sales in the war years sky rocketed. Gathering around the fire and piano with family and friends became even more important.   The 1930s and '40s featured a new hit song every Christmas, like The Merry Christmas Polka, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, The Santa Claus Parade.   But with the world at war again, Christmas songs became focused on nostalgia. Bing Crosby recorded I’ll Be Home For Christmas and, of course, White Christmas, the famous 1940 Irving Berlin song Crosby from the 1942 movie Holiday Inn.   Once the war was over, holiday songs like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer were introduced.   During the Post WW2 years and the arrival of television, sheet music continued to be produced, but not in as large numbers as in the past.   Sheet music remains very collectible. Any material connected to Walt Disney is especially collectible. The music sheet from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, featuring the song Heigh Ho, sells in the $150 range.   Disney material has always been produced with the intent to increase sales. Fess Parker, who played Davy Crockett on the early ABC TV show The Wonderful World Of Disney, appears on the front of the song sheet. It sells in the $50 range.   Sheet music is an historical snapshot of a certain period in time. Almost every historical event has been immortalized in sheet music. Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic; the Hollywood Canteen of World War II; Edward Johnson, the famous Canadian opera singer.   The one caution in collecting sheet music is like any paper item, condition and proper storage are important.   Jim Trautman resides in Orton, Ontario.     Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2011 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster