Irving Bibo

Irving Bibo
Born	(1889-08-22)August 22, 1889 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	May 2, 1962(1962-05-02) (aged 72) West Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Composer, songwriter, and publisher

Irving Bibo (August 22, 1889 – May 2, 1962) was an American composer, songwriter, and publisher.^[1]

Biography

Bibo was born in San Francisco.

He began his career in New York in the mid 1910s as a Tin Pan Alley composer, writing tunes for the Ziegfeld Follies (including "Huggable, Kissable You", "Forever and a Day" and "Cherie"), the Greenwich Village Follies, and other theatrical productions. He was a staff pianist for Leo Feist (where in 1921 he gave Billy Rose his first songwriting break by contributing music for Ain't Nature Grand).^[2]

In 1933 he moved to Los Angeles and scored more than 300 motion pictures, and later in life published several fight songs.^[3]

Bibo was the first licensee of Disney merchandise. His daughter Bobette, at the age of 12, wrote the book Mickey Mouse Book, containing stories, games, and cutouts. He contributed the song Mickey Mouse (You Cute Little Feller). It was illustrated by Walt Disney Studios, and published by Bibo and Charles Lang in 1930.^[4][5]

Selected compositions

• Huggable, Kissable You
• Forever and a Day
• Cherie
• Those Panama Mamas^[6]
• Am I Wasting My Time on You
• My Cutey's Due at Two-to-Two To-Day
• Sweet Little You^[7]
• Do You Believe in Dreams^[8]
• Lo-Ki (1919, with Ed Rose and Henry Bergman)^[9]
• I've Got the Profiteering Blues (lyrics by Al Wilson, featuring the complaint "the more I make, the more they take")^[10]
• Where Are You, Girl of My Dreams? (1932, written with Bing Crosby and Paul McVey, featured in the film The Cohens And Kellys in Hollywood).
• Letty Pepper, a musical comedy produced by Oliver Morosco, a sequel to Morsco's earlier Letty productions So Long Letty, Linger Longer Letty, and Let 'Er Go, Letty, all starring Charlotte Greenwood. It was an adaptation of Charles Klein's play Maggie Pepper; Bibo contributed lyrics with Leo Wood, the music was by Werner Janssen. It ran for 32 performances in 1922 at the Vanderbilt Theatre.^[11]
• (Once Upon) A Moonlight Night, written with Sydney Clare^[12]
• Where have those Old Timers Gone (1924, written with Howard Johnson and Henry Santly)
• Dancing Down in Dixie Land (with Abe Olman)
• Ain't Nature Grand (1921, lyrics by Billy Rose)
• Old Man Atom (a satirical anti-nuclear song from around 1946 popularized by Pete Seeger, written with Vern Partlow, for which Bibo sold the rights to Alamo Music in 1950)^[13]
• Oriental Eyes (with Leo Wood, an adaptation of Cesar Cui's Orientale)^[14]

For schools:^[15]

• The Stanford Scalp Song (1953, with Paul Yoder)^[16]
• Sing UCLA
• Fight On Michigan State

References

1. Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: the Composers, the Songs, the Performers, and their Times. p. 188.
2. Burton, Jack (December 16, 1950). "The Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters. No. 81 - Billy Rose". The Billboard: 39.
3. "Collection Overview". Online Archive of California. UCLA, Charles E. Young Research Library. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
4. "Mickey Mouse Book. (Story and game originated by B. Bibo. Drawings by Walt Disney Studios.) | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
5. Hollywood Auction - April 2013. New Hampshire: RR Auction. 2013. p. 105.
6. Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: The Composers, the Songs, the Performers, and Their Times: the Golden Age of American Popular Music from 1886 to 1956. New York: D.I. Fine, 1988; ISBN 1556110995 OCLC 18135644
7. "secondhandsongs.com". secondhandsongs.com. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
8. "Irving Bibo, 72, Writer of Songs, Film Scores". The New York Times. May 3, 1962. p. 33.
9. Moon, Krystyn R. (2005). Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s. Rutgers University Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-8135-3507-4.
10. Holloway, Diane (2001-08-01). American History in Song: Lyrics from 1900 to 1945. iUniverse. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-4697-0453-1.
11. Hayter-Menzies, Grant (2007-05-02). Charlotte Greenwood: The Life and Career of the Comic Star of Vaudeville, Radio and Film. McFarland. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-7864-2995-0.
12. Silva, Luiz Carlo Nascimento (2000-03-30). Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-313-09653-2.
13. "'Atom' Rights to Alamo". The Billboard: 14. August 5, 1950.
14. Ewen, David (1977). All the Years of American Popular Music. Prentice-Hall. p. 449. ISBN 978-0-13-022442-2.
15. Vaché, Warren W. (2000). The Unsung Songwriters: America's Masters of Melody. Scarecrow Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8108-3570-2.
16. "Stanford Songs and Songbooks collection". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2024-11-08.

External links

• Irving Bibo at IMDb
• circa 1920 photo of Bibo with other Tin Pan Alley composers
• Irving Bibo special collection at UCLA Charles Young Research Library