Deeply in debt and relegated to a shabby theater, the musical
Shuffle Along debuted at the Sixty-Third Street Music Hall on
May 23, 1921. The odds were stacked against the revue-style
show, written and performed by African Americans, but it ran
for over a year, making it the first major Black American musical
on the Great White Way.

Shuffle Along was written by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake,
shown below,vaudeville veterans who worked together for
over six decades.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Irving Berlin
(May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989)

Irving Berlin was a American composer, songwriter
and lyricist. His music forms a great part of the
Great American Songbook.

ROSS SIMPSON

A century ago, even before the phonograph had become a
a common household item, there was already a burgeoning
music industry in the United States based not on the sale of
recorded musical performances, but on the sale of sheet
music. It was in the medium of printed paper, and not grooved
lacquer or vinyl discs, that songs gained popularity in the first
two decades of the 20th century, and no song gained greater
popularity in that era than Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime
Band.” Copyrighted on March 18, 1911, The song was the
was the multimillion-selling smash hit that helped turn
American popular music into an international phenomenon,
both culturally and economically.

Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin) 
(May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989)

CAMILE
BOHANNON

Irving Berlin
(May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989)

Composer and lyricist Irving Berlin is widely
considered one of the greatest songwriters
in American history.