Description
Maurice Abrahams, Inc., Published 1925. Sheet music, 5 pp.; 31 cm; pictorial cover with a black-and-white photograph of Belle Baker on a red ground; with ukulele arrangement (ukulele chord diagrams throughout).
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
14
Turn the pages with the arrows, keyboard, or a swipe.
Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Good condition. A 3 inch slit at the foot of the spine fold, still holding, with a few small edge nicks, tears, and creases. Previous owner's name in ink and the original music seller's stamp (Southern California Music Company, Los Angeles) on front cover. Mild shelf wear with some toning and soiling. Interior otherwise unmarked.Belle Baker (1893-1957) was among the most popular vaudeville torch singers of the 1910s and 1920s, tied with Sophie Tucker atop a 1929 national popularity poll, and the singer who introduced Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" and "My Yiddishe Momme." Here she appears as both co-composer and featured performer: "Pretending" carries her name as co-writer with Gracie Deagon and her photograph on the cover, and it was issued by Maurice Abrahams, Inc., the New York firm of her husband, the songwriter Maurice Abrahams ("Ragtime Cowboy Joe"). The ukulele arrangement is credited to "Dick" Konter (Richard W. Konter), the Brooklyn sailor and Tin Pan Alley arranger known as "Ukulele Dick," who carried his ukulele aboard Commander Byrd's 1926 flight over the North Pole. Back cover carries a musical sample of "When the Gold Turns to Gray" (Maurice Abrahams, 1923).