Earl Robinson

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Earl Hawley Robinson (born July 2, 1910 - † July 20, 1991 in Seattle ) was an American songwriter , composer and singer from Seattle. Robinson is probably as well known for his leftist political views (a member of the US Communist Party in the 1930s) as he is for his music, which includes the song Joe Hill and the cantata Ballad for Americans . He wrote numerous popular songs and was a film composer for Hollywood .

Life

Robinson learned the violin , viola and piano as a child and studied composition at the University of Washington , where he received his Bachelor of Music and teaching license in 1933 . In 1934 he moved to New York , where he studied with Hanns Eisler and Aaron Copland . He was a member of the WPA's Federal Theater Workshop during the Great Depression , was active in the anti-fascist movement and was the musical director of the communist-run summer camp Camp Unity in upstate New York. He wrote film music in Hollywood in the 1940s, but was blacklisted in the McCarthy era . Since he could no longer work in Hollywood, he moved back to New York, where he directed the musical program at Elisabeth Irwin High School.

Robinson's musical influences include singer Paul Robeson , leadbelly, and American folk music. He composed the cantata Ballad for Americans (text by John La Touche ), which became a trademark of Paul Robeson. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby .

Other songs composed by Robinson include The House I Live In (a 1945 hit by Frank Sinatra ), Joe Hill (based on a poem by Alfred Hayes , later recorded by Joan Baez and used in the film of the same name ), a musical poem about life and life Death of Abraham Lincoln titled Lonesome Train , and Black and White in celebration of the judgment in the Brown v. Board of Education , performed by Three Dog Night . His late works include a banjo concerto and a piano concerto entitled The New Human.

Robinson died in a car accident in his hometown of Seattle in 1991 at the age of 81.

For several years Robinson taught music at Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York City, where he directed the orchestra and choir. His cantata, based on the Preamble to the United Nations Constitution , premiered in New York in 1962 or 1963 by the Elisabeth Irwin High School Choir and the Greenwich Village Symphony Orchestra .

The jazz clarinetist Perry Robinson is his son.

swell

  • Mari Jo Buhle et al. (1998) Encyclopedia of the American Left , Oxford University Press (NY)
  • Don Michael Randel (1996) Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music , Belknap Press
  • Steven E. Gilbert. "Earl Robinson," Grove Music Online , ed. L. Macy (last accessed January 30, 2006), grovemusic.com (paid subscription access).
  • RS Denisoff (1973) Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left , Baltimore, Maryland

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Robinson, Earl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robinson, Earl Hawley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American songwriter and composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1991
Place of death Seattle