Ralph Rainger

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Ralph Rainger (born October 7, 1901 in New York City as Ralph Reichenthal , † October 24, 1942 ) was an American musician, film composer and songwriter . He worked with Leo Robin .

Live and act

Ralph Rainger published his first composition at the age of 22, which he had written for a Broadway theater. He started off with a legal education and then concentrated entirely on writing songs. In 1926 he worked as a rehearsal pianist in the Broadway musical Queen High . He initially played in Broadway orchestras and in duo with Edgar Fairchild in vaudeville shows. Finally he got a job in the revue The Little Show (1929), for which he wrote his first hit " Moanin 'Low ", with the lyrics by Howard Dietz . He wrote the piece for the singer Libby Holman .

Then he went - like many of his colleagues - to Hollywood to work in the emerging film industry for musical productions for Paramount studios. His partner at this time was the songwriter Leo Robin ; together they formed one of the leading songwriting duos of the 1930s and early 1940s. They wrote over 50 hits, initially mostly songs for Bing Crosby such as "Please", "Here Live Love" (1932), "June in January" and "With Every Breathe I Take" (1934). The song Love in Bloom from the film She Loves Me Not sung by Bing Crosby was nominated for an Oscar for best song in 1935. The song "Easy Living" from the 1937 film of the same name became a jazz standard that Billie Holiday interpreted.

Other successes were " Thanks for the Memory ", written for Bob Hope and Shirley Ross ( The Big Broadcast of 1938 , 1938).

death

Leo Robin & Ralph Rainger worked together until Rainger's sudden accidental death when he crashed in an airplane near Palm Springs , California on October 23, 1942 . He was a passenger on board an American Airlines DC-3 civilian aircraft that collided with a US Army Air Corps bomber ; he was only 41 years old.

literature

  • Ken Bloom: The American Songbook - The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs . New York City, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2005 ISBN 1-57912-448-8 )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rainger, Ralph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reichenthal, Ralph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer and lyricist
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1942