Book Description

Charles Kassel Harris was a well-regarded American songwriter and publisher of popular music. During his long career, he advanced the relatively new genre, publishing more than 300 songs. Hewas born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., into a family of ten children. His father was a fur trader and moved the family to Saginaw, MI, and Milwaukee, WI, where he grew up. As a youth, he wrote his first song, "Since Maggie Learned to Skate," in 1885 for the play The Skating Rink by Nat Goodwin. In 1892, he wrote his most famous piece, "After the Ball," a song about an old man recounting to his niece the story of his long-lost love. It caught the attention of John Philip Sousa, who played the tune at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, boosting sheet music sales to in excess of five million copies in the 1890s. "Break the News to Mother" - originally written in 1891 about a dying fire fighter - was rewritten in 1898 about a dying solder in the Spanish-American War and furthered his popularity. In 1895, Harris moved his music publishing operations from Milwaukee to New York City. Later, Harris wrote songs for musicals, working with Oscar Hammerstein the Elder. An innovative music publisher, Harris was one of the founders of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1914 and also promoted copyright legislation that protected composers and publishers from theft of intellectual property and ensured that they were compensated for performance of their works.