MONTHLY BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to a major music figure!

When the 4th of July comes around each year, and patriotic songs are sung, I’m reminded of the guy who wrote about being “The Yankee Doodle Boy” who was “a real-live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July,” and saluted the American flag with another of his classics, “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”  So, even though George M. Cohan fudged his autobiography to claim his birthday as Independence Day when he was actually born the day before, he certainly still qualifies as the ideal honoree for our series of profiles of music figures born in each month as the calendar pages turn.  The bronze statue of him in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, near the TKTS discount ticket booth, appropriately has the title of his song that is a love letter to the area: “Give My Regards to Broadway.”  So, this July is the perfect time to give our regards to his legacy.  

George M. Cohan’s infectious, upbeat songs are the perfect pick-me-ups, and the sentimental ones can still tug at the heart. But there are many treasures beyond the ones most often heard, like the World War I battle cry “Over There” and “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway,” and the proudly Irish “Harrigan.” I especially like “You Won’t Do Business If You Haven’t Got a Band,” “Life’s A Funny Proposition After All,” “I Won’t Be an Actor No More,” and “Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye.” (Cohan songs often leave me laughing or smiling because of their pure joy and energy.)  

Although he died in 1942, the memory of the prolific songwriter/ playwright/ performer/ producer — who wrote, directed, and/or starred in dozens of shows — has remained in the air in recent times. A new biography has just appeared: Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, by Elizabeth T. Craft, published by Oxford University Press. Two of his songs were included in the most recent Broadway by the Season concert at Merkin Hall, and Steve Ross has tucked a couple into his large repertoire.  Music historian, writer and director Chip Deffaa, has created several Cohan-centric stage pieces, such as the off-Broadway biographical George M. Cohan Tonight!, a one-man show, which has now been adapted as a captivatingly terrific movie with its dynamo original star, Jon Peterson, re-creating his role, directing, and contributing additional material. Presented as Cohan recalling his career as he sings and dances a bevy of numbers, the award-winning film is now on Tubi TV at the link below and will be available elsewhere for streaming or purchase soon.  Its reflective moments, showing the man behind the showman’s dazzle, are wistful and there’s plenty of Peterson pizzazz in the lively song-and-dance routines, filmed in theaters, but with the camera allowed close-ups in close-to-the-heart moments.  

In earlier years, the Cohan canon had been present in every medium: recordings, concerts, a TV special with Mickey Rooney, the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy presenting James Cagney strutting as Cohan (there’s also a 2019 studio cast album sharing the title and some of that material on Broadway Records). And then there was the 1968 Broadway musical George M! Starring Joel Grey, with Bernadette Peters as Cohan’s sister and member of their family vaudeville act which included their parents.  

Cohan, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, played the President of the United States on Broadway in a show he didn’t write: I’d Rather Be Right, with a score by Rodgers & Hart. He was also one of the founding members of ASCAP, and was known as “the man who owned Broadway.” 

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The film George M. Cohan Tonight! can be found here.

More info on Cohan and the various stage shows about him by Chip Deffaa can be found here.

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