Alfred Baldwin Sloane Explained

Alfred Baldwin Sloane (28 August 1872, Baltimore – 21 February 1925, Red Bank, New Jersey) was an American composer, considered the most prolific songwriter for Broadway musical comedies at the beginning of the 20th century.[1] [2] [3]

His scores were first heard in amateur productions in Baltimore, where he grew up. When Sloane first moved to New York in 1890, he began interpolating melodies into others' scores and soon was invited to create his own. His biggest hit was "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl," which Marie Dressler introduced in Tillie's Nightmare (1910), but none of his songs found enduring popularity.

He composed only rarely after 1912, but he did provide much of the music for the 1919 and 1920 Greenwich Village Follies. He wrote one of his musicals, Lady Teazle, for Lillian Russell when she was at the height of her national popularity. His last score, for the 1925 Broadway production China Rose, was in production at his death.[4] [5] [6] China Rose had been produced in Boston, by Christmas Eve, 1924.[7]

Early life

Sloane, who at the age of 18, moved from Baltimore to New York City in 1890 intending to stay a month, stayed for the rest of his life. While living in Baltimore, Sloane wrote the lyrics and music for about a dozen so-called coon songs.

As a boy in Baltimore, Sloane was an apprentice at a wholesale dry goods dealer. His father, a scientist and dilettante musician, became alarmed at the thought of him trying to make a living as a composer. However, Sloane spent most or his time in the dry goods house composing songs on the backs of pearl button cards, shirt boxes, and price tickets. Sloane was fired from the dry goods house for wasting time making rhymes. While his father was trying to find another job for him, he organized an amateur company in Baltimore which put on a musical comedy of one of his compositions and drew $25,000 in five nights. Sloane showed his father the box office reports and opposition ceased. It was soon after that the boy quit Baltimore and approached New York with misgivings as to his own ability to offer one of his shows to Oscar Hammerstein. Hammerstein produced the show and Sloane never left New York.[8] [9]

Executive positions

Affiliations

He was a member of The Lambs, the Green Room Club, and Old Strollers.

Selected musical scores

New York productions

New York productions (dates not known)

Baltimore

Filmography

Soundtrack

Writer

Self

Selected sheet music

William Pilling, New York (publisher)

M. Witmark & Sons

Joseph W. Stern & Co., New York

Charles K. Harris, Chicago

The Gingerbread Man (musical)

Book & lyrics by Frederic Ranken, music by Sloane (1905)

Family

Sloane was the son of Francis James Sloane and Emma Baldwin (maiden). He married Lucille Mae Auwerda in Manhattan on February 15, 1900. They had one daughter – June Augusta Sloane (1901–1984) – who married Isaac Hosford Brackett (1901–1976).

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Oxford Companion to American Theatre The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, Oxford University Press (2004)
  2. Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, Oxford University Press (2000, 2002, 2005)
  3. https://books.google.com/books?id=o0sWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA986&lpg=PA986&dq Who's who in New York (city and State), Seventh Edition: 1917–1918, by Lewis Randolph Hamersly, p. 986 (1918)
  4. Who's Who On The Stage – The Dramatic Reference Book and Biographical Dictionary of the Theatre, 1906 Edition, edited by Walter Browne & F.A. Austin, Walter Browne & F.A. Austin (publisher), New York (1906)
  5. Who's Who On The Stage – The Dramatic Reference Book and Biographical Dictionary of the Theatre, 1908 Edition, edited by Walter Browne & E. De Roy Koch, B.W. Dodge & Co., New York (1908)
  6. Who Was Who in America – A Component Volume of Who's Who in American History; Volume 1: 1897–1942, A.N. Marquis Co., Chicago (1943)
  7. Christmas Eve, Boston Herald, December 23, 1924, p. 6, col. 5
  8. Rusty Lyre Muted, Alfred Sloane Dies, Dallas Morning News, February 23, 1925, Part 1, page 1
  9. https://books.google.com/books?id=_nQuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq The actors' birthday book, Volume 1, by Johnson Briscoe, p. 191 (1907)

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