"Corny"

Echoes of old songs hovered over Manhattan's Ritz-Carlton ballroom one night last week, reviving memories of the days when people crowded three and four on a piano bench, craning to read sheet music tattered from use, or when they sat in beer gardens singing along with wheezy little orchestras, beating time with their fans. At the Ritz the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers was having its annual dinner. No music was played but present among the 350 songwriters were erect, square-cut old Theodore Metz, 86, who wrote "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight''; thin, bald Harry Von Tilzer who wrote "Down Where the Wuertzburger Flows'' and "The Old Fall River Line''; pink, froggy Harry Armstrong who wrote "Sweet Adeline."

The old songwriters beamed over their cigars last week. Since the decline of the sheet music industry many of them have been sustained by the royalties which the A. S. C. A. & P. has collected from radio stations and cinemansions. But President Gene Buck (who wrote the lyrics for "Sally, Won't You Come Back?'' and "Hello Frisco") made a speech which gave a brighter look to the song industry. When beer comes back, he said, people will be inspired to sing once more. Irving Berlin has expressed the same conviction: "Songwriters undoubtedly will be influenced by the return of beer and beer gardens. . . . The tricky rhythm so popular for the past eight years is dying out. Songs will become a little simpler, or 'corny,' meaning more homey. Since the advent of the radio we have become a nation of listeners. Now we are hopeful that the nation will begin to sing again."

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