Bahama Mama

Say, remember that post I did on the composer, L. Gilbert Wolfe?

I had some beautiful sheet music covers that came from songs he did, and I researched a little bit of his history.  Well, I think I am sensing a pattern here, because I fell in love with a sheet music cover I recently bought, and who do you think the composer is but Mr. Wolfe again.

It seems like some of my favorite sheet music artwork ends up being on his songs.  This one is slightly different in style than the last one I wrote about, but there is something about the girl that just captivates me. 

 

Usually there is little to no surviving information on the artists who illustrated vintage sheet music covers (at least from the research I've done), so imagine my surprise when I looked up the cover artist for Bahama Mama and found something!

This article has a fantastic biography of the artist Frederick S. Manning that I highly recommend checking out.  I also found this list of his cover artwork, which confirmed that I have many of his pieces, and love all of them!

I have several pieces of jewelry in the works from this sheet music, and as soon as they are done I'll update this with pictures so you can see what I came up with.

How you can help me create something special and preserve the past

Do you want to preserve a little piece of history?

Do you want to help me create something special?

Do you want to clean out the attic?


If you answered "yes" to any of these questions- read on!

I love creating art and jewelry from old sheet music. But I also love the story behind each piece and knowing about its owners before me. And here's where you come in....

I've noticed that the more people I talk to about what I do, the more they want to be involved in it. Countless people have approached me at shows and told me about how much old sheet music they have sitting in their attic that they just don't know what to do with. Once they saw what can be done with their old sheet music, customers started asking if they could send me theirs!


It's win-win. You get to unload something that maybe you had previously felt bad about throwing away or didn't know what to do with. You also get to know that your old sheet music is going to start a new life as a piece of art or jewelry, and get a loving home. And I love it because I get to know more about where my pieces came from and make connections with some awesome people.

I pay the shipping, you just drop it in the mail! Email me at tessello (@) gmail.com and we can chat about the details!

Are You From Heaven?

I got a nice big stack of sheet music the other week (that I absolutely can't wait to use) and I thought it would be interesting to do some detective work on some of the pieces and their composers.
This is one of my favorite pieces of art to come out of this new pile:

The song is "Are you from Heaven?" by L. Wolfe Gilbert and Anatol Friendland in 1917. Thanks to some serious sleuthing (ok Google, IMDB, and Wikipedia) I unearthed some information on Gilbert and Friendland.

Louis Wolfe Gilbert was born in Odessa (in what was then the Russian Empire) in 1886. He came to America when he was a young man and became a popular songwriter. In fact, he wrote the theme song to the hit TV show Hopalong Cassidy! His other hits included such gems as By Heck and Waiting for The Robert E. Lee (I'm definitely going to be keeping my eyes out for these from now on). Gilbert also wrote the first motion picture theme song, Ramona. He died at the age of 83 in 1970.

Anatol Friedland was also born in the Russian Empire in St. Petersburg in 1881. He was kind of awesome. Friedland was a vaudeville pianist and owned his own nightclub. He died in 1938 at the age of 57. He and Gilbert collaborated on many songs, and actually one of his most popular songs was one called "My Little Dream Girl". I recognized that name right away because I have used the illustration from it on a project before!

A tray I made with the cover of "My Little Dream Girl". Available in my Etsy shop

Gilbert and Friedland had their own publishing company, appropriately named Gilbert and Friedland Music Publishers. The cover for "Are you from Heaven?" touts the men as "Songland's favorite composers", Songland being the name of a production label I believe. I've seen that name on a lot of pieces in my collection. Here's an ornament made with elements from a Songland advertisement:

Ornament with vintage sheet music advertising available in my Etsy shop

I love it when patterns appear and names become familiar within all the thousands of copies of old sheet music floating around out there.
And, just for kicks, here are the lyrics to "Are you from Heaven" (the music to which I desperately tried to find on YouTube but to no avail). If I can find a microphone I'll record myself playing it on violin so you can hear the melody...

I hold your little photography Because you are not here;
I sit and wonder 'bout you, little dear!
You're just as near perfection as most anyone could be,
My dream girl, Won't you tell me:

Are you from Heaven? My glad heart sings, Are you an angel?
Where are your wings? Who were you sent for? Who were you meant for?
I'll tell you, I'll tell you, For me a-lone! Your smile is sunshine,
Your tears are dew, Your eyes are starlight, So pure and true.
Your godly splendor, Your soul so tender, Are you from Heave? Please tell me, do!

They must have sent you down to hear To light my weary way, To
make my darkest hour bright as day. My life was just an empty dream till
you came here below. My dream girl, I want to know...

Oh my gosh, ROMANTIC!!
So, now I just need to decide how I'm going to use this music. Keep the entire cover in tact? Cut out the beautiful lady and use her in something? What do you think?