NATHANIEL SHILKRET

'Nathaniel Shilkret' (b. 25 December, 1895 - d. 18 February, 1982) (some sources [1] give 1889-1992) in New York, to an Austrian-Jewish immigrant family was an American composer and conductor.
For many years he was "director of light music" for the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor). He conducted the orchestra for the very first recording of George Gershwin's symphonic poem ''An American in Paris'', in 1928. His best-known popular composition was ''The Lonesome Road'', sung by Jules Bledsoe (dubbing Stepin Fetchit) in the final scene of the 1929 part-talkie film version of ''Show Boat'' and recorded by more than one-hundred artists, including Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson. He moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and there contributed music scores to a string of Hollywood films for MGM and RKO, particularly ''Mary of Scotland'' (1936), ''Swing Time'' (1936), ''The Plough and the Stars'', and ''Shall We Dance?'' (1937) and several films of Laurel and Hardy. Shilkret also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Anderson's stage drama ''Winterset'' (1936). He left the movie business after 1946 to join the CBS radio network as its music director.

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The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music

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