Arthur Johnston

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Arthur Johnston was an American composer, conductor, pianist and arranger. He was born in 1898 in New York, as a boy played piano in cinemas and at sixteen worked for the music publisher Fred Fisher. There he was noticed by Irving Berlin, who took him on as his personal arranger and as conductor of the first Music Box Revues. His first hit was Mandy Make Up Your Mind, written for Florence Mills in the show Dixie to Broadway.

Music and breakthrough

In 1929 Johnston moved to Hollywood. There he orchestrated the music for, among others, Puttin' On the Ritz and Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. With the lyricist Sam Coslow he made songs such as Just One More Chance in 1932 and Cocktails for Two in 1934. After that he became closely associated with Bing Crosby, for whom he wrote in films such as College Humor, Too Much Harmony and Pennies From Heaven. On that last film his collaboration with Johnny Burke began. Together they received an Oscar nomination in 1936 for the title song. Later he also wrote the title song of Song of the South of 1947.

Influence

Johnston wrote melodies that lend themselves to both singing and improvisation, and jazz musicians therefore liked to pick them up. Moon Song, My Old Flame and Pennies From Heaven are among the standards of the early American songbook. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and died in 1954 in California.

Listening

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