Louis Silvers

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

Louis Silvers, known as Lou Silvers, was born in New York in 1889 as Louis Silberstein. He became an American composer of film music whose work was used in more than two hundred and fifty films. He wrote the music for the sound sequences of D. W. Griffith's 1921 film Dream Street, at a time when film was still silent and sound was a novelty. In 1927 he composed and conducted the music for The Jazz Singer, the film regarded as the first with spoken and sung parts, which heralded the transition to sound film.

Music and breakthrough

His best-known song is April Showers from 1921. In 1935 he won the first Academy Award for Best Original Score, for the film One Night of Love. For most of the long run of Lux Radio Theater, from 1934 to 1955, he was also the musical director of that radio programme.

Influence

In this way Silvers links the pop and revue song with the American film industry. He worked in the period when film, radio and popular music began to find one another, and he showed that a songwriter could also be a film composer. He died in 1954 in Hollywood, of a heart condition.

Listening

In School of Rock

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• The Dream Factory: Film Reel 1^NL Reader