Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson was a prominent American composer, conductor, and musician, best known for his contributions to Broadway and popular music. Born into a musical family, he began his career early, joining the Mason City Municipal Band at age ten and later studying at what is now the Juilliard School. Willson gained fame as a flutist and piccolo soloist in the Sousa Band before joining the New York Philharmonic, where he worked with notable conductors like Arturo Toscanini. He composed classical symphonies and film scores, including the acclaimed score for Charlie Chaplin's first talking film, "The Great Dictator."
Willson's most significant achievement came with the premiere of his musical "The Music Man" on Broadway in 1957, which became an instant hit and won eight Tony Awards. This musical, set in Iowa, drew from his own experiences and featured memorable songs like "Seventy-six Trombones" and "Goodnight My Someone." He also created successful works like "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," which was later adapted into a film. Willson's legacy endures through the continued popularity of his music, which remains a staple in theaters and performances worldwide. He received numerous accolades throughout his life, including Grammy and Tony Awards, and posthumous honors that reflect his lasting impact on American music.
Meredith Willson
American popular music, musical-theater, film-score, and classical composer
Willson is best known for his first two Broadway musicals, The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, as well as the fight songs for both the University of Iowa and the Iowa State University.
The Life
Meredith Willson was born into a musical family, and by age ten he had joined the Mason City Municipal Band, playing the flute. Willson moved to New York in 1919, studying at the Damrosch Institute (later known as the Juilliard School), and he moonlighted in orchestras for film houses and theaters. Willson toured throughout the Americas (1921 to 1924) as flutist and piccolo soloist in the Sousa Band, which his brother Cedric joined in 1923. Between tours, Willson assisted scientist Lee deForest in experiments developing sound for motion pictures.
In 1924 Willson joined the New York Philharmonic, spending five years under the baton of such notables as Arturo Toscanini. In 1929 Willson moved to the West Coast to work for NBC Radio, becoming musical director of the Western division. In 1936 Willson conducted the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in F Minor. His Symphony No. 2 in E Minor premiered in Los Angeles in 1940, the same year that Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller recorded songs by Willson and that Willson composed the score for Charlie Chaplin’s first “talkie,” The Great Dictator.
During World War II, Willson headed the music division of the Armed Forces Radio Service. His most influential radio work came after the war with hits such as “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” In 1957 Willson’s career reached a new high when The Music Man, for which he had composed the book, lyrics, and music, premiered on Broadway. Drawing on the experience of his boyhood in Iowa, The Music Man was an instant hit. In 1960 Willson wrote the lyrics and composed the music for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which ran for more than a year on Broadway. In 1962 The Music Man was made into an award-winning film. Willson’s 1963 show, Here’s Love, ran for 334 performances on Broadway. Willson’s success continued in 1964, when The Unsinkable Molly Brown was made into an Academy Award-nominated film.
Willson spent most of the remainder of his life traveling and performing the songs he had composed. His popularity continued after his death, with a Broadway revival of The Music Man (2000-2001), a Disney television remake of the film in 2003, and dozens of amateur productions every year. Willson died in Santa Monica, California, at the age of eighty-two, and he is buried in Mason City, Iowa.
The Music
Although he is remembered primarily for his music for Broadway shows, Willson began his musical career composing classical music, film scores, and music for radio.
Early Works. Willson’s early compositions include the Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, which he conducted at the premiere in 1936, and the Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, which the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra premiered in 1940. Both works were for the first time by the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra in 1999. Willson’s score for Chaplin’s first sound film, The Great Dictator (1940), received an Academy Award nomination, as did his score for the 1941 film The Little Foxes.
Willson also had numerous successes, including number-one hits, as a composer for radio. “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” sold more than one million copies, and it was recorded by such diverse singers as Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Frankie Laine, and Tammy Wynette. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” became a Christmas standard, recorded by Perry Como, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and numerous other artists.
The Music Man.Willson’s major success, however, came with his compositions for Broadway. Willson never lived in Mason City again after leaving at age seventeen, but he considered “River City” his home, and he used it as the basis for The Music Man, his show about an itinerant band-instrument salesman in turn-of-the-century Iowa. Today Mason City proudly boasts Music Man Square and the Meredith Willson Museum, and the city is respected for its excellent school and municipal band programs.
After five years of development and revisions, The Music Man opened on Broadway in December, 1957. Willson combined his classical and popular music knowledge to create a score that pleases audiences without being trite. After a traditional overture, the audiences were surprised with a spoken chorus imitating the sound of the train on which the passengers were traveling, a clever technique based on Willson’s earlier radio advertising innovation, the “Talking People”—a chorus that used rhythmic speech to tout the sponsor’s products. Willson’s ingenuity is also clear when he interweaves Harold Hill’s brash march “Seventy-six Trombones” with Marian Paroo’s gentle ballad “Goodnight My Someone,” and when he composes a countermelody to the famous barbershop song, “Goodnight, Ladies,” creating “Pick a Little, Talk a Little.” The Music Man won eight Tony Awards in 1958, including Best Musical, Author, Composer and Lyricist, defeating Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957). The cast recording of The Music Man won the 1958 Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Album. In 1962 The Music Man was made into a film, which won the Academy Award for best film score, and it was nominated in several other categories. In 1963 the Beatles had a hit with Paul McCartney singing a ballad (“Till There Was You”) from the film, and they included the song in their famous 1964 U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown.Willson’s 1960 musical about Titanic survivor Margaret Brown was also a success on Broadway, running for more than a year, and it was made into a film in 1964. Still, he never surpassed the success of The Music Man, and his next two attempts were less successful: Here’s Love (based on the 1947 film Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street) closed in less than a year, and 1491 never made it to Broadway.
Musical Legacy
The Music Man forms the foundation of Willson’s legacy. One of the most often performed Broadway musicals, it also serves as a source of individual songs performed by choruses, soloists, bands, and orchestras, guaranteeing Willson’s continuing popularity as a composer.
In addition to his Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Tony Awards, Willson received honors from Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. Willson was a great supporter of higher education, and he was granted honorary degrees from two Iowa colleges: Parsons College (1956) and Coe College (1960). Willson later honored Coe with a donation, used to fund an electronic music studio. His library is housed at the University of Iowa. In 1990, after his widow made a substantial donation, the Juilliard School named its only residence hall after its famous alumnus.
Principal Works
film scores:The Lost Zeppelin, 1929; The Great Dictator, 1940; The Little Foxes, 1941.
musical theater (music, lyrics, and libretto): The Music Man, 1957; The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1960 (libretto by Richard Morris); Here’s Love, 1963; 1491, 1969 (libretto by Morris).
orchestral works:Parade Fantastique, 1924; Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, 1936 (A Symphony of San Francisco); Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, 1940 (The Missions of California); The Jervis Bay, 1942; O. O. McIntyre Suite, 1956.
songs (music and lyrics): “You and I,” 1941; “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You,” 1950; “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” 1951; “Banners and Bonnets,” 1952; “I See the Moon,” 1954; “Chicken Fat,” 1961.
Bibliography
Skipper, John C. Meredith Willson, The Unsinkable Music Man. Mason City, Iowa: Savas Woodbury, 2000. Journalist Skipper, a fellow resident of Mason City, weaves a folksy tale of Willson. Includes illustrations.
Willson, Meredith. And I Stood There with My Piccolo. New York: Doubleday, 1948. An amusing autobiographical sketch that precedes Willson’s Broadway fame.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. But He Doesn’t Know the Territory. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Willson tells the story of the birth of The Music Man in his own words.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Eggs I Have Laid. New York: Henry Holt, 1955. A tongue-in-cheek account of some of the less successful moments of Willson’s career, with particular emphasis on his work in radio.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Who Did What to Fedalia? New York: Doubleday, 1952. Willson’s only novel, about a young Iowa girl who heads to New York to become a singer.