Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - Irving Gordon and "Unforgettable"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring Irving Gordon (1915-1996), who was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. He started his music training on the violin, and later worked at Catskill resort hotels writing musical parodies for their shows. In the thirties, he was employed by Mills Music, a publishing and performer management company in New York City, as a contract composer and lyricist. He put words to some of Duke Ellington’s musical pieces.

He is best known for the music and lyrics for “Unforgettable,” recorded by Nat King Cole in 1951.

Cole died in 1965. 26 years later, in 1991, digital technology made it possible for his daughter Natalie to sing the same song in a virtual duet with her father. It was performed at the 1992 Grammy Awards.

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