William Merrigan Daly
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/William_Merrigan_Daly_circa_February_1931_%28cropped%29.jpg)
William Merrigan Daly Jr. (1 September 1887 – 3 December 1936)[1][2][a] was an American pianist, composer, songwriter, orchestrator, musical director and conductor.
Life and career
William Daly was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a successful song-and-dance man.[3] He attended Harvard University receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1908. By 1911 he was a writer, editor, and eventually general manager for Everybody's Magazine in New York.[4] Daly left the company in 1914 to pursue a show business career. He married in 1915 settling in New York City.[3]
Daly played piano with various Broadway orchestras, and in time established himself as a songwriter, arranger, orchestrator, and music director, conducting more than twenty shows between 1915 and 1934.[4] He met George and Ira Gershwin in the late 1910s. Daly and George Gershwin collaborated on several Broadway scores. Both contributed songs to Piccadilly to Broadway (1920), a show which closed in Atlantic City, and For Goodness' Sake (1922). The two jointly composed the score for Our Nell in 1923. This was the beginning of a long friendship; Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin's music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice.[4] Gershwin dedicated his 1926 Preludes for Piano to Daly.
Around 1930, Daly also became conductor and music director of the National Broadcasting Company radio orchestra.[5]
Daly died suddenly of a heart attack in December 1936.
Works
- Operetta
- Western Stuff, Operetta in 1 reel (1917); libretto by James Montgomery Flagg
- Broadway musical contributions (songs and numbers)
- Betty (1916)
- Spilling the Beans, Fox-trot
- Everything (1918)
- "You're the Very Girl I've Looked For"
- "Sunshine Alley"
- "Come to the Land of Romance"
- "Roll Along"
- Kissing Time (1920); earlier version staged in London
- "The Nicest Sort of Feeling"
- For Goodness' Sake (1922); co-composed with Paul Lannin; additional songs by George Gershwin
- "All to Myself"
- "When You're in Rome"
- "Every Day"
- "Twilight"
- "Greatest Team of All"
- "Oh Gee! Oh Gosh! I Love You"
- "In the Days of Wild Romance"
- "When Somebody Cares"
- "The French Pastry Walk"
- "The Whichness of the Whatness"
- Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1923 (1923)
- "A Girl Is Like Sunshine"
- "Laugh While You're Dancing Around"
- Our Nell (1923); co-composed with George Gershwin
- "Gol-Durn!"
- "Innocent Ingenue Baby"
- "Old New England Home"
- "The Cooney County Fair"
- "Names I Love to Hear"
- "By-and-By"
- "Madrigal"
- "We Go to Church on Sunday"
- "Walking Home with Angeline"
- "Oh, You Lady!"
- "Little Villages"
- Jack and Jill (1923)
- "Hello! Good-Bye"
- "Pretty City Girl (I Want a Pretty Girl)"
- Filmography
- Air Mail as 'Tex' Lane (1932); directed by John Ford
- "Could I Be in Love?", Song from the 1937 film Champagne Waltz directed by A. Edward Sutherland
- Literary
- George Gershwin as Orchestrator (1933); published in the 15 January 1933 issue of The New York Times
Notes
- ^ Several sources including IBDb and VIAF cite 1974 as Daly's date of death.
References
- ^ "William Merrigan Daly obituary". New York Times. 4 December 1936. p. 26.
- ^ "William Merrigan Daly obituary" (PDF). Syracuse American. 13 December 1936. p. 8E. Retrieved 26 January 2013.
- ^ a b Peyser, Joan (1993). The Memory of All That: The Life of George Gershwin. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-1-4234-1025-6.
- ^ a b c Pollack, Howard (2006). George Gershwin: His Life and Work. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978-0-520-24864-9.
- ^ "Dynamic Daly – Radio's New Orchestra Leader Works Hard to Attain Good Effects". Schenectedy Gazette. 7 May 1930. p. 12. Retrieved 26 January 2013.
External links
- William Daly at the Internet Broadway Database
- William Daly at IMDb
- Schenectedy Gazette, 7 May 1930: Dynamic Daly – Radio's New Orchestra Leader Works Hard to Attain Good Effects Caricature of William Daly as conductor.