Editing Irving Berlin (section)

===="Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911)====
{{quote box|title=Ragtime a Form of Insanity|align=right|width=25em|bgcolor = LightCyan|quote='Alexander's Ragtime Band' is a public menace....Hysteria is the form of insanity that an abnormal love for ragtime seems to produce. It is as much a mental disease as acute mania—it has the same symptoms. When there is nothing done to check this form it produces idiocy.|source= — Dr. Ludwig Gruener<br />German newspaper story<ref name=Leopold>Leopold, David. ''Irving Berlin's Show Business'', Harry Abrams (2005)</ref>{{rp|23}}}}

Berlin rose as a songwriter in [[Tin Pan Alley]] and on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]. In 1911, [[Emma Carus]] introduced his first world-famous hit, "[[Alexander's Ragtime Band]]", followed by a performance from Berlin himself at the Friars' Frolic of 1911 with [[Clifford Hess]] as his accompanist.<ref name=":0" /> He became an instant celebrity, and the featured performer later that year at [[Oscar Hammerstein I|Oscar Hammerstein]]'s vaudeville house, where he introduced dozens of other songs. The ''New York Telegraph'' described how two hundred of his street friends came to see "their boy" onstage: "All the little writer could do was to finger the buttons on his coat while tears ran down his cheeks—in a vaudeville house!"<ref name=Hamm/>{{rp|ix}}

[[File:Irving Berlin - Ragtime.JPG|thumb|left|Berlin with film stars [[Alice Faye]], [[Tyrone Power]] and [[Don Ameche]] singing chorus from "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1938)]]

[[Richard Corliss]], in a ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' profile of Berlin, described "Alexander's Ragtime Band" as a march, not a [[ragtime|rag]], "its savviest musicality comprised quotes from a [[bugle call]] and "[[Swanee River (song)|Swanee River]]". The tune revived the [[ragtime]] fervor that [[Scott Joplin]] had begun a decade earlier, and made Berlin a songwriting star.<ref name=Corliss/> From its first and subsequent releases, the song was near the top of the charts as others sang it: [[Bessie Smith]], in 1927, and [[Louis Armstrong]], in 1937; No. 1 by [[Bing Crosby]] and Connee Boswell; [[Johnny Mercer]] in 1945; [[Al Jolson]], in 1947 and [[Nellie Lutcher]] in 1948. Add [[Ray Charles]]'s [[big-band]] version in 1959, and "Alexander" had a dozen hit versions in just under a half century.<ref name=Corliss>Corliss, Richard (December 24, 2001). [https://web.archive.org/web/20020208003254/http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,189846,00.html "That Old Christmas Feeling: Irving America: Richard Corliss remembers Irving Berlin"] ''Time''.</ref>

Initially the song was not recognized as a hit, however; Broadway producer [[Jesse Lasky]] was uncertain about using it, although he did include it in his "Follies" show. It was performed as an instrumental but did not impress audiences, and was soon dropped from the show's score. Berlin regarded it as a failure. He then wrote lyrics to the score, played it again in another Broadway review, and this time ''Variety'' news weekly called it "the musical sensation of the decade".<ref name=Bergreen/>{{rp|68}} Composer [[George Gershwin]], foreseeing its influence, said it was "the first real American musical work", adding, "Berlin had shown us the way; it was now easier to attain our ideal."<ref name=Gershwin/>{{rp|117}}