Billy Ray Cyrus, along with guitarist-singer Micki Free and producer-singer-composer Buck 22 released a new recording of the Yip Harburg-Harold Arlen classic "Over the Rainbow" on June 27, 2025. Proceeds will go to the National Museum of African-American Music.
Category Archives: News
More Than Santa Baby
Composer Philip Springer who wrote several songs with Yip, mostly in the 1970's during Yip's final decade, is the subject of a new documentary, More Than Santa Baby. The film, by Tamar Springer, the composer's daughter, won the Documentary Short Audience Award at the 28th Annual Dances With Films Festival in June 2025 … Continue Reading ››
Ari Axelrod Sings Little-Known Yip Lyrics
Ari Axelrod’s CD, A Place for Us: A Celebration of Jewish Broadway, released Jan. 17 2025 by PS Classics, features a medley of two seldom performed lyrics by Yip: “Adrift on a Star” (from the 1961 Broadway musical The Happiest Girl in the World and set to the music of … Continue Reading ››
IRA GERSHWIN: A LIFE IN WORDS
Lyricist Ira Gershwin, Yip's friend since their high school days together beginning in 1910, is now the subject of the first-ever biography devoted to Ira's life, Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words. Author Michael Owen, using archival sources including Ira's own words, creates a rich portrait of the lesser-known brother … Continue Reading ››
HAROLD ARLEN AND HIS SONGS
Coming from Oxford University Press on July 26, 2024, Harold Arlen and His Songs by Walter Frisch is the first comprehensive book about the music of one of the great song composers of the twentieth century. Arlen was Yip Harburg’s most frequent composer-collaborator (they wrote over 150 songs together from 1932 to … Continue Reading ››
“OZ” TURNS 85
Radio host Bill Rudman’s 2014 interview with Ernie Harburg, “Oz Turns 75,” retitled “Oz Turns 85,” is being rebroadcast on PRX as of July 15, 2024. Bill Rudman’s Footlight Parade: Sounds of the American Musical is a weekly radio program showcasing the best of Broadway and Hollywood – songs from the turn … Continue Reading ››
EARL ROBINSON SINGING “FREE AND EQUAL BLUES” IN 1980’S
On July 6, 2024 The Daily Kos featured an article about the Yip Harburg-Earl Robinson civil rights-themed song, “Free and Equal Blues,” written during World War Two as a protest against the racial segregation of blood supplies by the United States Armed Forces. The song is heard via a YouTube link as performed by Robinson in … Continue Reading ››
BETTE MIDLER’S “IF I ONLY HAD A HEART” PARODY
On July 2, 2024 singer and actress Bette Midler posted a parody of the lyric of the Yip Harburg-Harold Arlen classic "If I Only Had a Heart" from The Wizard of Oz to express her opinion of various Supreme Court judges.
“In Times Like These”
The World War Two-era Yip Harburg-Sammy Fain song “In Times Like These” from the MGM feature film Meet the People (1944) is highlighted on the June 7, 2024 edition of Will Friedwald’s “Slouching Towards Birdland” blog, available on Substack to subscribers.
“Black Music Sunday” Celebrates “Finian’s Rainbow”
Denise Oliver Velez's article “Black Music Sunday: A St. Patrick’s Day Celebration of ‘Finian’s Rainbow’” (March 17, 2024) can be found at the Daily Kos web site.