Music Historian Michael Lasser Looks at Love Songs from the Depression and WWII Apr. 21

Story posted April 17, 2009

Music historian Michael Lasser will examine America's popular songs written in response to an earlier "recession" (the Great Depression) and an earlier war (WWII) in a lecture at Bowdoin College at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center.

In a lecture titled "All The Old Familiar Places"-Love Songs of Depression and War, Lasser will explain how America met the emotional challenges of these two crises with music and lyrics that can be stoic, humorous, or wistfully romantic.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information call 207-725-3673.

Michael Lasser is a lecturer, writer, broadcaster, critic, and teacher. He and Philip Furia are coauthors of the recent book America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. A study of more than 500 classic American songs, the book traces the process of collaboration, the give-and-take between composer and lyricist, that results in a finished song. Published in 2006, it appeared in paperback in the spring of 2008.

Lasser was a major contributor to the standard reference work American Song Lyricists, 1920-1960. He has also taught the history of the American musical at the University of Rochester and has been a freelance writer for a wide range of national magazines. He is currently at work on a new book, That Pleasant Ache: How Love Song Lyrics Sang About Us, 1900-1950.

Since November 1980, Lasser has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show, Fascinatin' Rhythm. The weekly program explores the history and themes of American popular music through a series of "radio essays" illustrated by recordings. Each week, it examines a different topic: a kind of song, a composer or lyricist, a kind of musical, a performer, theme, or image. Since, September 1989, it has been heard on as many as 100 stations from Orlando to San Francisco to Honolulu. In 1994, it won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award.

For 20 years, Lasser was the theater critic for The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and a member of the Speaker's Bureau of the New York Council for the Humanities. He has spoken at universities and art and history museums in 35 states and the District of Columbia, and also designs and narrates concerts for symphony orchestras.

A former teacher of English at The Harley School, an independent day school in Rochester, New York, Lasser served as a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts. For 15 years, he was the director and curator of the not-for-profit Wilson Arts Center in Rochester. He has also taught at Rutgers University, St. John Fisher College, Nazareth College, and Fairleigh-Dickinson University.

« Back | « Go to Featured Events | Go to Events Calendar