Lloyd Garrett

Lloyd Fry Garrett (July 2, 1886 – April 15, 1966) was an American tenor, singer, composer, and lyricist who worked in vaudeville, musical comedy, and Broadway revues. Born in Moulton, Iowa, to a middle-class family — his father was a lawyer who encouraged him toward the legal profession — Garrett attended Drake University for three years before abandoning that path to pursue entertainment alongside his brother Hoyt W. Garrett, a pianist.

Garrett began his performing career as a saxophonist, first with the Colonial Saxophone Quartette and then in a duo with his brother after 1907. He transitioned into singing and led The Melody Makers, a quartet managed by the Redpath agency that frequently performed on the Chautauqua circuit. A high tenor with a notable falsetto, he was featured as a "boy soprano" with Ralph Dunbar's Bell-Ringers during 1915 and 1916. By 1918 he had established himself as a solo singer in revues, with particular activity in Chicago through 1920.

His Broadway career spanned from 1920 to 1926. In 1920 he appeared in the second edition of George White's Scandals, where he sang songs by George Gershwin, among others. He returned to the production in subsequent editions at least through 1926. Concurrent with his Broadway work, Garrett maintained an active presence in vaudeville and musical comedy, including an appearance in London in 1923 and a role in a Marx Brothers show in 1925.

Also in 1925, Garrett opened in a touring production of The Student Prince, which ran intermittently over several years. His co-star was Ruth Williams, whom he married on September 20, 1927, in a widely reported ceremony in which both wore their Student Prince costumes. The marriage followed his divorce from his first wife, Gertrude Lehman, an actress he had wed on December 12, 1922. Garrett and Williams settled in Stamford, Connecticut, where the couple became prominent in local social life. His performing activity diminished thereafter, limited to brief tours and club appearances in New York. His final vaudeville tour took place in 1935, with only scattered radio appearances following. He eventually took a sales position with the Stamford firm of Pitney Bowes. In retirement he relocated to Del Mar, California, where he died on April 15, 1966.

Garrett's work as a lyricist and composer was concentrated primarily between 1917 and 1923, centered in Chicago, where nearly all of his music was published. He is credited as the author of the lyrics to "Dallas Blues" in the form by which the song became widely known. He also wrote both words and music for a set of six World War I songs published by Frank K. Root as part of Songs of the Camps, including "Private Flynn," "Private Percy Prim," "Private Arkansas Bill," "Private Alexander," "At the Funny Page Ball," and "My Uncle Sammy Gals." Additional compositions such as "My Mother" and "Roses of Memory" were written to suit his own ballad-singing style. His final composition, an unpublished campaign song titled "Let Dewey Do It," dates to 1940. He published under several name variations, including Lloyd F. Garrett, Lloyd Garrett, and the pseudonym Lloyd Fry. Garrett is listed in the ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, second edition, edited by Daniel I. McNamara.