Louis A. Hirsch

Louis Achille Hirsch, also known as Lou Hirsch, was an American composer of songs and musicals born in New York City on November 28, 1887. During his senior year at the City College of New York, he traveled to Europe to study piano at Berlin's Stern Conservatory under pianist Rafael Joseffy. He returned to the United States in 1906 and took a position as a staff pianist at the Tin Pan Alley publishing houses of Gus Edwards and Shapiro-Bernstein, where he also began composing his own material.

Hirsch's earliest professional work involved writing music for Lew Dockstader's Minstrels. Individual melodies of his were subsequently interpolated into Broadway productions including The Gay White Way, Miss Innocence starring Anna Held, and The Girl and the Wizard. He Came from Milwaukee in 1910 marked his first complete score for a Broadway production. The following year, his Revue of Revues introduced French performer Gaby Deslys to American audiences, and he went on to write several songs she made popular, among them "The Gaby Glide," "Come Dance with Me," and "When You Hear Love's Hello." Also in 1911, Vera Violetta served as a breakthrough production for Al Jolson. In 1912 and 1913, Hirsch contributed music to The Whirl of Society and The Passing Show, both starring José Collins, for the Shuberts.

Hirsch was among the nine founding members of ASCAP in 1914 and served as a director of the organization from 1917 until his death in 1924. During World War I, he contributed songs to four editions of The Ziegfeld Follies, including "Sweet Kentucky Lady" and "Hello Frisco!" His Broadway musical credits include The Grass Widow, Going Up, which featured lyrics by Otto Harbach and opened in 1917, The Rainbow Girl, Oh, My Dear! in 1918, See-Saw, Mary in 1920, The O'Brien Girl in 1921, the 1922 and 1923 editions of The Greenwich Village Follies, and Betty Lee in 1924. He also contributed to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915, 1916, 1918, and 1922.

Among his most commercially successful compositions was "Love Nest," written for the 1920 musical Mary, which later became the theme song for the Burns and Allen radio program. Other songs associated with Hirsch include "Neath the Southern Moon," "The Tickle Toe," "Always Together," "Garden of Your Dreams," "Going Up," "My Rambler Rose," "Mary," "The Love Nest," "I Am Thinking of You," and "Annabel Lee," among others. In addition to composing, Hirsch contributed to the storylines and concepts behind a number of his musicals.

On May 27, 1920, Hirsch filed a lawsuit against the New York Yankees for $100,000 stemming from an incident at the Polo Grounds on May 24 of that year. After switching seats with his brother to avoid sitting next to a cigar smoker, Hirsch was informed by an usher that changing seats was against the rules. When he refused to return to his original seat, he was forcibly removed from the stands. Hirsch died in New York City on May 13, 1924, of pneumonia at the age of 36.