Maceo Pinkard

Maceo Pinkard (June 27, 1897 – July 21, 1962) was an American composer, lyricist, and music publisher born in Bluefield, West Virginia, to Mary Ellen Jimerson, an educator, and G. Pinkard, a coal miner. He received his education at the Bluefield Colored Institute, graduating in 1913, and composed his first major song, "I'm Goin' Back Home," the following year. His Broadway credits include the musicals Liza and Pansy.

Pinkard's professional life began to take shape while he was still a teenager. At seventeen, in 1914, he established a theatrical agency in Omaha, Nebraska, and also formed his own orchestra, which he conducted on tours across the United States. By 1917 he had launched a publishing firm, Maceo Pinkard Music, through which he sold compositions to national publishers including Frank K. Root in Chicago and Leo Feist in New York. In late 1918 he joined the firm of Shapiro, Bernstein & Company in New York, and the following year his first major hit, "Mammy O'Mine," was published. Around the time of his move to New York City in 1919, he recorded his piano playing on piano rolls for the Republic and Connorized companies, the only known documentation of his playing. He also eventually founded Pinkard Publications, a music publishing firm in New York City.

The decade between 1921 and 1931 represented the most productive period of Pinkard's career, during which he worked primarily as both composer and lyricist. His catalog from those years includes "Sugar," "Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya Huh?," "Sweet Man," "At Twilight," "Here Comes the Show Boat" (1927), "Congratulations" (1929), and "Them There Eyes" (1930), the last of which Billie Holiday recorded in 1939 on the OKeh label and performed at the Storyville jazz club in Boston in 1952. His song "I'll Be a Friend with Pleasure" was recorded in 1930 by a jazz band led by Bix Beiderbecke, with Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman among the sidemen. In 1999, the Grammy-nominated album The Love Movement by A Tribe Called Quest included a sample of Pinkard's 1920 composition "Start It Up."

Among all of Pinkard's compositions, "Sweet Georgia Brown," written with lyrics by Kenneth Casey, became the most enduring. It reached number one on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1925 and was subsequently recorded by a wide range of artists, including Ethel Waters (1923), Bing Crosby (1927), Louis Armstrong (1928), Cab Calloway (1931), Nat King Cole (1943), Ella Fitzgerald (1956), Benny Goodman (1956), Ray Charles (1961), The Beatles on their album Ain't She Sweet (1962), Sarah Vaughan (1963), and Carmen McRae (1964), among others. The song became internationally recognized as the theme of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.

Pinkard also played a direct role in the early career of Duke Ellington. The two met at Barron's nightclub, after which Pinkard brought Ellington to the Broadway music publishing district between 40th and 55th Streets, known as Tin Pan Alley. It was there that Ellington had his first meeting at Mills Music with Irving Mills, who would later become his manager. Ellington subsequently recorded several of Pinkard's compositions, including "Is That Religion?," "Sweet Georgia Brown," and "Them There Eyes."

On Broadway, Pinkard wrote and produced the musical comedy Liza, with a book by Irvin C. Miller, which opened on November 27, 1922, at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in New York City. The production ran for 172 performances, closing on April 21, 1923. The original cast included Gertrude Saunders, Maude Russell, Margaret Simms, Irvin C. Miller, Quintard Miller, Emmett Anthony, Doe Doe Green, R. Eddie Greenlee, and others. Pinkard supplied both the music and lyrics for the show's songs, among them "Liza," "That Brownskin Flapper," "On the Moonlit Swanee," "Runnin' Wild Blues," and "My Creole Girl," set against a story taking place in Jimtown, South Carolina. During its run, Liza transferred to the Nora Bayes Theater on 44th Street, making it the first Black production to play Broadway proper during the regular season, as prior to that point Black shows had been limited to summer engagements. Music from the production was recorded by Zez Confrey and His Orchestra, Albert E. Short's Tivoli Syncopators, and the New Synco Jazz Band.

Pinkard was inducted into the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984. He died in New York City on July 19, 1962. Bluefield State University holds an annual weeklong festival in honor of him.