Michael, George and Ira: The Gershwins and Me by Michael Feinstein

The very-accomplished Michael Feinstein wears many hats: performer, archivist, businessman and author. He first appeared in the public eye as a twenty-year-old playing in Los Angeles piano bars in the mid-1970s. Through a connection to the deceased pianist and actor Oscar Levant, he became a temporary assistant to Ira Gershwin. The temporary position stretched into six years during which he organized and cataloged Gershwin's record albums, professional and personal memorabilia from his long career and more. Feinstein worked in Gershwin's Beverly Hills home and became steeped in the life history of Ira Gershwin and his brother, the much more famous George Gershwin. Organizing the immense output of the Gershwin brothers made him an expert on their extraordinary musical accomplishments.

Ira Gershwin was a renowned lyricist and collaborator to his brother George Gershwin, the composer of Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, Porgy and Bess, and hundreds of songs, mainly introduced on the Broadway stage in the 1920s and 1930s. George Gershwin died tragically of a brain tumor in 1937, two months before his 39th birthday. Ira Gershwin survived him by many decades, dying aged 86 in 1983.

Feinstein has gone on to a long career of his own, championing and performing the works of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and his collaborators Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer and many others who constitute the pantheon of great American songwriters of theater and movies from the 1920s and into the 1950s, often thought of as the Golden Age of popular music in the English-speaking world.

This book, The Gershwins and Me, is a valentine to the Gershwin brothers, and a real treasure trove of information, photos and anecdotes of their careers. Feinstein arranged it in chapters topically and thematically around twelve of their most famous songs, each having been featured in a Broadway show or a movie:
"Strike Up the Band", 1927
"The Man I Love", 1924
"S'Wonderful", 1927
"I've Got a Crush on You", 1928
"They All Laughed", 1937
"Someone to Watch Over Me", 1926
"Embraceable You", 1930
"Who Cares", 1931
"I Got Plenty of Nuttin'", 1935
"They Can't Take That Away from Me", 1937
"I Got Rhythm", 1930
"Love Is Here to Stay", 1938

While the material is fascinating, some of Feinstein's opinions can be a little strong and may offend fans of certain performers, particularly Frank Sinatra, whom he deems as a great singer, but criticizes for changing some of Ira Gershwin's lyrics. Though he has a point, it seems minor when one considers Sinatra's entire career as a singer and actor through many decades. He also relates a distasteful anecdote about Judy Garland. On the other hand, he lionizes Fred Astaire (who certainly deserves it), Rosemary Clooney (who was Feinstein's long-time friend and Ira Gershwin's neighbor), and others. The tendency to gossip takes the book down a star for me, but Feinstein is not an unbiased professional historian.

On the whole, it is a great book for anyone who appreciates and is interested in the works of the Gershwins and their milieu in the 1920s and 1930s. It is beautifully produced and printed. Feinstein also includes a CD of his recordings of the songs that he used for his chapter topics.