How Hollywood incorporated Tin Pan Alley into the movie business?

Answer 1

The 1920s were the golden age of the sophisticated popular song, like those of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Songs were put into revues without much regard for integrating the song into the plot. During the 1930s there was a shift in musical theatre from musical revues to musicals that used the song to further the plot, limiting the demand for the pure stand-alone song. The Tin Pan Alley (named for the cacophony of pinaos in the Manhattan area that housed the song business, which sounded like the banging of tin pans)songwriters who wrote songs followed the money. Many of the early Hollywood stars, such as Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were veterans of these plotted Broadway and London musicals, and brought the form to Hollywood. Their songwriters and lyricists followed.

Chris Westland