Buddy Feyne

Buddy Feyne added snappy lyrics to many big-band jazz hits from the '30s and '40s, including "Tuxedo Junction," "Jersey Bounce," and "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid," thus becoming forever identified with a swinging hipster mentality. Feyne was hardly limited to that point of view, however. He was a hard-working, professional lyricist who collaborated with dozens of other composers. Feyne's career spanned more than half-a-century and included almost every style of American music but heavy metal and rap. His songs were heard on radio, on Broadway, on television, and in the movies; he wrote songs for children's records, and, conversely, for the softcore pornography hit Diary of a Stewardess. It all began in the early '30s when Feyne began working in the infamous New York Brill Building as a song plugger. The job forced him to endlessly sing words written by others; his dream was to come up with his own lyrics. His talent in this area was soon noticed by his bosses. While Feyne also composed his own music, much of his most famous work was done with groups of collaborators, sometimes enough of them to be considered a crowd. "Tuxedo Junction" was assembled by a committee including Julian Dash, William Luther Johnson, and Erskine Hawkins, for example, while four other writers worked on "Jersey Bounce." Often these tunes began life as hit instrumentals, and Feyne became known as a wiz at coming up with verbal themes that fit with all that jazz. Vocal artists in the latter genre have traditionally dipped heavily into this type of material, and as a result, Feyne's lyrics have been sung by the likes of Joe Williams, the Manhattan Transfer, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. "Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long," a hit for daffy comedian Milton Berle, demonstrated another side of Feyne's talents that he also put to good use creating material for children's' albums. In the late '60s, he became involved with producer William S. Baker, also a songwriter. They put together several stage shows, none of which were that successful, but the independent Diary of a Stewardess in 1972, for which Feyne and Baker created an entire soundtrack's worth of ditties, shook its moneymaker all the way down the runway. The audience that flocked to this film was likely not concentrating on any of the songs, such as the enthusiastic, airborne "I Love to Fly." Other Feyne concoctions considered essential by hipsters include "Bee Bop on the Range," "Cream Cheese and Jelly," "She Works in Men's Pajamas," "After School Swing Session," and last but not least, the song of the "Hot Dog That Made Him Mad." ~ Eugene Chadbourne