Vitaphone Captures a Composer In Recital

Joseph E. Howard: America's Popular Composer (1928) Brings Back Memories For Early Talk-Goers

Joseph E. Howard looked like a tired old banker who happened to write hit songs. For purpose of this Vitaphone single-reel, he sings a handful in offhand and "Remember This One?" manner, ingratiating for the brief time it lasts, and worthwhile as record of a composer flexing his wares. Howard makes it seem easy, as if any of us might jot off a tune or three before breakfast. For such talent as his, that may have been the simple case. Howard did contribute a number of standards, or at least they were then, some remaining so for so long as he lived, enabling the tunesmith to take memories on the road all the way up to his own departure in 1961. At least he stayed long enough to enjoy 20th Fox's no-doubt fictionalized account of a straightforward music life, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now, in which staid Howard was impersonated by dashing Mark Stevens. There were appearances on Ed Sullivan into rock and roll's era --- what a culture meet of Gay 90's cleffing with hip-swivel successors. Howard must have felt he'd gone within a lifetime to a different planet altogether.