Yip Harburg

"In this detailed, entertaining account, Alonso gives life to a courageous man and artist who risked it all for some simple human truth."

~Publishers Weekly

""There are several excellent books about Harburg. I'd suggest Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist. Harriet Hyman Alonso enables Harburg to talk about his life and work. He tells of his early childhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, his public school education, how the Great Depression opened the way to writing lyrics, and his work on Broadway and Hollywood, including his blacklisting during the McCarthy era. Finally, but most importantly, Harburg shares his commitment to human rights and the ways it affected his writing and his career path.""

~Denise Oliver Velez, Daily Kos

""In Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist, historian Harriet Hyman Alonso relates the story of Isidore Hochberg, who was born in New York, of Russian-Jewish origin, and acquired the nickname 'Yip' in his youth. As Harburg told a New York audience in 1971, battling for civil rights came naturally to him: 'The Jews have known this for a long time. The Jews were more aware of it than any other tribe in the world because they were the first ones to suffer fascism under Pharaoh. The first freedom rider was Moses who came along and the whole Passover Seder and ceremony is devoted entirely to freedom, to a fight for freedom, to how you get out of slavery, so that the Jews being a minority have always known that if there's any other minority being enslaved anywhere in the world that it's their fight.'""

~Benjamin Ivry, The Forward

""Tunesmith E.Y. Harburg (1896–1981) composed the lyrics for such hits as "April in Paris" and the Depression-era classic "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" If he had written only one song, however, he'd be in the pantheon—that ditty, heard in a 1939 movie, was "Over the Rainbow," from The Wizard of Oz. Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist reminds us of his charms.""

~Dick Donahue, Publishers Weekly

""a good portrait of that picturesque leprechaun of a fellow who followed a crock of gold past that paper moon to somewhere over the rainbow.""

~Steven Suskin, Playbill

""an excellent introduction to the artist.""

~Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

""In this detailed, entertaining account, Alonso gives life to a courageous man and artist who risked it all for some simple human truth.""

~Publishers Weekly

""The book is far more lively and less politically earnest than its title suggests. In fact, it is downright chatty, being essentially a sort of oral history Alonso crafted out of nearly 50 published and unpublished transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, speeches, roundtables, and conversations in which Harburg participated over the years.""

~James M. Keller, Pasatiempo

"Yip Harburg was a brilliant lyricist, committed humanitarian, and an engaging raconteur. Harriet Alonso has done a superb job of weaving Harburg's own words and memories into a compelling biography of one of the giants of the Great American Songbook."

~Walter Frisch, professor of music, Columbia University

"Yip Harburg was a brilliant lyricist, committed humanitarian, and an engaging raconteur. Harriet Alonso has done a superb job of weaving Harburg's own words and memories into a compelling biography of one of the giants of the Great American Songbook."

~Walter Frisch, professor of music, Columbia University

"Harriet Alonso's valuable book permits Yip Harburg—a passionate, politically committed, and gifted lyricist and storyteller—to tell his own story. His words bring back to life the golden age of songwriting and liberal activism in 20th century America.""

~Burton Peretti, author of Nightclub City

"At concerts I often used to talk about Yip, how he and Harold Arlen wrote 'Over the Rainbow' and then I'd get the whole audience to sing it together.""

~Pete Seeger