DESCRIPTION:
Some British sources credit London producer George Edwardes with creating the first musical comedies, but he did not begin presenting this form until 1893, and most of his Gaiety Theater productions were little more than Gilbert and Sullivan-style operettas with chorines in shortened skirts. The form we know as musical comedy was actually born on Broadway in a series of shows starring Edward (Ned) Harrigan and Tony Hart. Produced between 1878 and 1884, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father in law David Braham, these musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes -- minus any sign of burlesque's showgirls. With these distinctly American musicals, Harrigan, Hart and Braham laid a path that Broadway would follow profitably for more than a century to come.


A very early Broadway show tune with lyrics by Edward Harrigan and music by David Braham, in 1874 before the theaters on Broadway in lower Manhattan were known as "Broadway." Became a favorite of regular army troops, who wrote some of their own lyrics to it. A post-Civil-War Music hall comment on the professional, or
all-volunteer Army that replaced the citizen's Grand Army of
the Republic at the end of the war. It proved to be a home to
many Irish immigrants. The song was picked up by the army,
and was a popular army song in the late 1800s.


http://www.musicals101.com/1879to99.htm





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