Hit Tin Pan Alley songwriter became successful music publisher
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Ted Snyder
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Born/Died
Inducted
Hit Tin Pan Alley songwriter became successful music publisher
Composer Ted Snyder was born in Freeport, Illinois on August 15, 1881. He grew up in Boscobel, Wisconsin and as a very young man he posted theater bills for a living. Moving to Chicago in his 20’s, he worked as a café pianist and then a staff pianist and song publisher for music publishing companies. His first hit as a songwriter came in 1907 with “There’s a Girl in This World for Every Boy” (lyric by Will D. Cobb).
In 1908, Snyder moved to New York and formed his own publishing company, where he wrote and published “If You Cared For Me” (lyric by Ed Rose). In 1909, Snyder also collaborated with George Whiting and Carter De Haven on the song “Beautiful Rose”, which was interpolated in the Broadway show Mr. Hamlet of Broadway.
Also in 1909, Snyder had another success when he hired a young songwriter just starting out on Tin Pan Alley and named Irving Berlin. Berlin was hired as a staff writer and eventually, Snyder and Berlin would become publishing partners with Henry Waterson and a hit songwriting team. In 1910, famed Broadway producers The Schubert’s hired Snyder and Berlin to appear in the revue Up and Down Broadway in which they sang their own hit songs.
By 1913, Berlin was writing melodies to his own lyrics and the publishing firm Snyder had founded was reorganized and called Waterson, Berlin and Snyder. In 1914, Snyder was also a charter member of the new performing rights society, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Snyder continued his own writing and teamed with lyricists such as Bert Kalmar and Edgar Leslie, Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young, Harry B. Smith and Francis Wheeler. Other hits from the Snyder catalog include “Moonlight on the Rhine,” “In the Land of Harmony”, “The Ghost of the Violin”, “How’d You Like to Be My Daddy”, “The Sheik of Araby”, “I Wonder If You Still Care For Me”, “My Guitar”, “Piano Man”, “I Want to Be in Dixie”, “Dreams, Just Dreams”, “My Dream of the USA” and “Under the Moon.” Perhaps his greatest song and a Billboard #1 hit was the Kalmar/Harry Ruby collaboration, “Who’s Sorry Now?”.
Snyder also included songs in many Broadway revues and productions including One Girl in a Million, Sinbad and Make it Snappy.
In 1930, Snyder retired from the songwriting business and moved to Hollywood, California where he opened a nightclub. He died in Woodland Hills, California on July 16, 1965.
