Broadway’s Not a Bad Place after All

Eddie Cantor

Harry Ruby

1918

Poster with English text and photograph of two men, surrounded by drawing of a clown and a woman in a mask dancing.

Sheet music for “Broadway’s Not a Bad Place after All” from the theatrical revue Ziegfield Follies. The revue occurred annually between 1907 to 1931 and featured elaborate performances led by talented musicians and composers. Composed by Harry Ruby, this number humorously defends Broadway against those who criticize its sensational entertainment including cabaret, jazz, and dance, and helped establish Eddie Cantor as a force in the performing arts world.   

Credits

Eddie Cantor, vocalist, “Broadway’s Not a Bad Place After All,” co-written and co-composed with Harry Ruby for the Ziegfield Follies (New York: Waterson, Berlin, & Snyder Co., 1920). Catalog record #: TXRC05-A0, box 20.9, Florenz Ziegfield Archive, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Eddie Cantor

1892–1964

Born Edward Israel Izkowitz in New York’s Lower East Side, Eddie Cantor was raised by his grandmother Esther Kantrowitz in a tenement. Izzy Kanter, as he was known in his childhood, struggled with hunger while trying to entertain, making his vaudeville debut in 1907. He first appeared on Broadway with Ziegfield’s 1917 Follies, initially as a performer and then as a writer. In 1914 Kanter married Ida Tobias, Anglicizing his name to Eddie Cantor. He had a prolific career in entertainment across vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film, and television. His cowritten “Merrily We Roll Along” (1935) has been featured in hundreds of television episodes and films, making it one of the most memorable melodies in television history. Cantor wrote or cowrote more than twenty books.

Creator Bio

Harry Ruby

1895–1974

Harry Ruby, born Harry Rubinstein in New York’s Lower East Side, dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. He learned to play the piano in his adolescence and worked as a song plugger (demonstrator) for several New York music publishers in between stints as a pianist on the vaudeville circuit. Ruby, his Americanized stage name, collaborated with a number of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songwriters, including Edgar Leslie, George Jessel, and Bert Kalmar, his longtime musical partner with whom wrote a number of popular scores, screenplays, and songs.

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