Alec Wilder

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Born Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder in Rochester, New York, to a wealthy banking family. He was an avid letter-writer. His bouts of drinking often tested the limits of his lifelong friendships.

He was largely self-taught as a composer studing briefly at his hometown's Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but left without completing his degree. While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973.

He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, and Marian Mcpartland.

Among the standards he wrote or co-wrote were:

I'll Be Around(1943)

While We're Young(1943, written with Morty Palitz and William Engvick)

It's So Peaceful in the Country(1941)

Moon And Sand (1941, written with Morty Palitz and William Engvick)

Who Can I Turn To? (1941, lyric by William Engvick)

The Lady Sings the Blues (1956, lyric by William Engvick and a hit for Mabel Mercer);

Where Do You Go? (1959, lyric by Arnold Sundgaard)

Remember My Child (1964, lyric by William Engvick)

Lovers and Losers (1968, lyric by William Engvick)

Blackberry Winter (1976, lyric by Loonis McGlohon);

Be a Child (1976 lyric by Loonis McGlohon)

A Long Night (1980, Wilder's last song, written for Sinatra with a lyric by Loonis McGlohon).

Wrote the lyrics to Thad Jones' A Child Is Born

He also wrote many songs for the cabaret artist Mabel Mercer, including one of her signature pieces, "Have You Ever Crossed Over to Sneden's?"

In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed classical pieces for exotic combinations of orchestral instruments. The Alec Wilder Octet, including Eastman classmate Mitch Miller on oboe, recorded several of his originals for Brunswick Records in 1938-40. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles ("The Hotel Detective Registers"), were strongly influenced by jazz. He wrote eleven operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little (1953), was commissioned for television by CBS. Sinatra conducted an album of Wilder's classical music. Wilder also arranged a series of Christmas carols for Tubachristmas. He composed numerous works for children.

Wilder wrote what is considered by many critics the definitive book on American songwriting:

American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950

(1972).

He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the mid '70s.

With lyricist Loonis McGlohon, he composed songs for the Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle. He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of While We're Young, he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" He often maintained that music publishers "stole everything", but in a reflective moment, noted that as badly as he had been treated by the powers-that-be of the music industry, black artists had been treated worse.

He won a Peabody Award for the National Public Radio series "American Popular Song," cohosted by Loonis McGlohon, an Avon Foundation grant, the Deems Taylor ASCAP Award and a National Book Award nomination—all having to do with American Popular Song: "The Great Innovators, 1900-1950," edited and with an introduction by James T. Maher.

Alec Wilder died of lung cancer on Christmas Eve 1980 in Gainesville, Florida.