[Dixielandjazz] Coots & Gillespie-- From Tri State Jazz Society

[Norman Vickers]

To:  DJML

Thanks to the Tri-State Jazz Society for this article on J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.

Also to Steve Barbone who helped get it from a pdf ( which I couldn’t unravel) to this form which should work for DJML.

Most on this list know they wrote “Santa Claus is Coming to town”   I read elsewhere that Coots—he had a long life—had composed 700 songs.  Two others famous are “You Go to My Head” and “For All We Know.”

 

Norman Vickers

 

 

 

From: Stephen G Barbone [mailto:barbonestreet at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 7:44 PM
To: Norman Vickers
Subject: Coots & Gillespie

 

Hi Norm:

 

Here is that article if you want to forward it to DJML.

 

Cheers,

Steve

 

 

J. FRED COOTS & HAVEN GILLESPIE 

 

Recognize those names?  You should because 

you hear one of their songs every year at this 

time.  They are also responsible for one of the most 

enduring standards of all time.  Yet few people 

know the men behind the music. 

 

John Frederick Coots was born in Brooklyn, 

New York on May 2, 1897.  His mother taught him 

piano, and after high school pursued a career in the 

banking industry.  He changed careers when he 

heard a song plugger in a music shop performing 

new songs for sale.  In 1917, he had his first of 700 

songs published.  Performed in vaudeville, and 

wrote music for singer Sophie Tucker.  During most 

of the 1920‟s wrote music for Broadway shows.  At 

the end of the decade, Coots left New York to work 

in Hollywood. 

 

 In addition to collaborating with Haven 

Gillespie, Coots worked with other lyricists.  Benny 

Davis wrote the words to “I Still Get A Thrill 

(Thinking of You)”, the romantic “For All We 

Know” with Sam M. Lewis, and “Love Letters In the 

Sand” with lyrics by Nick and Charles Kenny.  Davis 

and Coots would collaborate on three Cotton Club 

Revues in 1936, 1938 and 1939. 

 

 Haven Gillespie, born in 1887, in Covington, 

Kentucky, left school at age sixteen to work in the 

newspaper field as a typesetter.  By his early 20‟s, 

he moved to New York to pursue a career in 

journalism, working at the New York Times and 

other newspapers.  During this time, Gillespie 

worked as a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley, and 

composing songs for vaudeville acts.  In 1911, he 

had his first song published, and a contract with 

music publisher Leo Feist, Inc. 

 

 

Like Coots, Gillespie worked a variety of 

composers, and shared some hit songs with them.  

“Breezin Along With the Breeze” was written by 

Gillespie, Seymour Simons and Richard A. Whiting.  

Beasley Smith, composer of “The Sheik of Araby”, 

helped Gillespie pen the latter day classic, “That 

Lucky Old Sun.” 

 

It was 1934. Gillespie met with a 

representative of his music publisher, Leo Feist, 

Inc.  It was not the best of days for the lyricist, for 

he had just returned from his brother‟s funeral.  

The publisher wanted Gillespie to compose a 

children‟s song.  Gillespie met with J. Fred Coots, 

and in the course of a fifteen minute train ride, 

completed the song.  The song debuted on the 

Eddie Cantor radio show and became an immediate 

success, with sales up to 25,000 copies per day!  

For Gillespie, however, the song‟s success was 

bittersweet for it was a reminder of a sad time in his 

life.  The song?  Santa Claus Is Coming To 

Town. 

 

 It was Gillespie‟s love for alcohol that 

provided the inspiration for the enduring standard 

mentioned earlier.  After a long bender in a local 

speakeasy, Gillespie wrote the words for what was 

to become a jazz standard: You Go to My Head.– 

 

Article from the Tri State Jazz Club "Strutter" 

by Jim McGann