Ted Snyder

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Ted Snyder (August 15, 1881 - July 16, 1965), was an American Hall of Fame lyricist and composer.

Born in Freeport, Illinois, he grew up in Boscobel, Wisconsin. He learned to play the piano as a boy and as a young man returned to Illinois to work in Chicago as a pianist in a café before being employed by a music publishing company. In 1907, Snyder had his first musical composition published and the following year set up his own music publishing business in New York City. He gave Irving Berlin his first break in 1909 when he hired him as a staff writer for his company and the two eventually became business partners. In 1914, Ted Snyder became one of the founding members of ASCAP.

Snyder's growing name as a top-line composer led to his compositions being used in stage plays with the first to make it to Broadway in 1908. Following his teaming up with Irving Berlin, the two were hired to perform and sing their music in the 1910 musical "Up and Down Broadway." Snyder would become widely known to a later generation through hits such as 1921's "The Sheik of Araby" recorded by several artists including Benny Goodman in 1937 and The Beatles in 1962 (Decca Audition). The most notable of Snyder's works is "Who's Sorry Now?" written in 1923 in collaboration with Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. "Who's Sorry Now?" became a No.1 hit on the UK Singles Chart for Connie Francis in 1958 and went to No. 4 on the American Billboard charts. In 2000, it was named one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America.

In 1930, Snyder retired from the songwriting business and moved to California where he opened a Hollywood nightclub. As of 2005, thirteen of his compositions have been used in motion pictures.

Ted Snyder died in 1965 in Woodland Hills and was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California. In 1970, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.