Michael Brown (born 14 December 1920 in Mexia, Texas) is a producer and writer of songs and books. Of his books, the most widely known are several children's stories about Santa Mouse.
Brown has served several terms as a member of the board of the Songwriters Guild of America.
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Excerpts from "The Woolworth Manager's Work Song":
The buyer told you what was new,
Then he assigned you quite a few.
Your total sales were only two:
Don't blame the buyer...it was you!
...
Shrinkage, watch out for shrinkage,
or else the one that ends up shrinking there
Starting in 1953, he produced industrial musicals for corporate clients in the United States and other countries. His biggest production was DuPont's multi-million-dollar Wonderful World of Chemistry at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Brown wrote, produced, and directed a musical involving interaction between live performers and life-sized actors on film. In over 17,000 performances it was seen by over 5.2 million people.
Another example of his corporate work is an industrial musical revue for Woolworth performed in June 1965 called Mr. Woolworth Had a Notion.
His first work on Broadway was the song "Lizzie Borden" in Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952.
Writing with Harold Arlen, he wrote "Indoor Girl" sung by Pearl Bailey in House of Flowers and then by himself created the score for the English musical Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?. He also wrote a production number for the Carol Channing company of Sugar Babies and the book, music, and lyrics for the nineteen-day run of Different Times.
Brown is married to Joy Williams Brown, a former ballerina. The couple was instrumental in the career of Harper Lee, making it possible for her to write To Kill a Mockingbird by giving her the gift of a years' wages in 1956 with the note: "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas."
These have been reprinted under various ISBNs