Kerry Mills

Kerry Mills (né Frederick Allen Mills; 1 February 1869 Philadelphia – 5 December 1948 Hawthorne, California) was an American composer of popular music during the Tin Pan Alley era.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} His stylistically diverse music ranged from ragtime to cakewalk to marches. He was most prolific between 1895 and 1918.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

Career

1907 sheet music

Mills trained as a violinist and was head of the Violin Department of the University of Michigan School of Music when he began composing. He moved to New York City in 1895 and started a music publishing firm, (F. A. Mills Music Publisher), publishing his own work and that of others.^[11]

Selected works

• "Any Old Port in a Storm"
• "At A Georgia Camp-meeting" listen to:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLR2ZI0evgs
• "Impecunious Davis"
• "In The City Of Sighs And Tears"
• "Just For The Sake Of Society"
• "Kerry Mills' Barn Dance"
• "Let's All Go Up To Maud's"
• "Like A Star That Falls From Heaven"
• "The Longest Way 'Round Is The Sweetest Way Home"
• "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" (words by Andrew B. Sterling)
• "Red Wing" (words by Thurland Chattaway). Mills adapted the melody from Schumann's "Merry Peasant"
• "We'll Be Together When the Clouds Roll By" (words by Alfred Bryan)
• "While The Old Mill Wheel Is Turning"
• "Whistling Rufus"

See also

• List of ragtime composers

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kerry Mills.

• Sheet music for his song "We'll Be Together When the Clouds Roll By" from the collection at University of Oregon Libraries
• Free scores by Kerry Mills at the International Music Score Library Project

References