CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image: Dardanella

A composition for piano, vocal, and guitar, “Dardanella” tells the story of a man enamored of a woman from the Dardanelles Strait region of Turkey.

The song has a colorful history: Dardanella was first published by McCarthy & Fisher in 1919 after Fred Fisher acquired the composition--originally a piano instrumental--and added the words. Although Felix Bernard and Johnny S. Black share the credit for the music, accounts as to its true authorship vary, with either one or the other suing Fisher after the song became a hit. In 1924, Fisher won a copyright infringement lawsuit alleging that composer Jerome Kern used the bass line from Dardanella in his song “Ka-lu-a.” After other legal difficulties, Fisher was forced to sell his catalog of holdings to his former employee Jack Mills, who had started his own music publishing company with the bonus he earned from Dardanella’s profits. The art deco cover from the Mills Music publication of the sheet music (copyright assigned 1928) is pictured here.

The performing music library of St. Louis radio station KMOX was a gift to the Lovejoy Library at SIUE. The KMOX collection consists of 48,195 titles, including original and stock arrangements, compiled during the 1930s-1940s when the station maintained a live studio orchestra. The digitized collection of early 20th century popular sheet music is a small subset of the complete collection, with 118 titles available at present; more will be added as they enter the public domain. The digital collection takes advantage of CONTENTdm’s Custom Queries feature, allowing users to browse by composer, lyricist, or subject, or to view titles that include cover art.

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