Kerry Mills(néFrederick Allen Mills; 1 February 1869 in Philadelphia – 5 December 1948 in Hawthorne, California), publishing also as F.A. Mills, was an American ragtime composer and music publishing executive of popular music during the Tin Pan Alley era.[1][2][3][4][5] His stylistically diverse music ranged from ragtime through cakewalk to marches. He was most prolific between 1895 and 1918.[6][7][8][9][10]
Career
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Red Wing 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] The company went bankrupt in 1915 and was acquired by Maurice Richmond, who sold on many of the songs.[12]
Selected works
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"Impecunious Davis"
"In The City Of Sighs And Tears"
"Just For The Sake Of Society"
"Let's All Go Up To Maud's"
"The Longest Way 'Round Is The Sweetest Way Home"
"Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" (words by Andrew B. Sterling)
1895 : Rastus on Parade - Characteristic Two Step March for Piano
^Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (Mills is in Vol. 4 of 6), Macmillan; Schirmer 6th ed., Slonimsky (ed.) (1978); OCLC 4426869 8th ed., Slonimsky (ed.) (1992); OCLC 24246972 9th ed., Laura Kuhn (ed.) (born 1953) (2001); OCLC 44972043
^Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, Nicolas Slonimsky (ed), Schirmer (1997); OCLC 36111932
^The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, (Mills is in Vol. 3 of 4), H. Wiley Hitchcock & Stanley Sadie (eds.), Macmillan Publishers (1986); (see Oxford Music Online); OCLC 13184437, OCLC 230202868
^The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music: Composers and Their Music — Supplement, William H. Rehrig (ed.), Westerville, OH: Integrity Press (1996); OCLC 45209483
^American Popular Songs, From the Revolutionary War to the present, edited by David Ewen, New York: Random House (1966); OCLC 598027
^Popular American Composers, From Revolutionary times to the present — A Biographical and Critical Guide, 1st ed., compiled & edited by David Ewen, New York: H.W. Wilson Co. (1962); OCLC 63081753
^Notable Names in the American Theatre, Walter Rigdon (born 1930) (ed.), Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co. (1976); OCLC 2372945 Alphabetized by titles of address, e.g.: Dr., Mrs., and Sir
^The Oxford Companion to Popular Music, by Peter Gammond, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press (1991); OCLC 22382241
^Sweet and Lowdown: America's Popular Song Writers, by Warren Craig, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press (1978); OCLC 3380132
^The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz, 1900-1950, by Roger D. Kinkle (1916–2000) (Mills is Vol 3 of 4), Arlington House Publishers, New Rochelle, NY (1974) OCLC 897890