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Ervin Drake
Basic Information
Born: Ervin Maurice Druckman, April 3, 1919, (turned 93 in 2012).
Primary songwriting roles: composer and lyricist; also a producer
Co-writers: chiefly Jimmy Shirl. Click here to view a database of 20 Ervin Drake co-writers.
David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry, pp. 124-127).
Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 (entry, pp. 538-539, brief Bio. and lyrics to three songs).
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Photo Portrait of Ervin Drake by Robert Armin, presented under Wikipedia Commons license.
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Cafe Songbook
Master List of Great American Songbook Songwriters
Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.
Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.
Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.
Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.
, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (dates, career, shows/movies, songs; 3rd edition, 1966, entry pp. 184-185)
, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at