Harold Arlen is not a household name - not in the average home, anyway. Yet Harold Arlen was the composer to some songs that are still well known nearly 90 years after they were first written. Not sure who he is yet? Have you ever heard or sung the song "Stormy Weather"? Maybe, maybe not? "Blues in the Night"? "It's Only a Paper Moon"? "Get Happy"?

How about "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" or "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead"? That's right, Harold Arlen is the genius composer behind the songs in The Wizard of Oz.

As a theatre major in college and huge fan of the stage and screen musical, I've been aware of Harold Arlen for a long time, but I knew very little about him. Biographer Walter Rimler provides a solid sketch of the man, giving us facts and details relevant to a biography - we do not get a lot of extraneous details (ie parents and siblings, what elementary school was like, the social mores of the time, etc). We get what is necessary to know the man as Rimler presents him.

For instance, we know he was born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York, to the son of a Yiddish-speaking cantor. Changing his name to Harold Arlen was difficult for his family to accept.

As the son of a cantor, music was already present in his life, but he was especially fond of the jazz and gospel music he would hear in the neighborhood. His father hoped to dissuade him from a life in music but was later convinced by others that Harold's talent was such that his father should accept that his son would almost have to follow his talent in music, even if it wasn't music his father would approve of.

Even Harold didn't always approve of the music he had to write, but the money was good. He and lyricist Ted Koehler worked writing songs with lots of sexual innuendo and drug references for The Cotton Club in the early 1930's. While most people were struggling through the Great Depression, Arlen was making $100 a week plus free meals.

Arlen would work with different lyricists over the years, from Johnny Mercer to Yip Harburg generally with stirring results. It wasn't always easy, as Rimler reports on the effort it took to find "Over the Rainbow."

The details on his musical work and the people he rubbed shoulders with during his career is truly illuminating. But what's most interesting is that part of her personal life that you can't find so easily in Google searches. The death of his wife in 1970 seemed to paralyze him and he never had quite the same zest for music from then until he died in 1986.

Harold Arlen isn't remembered by many, but his influence and music is still powerful.

Looking for a good book? The Man That Got Away is a biography of genius composer Harold Arlen, written by Walter Rimler. Anyone interested in music, theatre or movie musicals, or just a well-researched and well-written biography, should read this.

I received a digital copy of this book, many years ago, from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.