Ford Dabney(1883-1958)
- Soundtrack
Songwriter ("Shine"), composer, conductor and pianist, educated at
Armstrong Manual Training School. He studied music with his father and
also with Charles Donch, William Waldecker, and Samuel Fabian. In 1904,
he was the official court musician for the president of Haiti, and
returned to the USA in 1907 to lead his own quartet. He was
owner-operator of his own film and vaudeville theatre in Washington,
and in 1913 he organized the Tempo Club (A Negro talent bureau) in New
York. He created original dance numbers for Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle,
and conducted the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolics orchestra for eight years.
He wrote the Broadway stage score for "Rang Tang". Joining ASCAP in
1937, his chief musical collaborators included Joe Trent, Cecil Mack,
and Lew Brown. His other popular-song and instrumental compositions
include "That Minor strain", "Oh You Devil" and "Puerto Rico".
