- Born
- Died
- Composer of the rousing ragtime classic "A Hot Time in the Old Town", which became the theme song of the Spanish-American War in 1898. (Theodore Roosevelt once conducted the tune and commented that he was "proud to shake the hand of the man who wrote the song that stirred a nation.") Metz maintained a desk at the Marks Music Corporation offices in New York and, with his frock coat and flowing tie, dressed like an "oldtime German music master" as Time Magazine described him in 1935.
- IMDb mini biography by: Louis Rugani
- I was with Mclntyre & Heath's Minstrels as the bandmaster in 1886, and we were trouping through Louisiana. . . . On the train we passed a village called Old Town and there was a Negro's cabin burning. Mac turned to me and said: 'There'll be a hot time in Old Town tonight.' It had the ring a good title ought to have and I jotted it down on the top of an envelope upon which I was scribbling the notes of a new march I was composing for our parade in New Orleans. The march became the song and the title was Mac's. - From a TIME Magazine interview
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