Songwriters Hall of FameInducted 1970 | ASCAP Writer

Composer Walter Donaldson was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 15, 1893. He was a son of a piano teacher and showed an early talent for composition, writing songs for plays put on by his fellow high school students. After graduating from high school, he worked as a clerk in a Wall Street brokerage house and then found a job as a demonstrator for music publishers. The great irony of Donaldson’s early career is that he was fired as a demonstrator when he was found writing his own music during business hours!

Donaldson’s first success came in 1915 with the song “Back Home in Tennessee”, a top five hit in 1916 for Prince’s Orchestra. Later that year he wrote “You’d Never Know the Old Home Town of Mine”, lyric by Howard Johnson and a top ten hit for Byron Harlan in 1916. From 1916 through 1919, he wrote several hit songs including “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady”, “You’re a Million Miles from Nowhere”, “I’ll be Happy When the Preacher Makes You Mine”, “How Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?” and “Don’t Cry, Frenchy”.

During World War I he entertained troops at US Army Camps, and it was at Camp Upton that he befriended the young Irving Berlin. In 1919, he joined Berlin’s publishing firm, Irving Berlin, Inc. Working for Berlin, Donaldson wrote “My Mammy”, “Down South”, “My Little Bimbo Down on a Bamboo Isle”, “My Buddy”, “Carolina in the Morning”, “Beside a Babbling Brook”, “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby”, “That Certain Party”, “My Sweetie Turned Me Down”, “Isn’t She the Sweetest Thing”, “For My Sweetheart”, “At Sundown”, “My Blue Heaven” and “Makin’ Whoopie”. Donaldson left Irving Berlin, Inc. in 1928 and founded his own publishing company, Donaldson, Douglas & Gumble.

Under contract with film studios, Donaldson moved to Hollywood in 1929. He would contribute songs to many film musicals including Glorifying the American Girl, Kid Millions, The Great Ziegfeld, Suzi, Two Girls on Broadway, Panama Hattie and Follow the Boys.

Working with lyricists, including Edgar Leslie, Sam Lewis, Joe Young, Gus Kahn, Cliff Friend, Harold Adamson and Johnny Mercer, Donaldson wrote “My Baby Just Cares For Me”, “Love Me or Leave Me”, “Kansas City Kitty”, “Let it Rain, Let it Pour”, “In the Middle of the Night”, “Georgia”, “My Best Girl”, “Sam, the Old Accordion Man”, “Just Like a Melody Out of the Sky”, “You Didn’t Have to Tell Me”, “An Evening in Carolina”, “You’re Driving Me Crazy”, “Did I Remember”, “Little White Lies”, “I’m Bringing a Red, Red Rose”, “Mister Meadowlark”, “Cuckoo in the Clock”, “You”, “It’s Been So Long”, “My Blackbirds are Bluebirds Now”, “My Mom”, “Lazy Lousiana Moon”, “An Earful of Music”, “Could Be” and “You Never Looked So Beautiful Before”.

Walter Donaldson died in Santa Monica, California on July 15, 1947.

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