Ted Koehler


Ted L. Koehler was an American lyricist. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.

Life and career

Koehler was born in 1894 in Washington, D.C.
He started out as a photo-engraver, but was attracted to the music business, where he started out as a theater pianist for silent films.
He moved on to write for vaudeville and Broadway theatre, and he also produced nightclub shows.
His most successful collaboration was with the composer Harold Arlen, with whom he wrote many famous songs from the 1920s through the 1940s. In 1929 the duo composed their first well-known song, "Get Happy", and went on to create "Let's Fall in Love", "Stormy Weather" and other hit songs. Throughout the early and mid-1930s they wrote for the Cotton Club, a popular Harlem night club, for big band jazz legend Duke Ellington and other top performers, as well as for Broadway musicals and Hollywood films.
Koehler also worked with other composers, including Rube Bloom, Harry Warren and Sammy Fain.
Koehler died in 1973 in Santa Monica at the age of 78.

Songs