Object Details
- Description
This sheet music for the song “I'll Be Seeing You,” written by Irving Kahl and composed by Sammy Fain, was published by Williamson Music, Inc. in New York, New York, in 1938. The cover features a photograph of Hildegarde over a sketch of an outdoor café at nighttime. Hildegarde was an extremely popular club singer in the middle of the 20th century, called “the first lady of supper clubs” by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Singer-pianist Hildegarde (Hildegarde Loretta Sell) was a native of Adell, Wisconsin. She was in turn, a youthful Milwaukee pianist in a silent movie house, a member of a male orchestra that toured vaudeville, a member of the Grand Quartette (or, Jerry & Her Baby Grands) and an accompanist for many other vaudeville acts. She was also part of Gus Edwards' touring troupe as a child "immigrant" who danced and sang "Dutch" songs. Between 1933 and 1936 she worked in London on radio and in clubs and cabarets, recording her first vocal in 1933. Late in 1936 she began appearing on American radio broadcasts and in U.S. hotels and clubs. From 1943 to 1946 she starred in her own radio programs and again appeared as a top-billed club performer in New York and other cities. She continued European and American engagements in clubs and television through the 1970s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- lyricist
- Kahal, Irving
- composer
- Fain, Sammy
- performer; depicted (sitter)
- Hildegarde
- publisher
- Williamson Music Inc.
- publishing date
- 1938
- Credit Line
- Gift of Hildegarde
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- ink (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 12 in x 9 in; 30.48 cm x 22.86 cm
- Object Name
- sheet music
