Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Lane, Burton

(born Morris Hyman Kushner), American composer of popular music; b. N.Y., Feb. 2, 1912; d. there, Jan. 5, 1997. Lane studied piano as a child and played strings in the school band. Showing early talent in music, he composed some pieces for the band while still a teenager.

After leaving high school, Lane was hired by Remick Music, a N.Y.-based publishing firm, where he met GEORGE GERSHWIN, who encouraged him to continue composing. Lane's first Broadway songs appeared in the 1929 revue Three's a Crowd, with lyrics by Harold Dietz. Two years later, he placed some songs in Earl Carroll Vanities of 1931.

With Broadway work drying up because of the Depression, Lane moved to Hollywood. He wrote for some 40 films between the early '30s and the mid-'50s, including St. Louis Blues, Babes on Broadway (including How About You?), Ship Ahoy, and Royal Wedding (including Too Late Now). Among the lyricists who worked with him were IRA GERSHWIN, FRANK LOESSER, E.Y. HARBURG, and ALAN JAY LERNER.

In the '40s, Lane returned to Broadway with a series of hit shows, including Hold On to Your Hats (1940), Laffing Room Only (1944), and the classic Finian's Rainbow. After a period of inactivity, he returned with the smash 1965 hit On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Sadly, his last show, 1978's Carmelina, also with lyrics by Lerner, died soon after it opened.

Lane was a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In the early '90s, he accompanied popular singer Michael Feinstein on a two-CD set of his songs.