Song library
Browse piano sheets by Thomas S. Allen on Zen Virtual Piano. Among Thomas S. Allen’s songs, “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” (1913), also known as “Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal” or “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal,” was included in Bruce Springsteen’s folk album the Seeger Sessions. A song dated 1913 that sits on a folk album, shows how a tune can pass into common memory. Allen (1876–1919) was an early figure in Tin Pan Alley, an American vaudeville composer, manager and violinist, born in Natick, Massachusetts, who died in Boston. In 1902 his popular fusion of schottische and ragtime, “Any Rags,” became a major hit, with a companion song, “Scissors to Grind.” A composer behind both a schottische-ragtime hit and a piece now performed at circuses and rodeos shows range across kinds of entertainment. The baritone Arthur Collins, known as the “King of the Ragtime Singers,” popularized a piece on Edison cylinders and Victor records, helping to cement Thomas Allen’s reputation as a composer. His “Whip and Spur” (1902) is performed at circuses and rodeos. Thomas was born at the end of the centennial year of 1876 to Irish immigrants, and had additional instruction in violin. His first publication, “Bergen Beach March,” was self-issued in mid-1896, when he was still nineteen, and was followed a year or so later by “You Be My Girl.” From 1908 to 1910 he had his own music company at 218 Tremont Street, and with many of the pieces he published, especially the orchestra versions, he also had illustrated slides made by the North American Slide Company in Philadelphia. A business that paired printed music with illustrated slides suggests a publisher thinking about how songs were seen as well as heard. As a musical director he was part of a troupe from late 1917 through early 1919, traveling around the East, Northeast and Midwest of the United States and the fringes of southern Canada. A touring musical director’s life, from the East to the fringes of southern Canada, suggests that he knew the audiences of the vaudeville circuit at first hand. He had grown ill by mid-to-late 1918, and he collapsed after a matinee at the Bastable Theater in Syracuse, New York, on April 10, 1919.
Browse piano sheets by Thomas S. Allen on Zen Virtual Piano.
Among Thomas S. Allen’s songs, “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” (1913), also known as “Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal” or “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal,” was included in Bruce Springsteen’s folk album the Seeger Sessions. A song dated 1913 that sits on a folk album, shows how a tune can pass into common memory. Allen (1876–1919) was an early figure in Tin Pan Alley, an American vaudeville composer, manager and violinist, born in Natick, Massachusetts, who died in Boston.
In 1902 his popular fusion of schottische and ragtime, “Any Rags,” became a major hit, with a companion song, “Scissors to Grind.” A composer behind both a schottische-ragtime hit and a piece now performed at circuses and rodeos shows range across kinds of entertainment. The baritone Arthur Collins, known as the “King of the Ragtime Singers,” popularized a piece on Edison cylinders and Victor records, helping to cement Thomas Allen’s reputation as a composer. His “Whip and Spur” (1902) is performed at circuses and rodeos.
Thomas was born at the end of the centennial year of 1876 to Irish immigrants, and had additional instruction in violin. His first publication, “Bergen Beach March,” was self-issued in mid-1896, when he was still nineteen, and was followed a year or so later by “You Be My Girl.”
From 1908 to 1910 he had his own music company at 218 Tremont Street, and with many of the pieces he published, especially the orchestra versions, he also had illustrated slides made by the North American Slide Company in Philadelphia. A business that paired printed music with illustrated slides suggests a publisher thinking about how songs were seen as well as heard. As a musical director he was part of a troupe from late 1917 through early 1919, traveling around the East, Northeast and Midwest of the United States and the fringes of southern Canada. A touring musical director’s life, from the East to the fringes of southern Canada, suggests that he knew the audiences of the vaudeville circuit at first hand. He had grown ill by mid-to-late 1918, and he collapsed after a matinee at the Bastable Theater in Syracuse, New York, on April 10, 1919.
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Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Thomas S. Allen
Common questions
A popular fusion of schottische and ragtime by Thomas S. Allen that became a major hit in 1902, with a companion song, “Scissors to Grind.”
“Low Bridge, Everybody Down” (1913), also known as “Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal” or “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal.”
He was a violinist and manager, ran his own music company at 218 Tremont Street from 1908 to 1910, and later served as a musical director with a troupe.