Irving Bibo
Also recorded as Irving M. Bibo · Irving Mortimer Bibo
Irving Bibo
- Born
- 1889 · San Francisco.
- Died
- 1962 · Hollywood.
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- composer · songwriter
- Languages
- English
In this article
Key facts
• Name — Irving Bibo
• Born — 1889 8 22
• Birthplace — San Francisco, California, U.S.
• Died — 1962 5 2
• Place of death — West Los Angeles, California, U.S.
• Occupation — Composer, songwriter, and publisher
• Associated Acts — John Philip Sousa
Irving Bibo (August 22, 1889 – May 2, 1962) was an American composer, songwriter, and publisher.
Biography
• Illustration — Cover of the Mickey Mouse Book that Bibo contributed a game to
Bibo was born in San Francisco.
He began his career in New York in the mid 1910s as a Tin Pan Alley composer, writing tunes for the Ziegfeld Follies (including "Huggable, Kissable You", "Forever and a Day" and "Cherie"), the Greenwich Village Follies, and other theatrical productions. He was a staff pianist for Leo Feist (where in 1921 he gave Billy Rose his first songwriting break by contributing music for Ain't Nature Grand).
In 1933 he moved to Los Angeles and scored more than 300 motion pictures, and later in life published several fight songs.
Bibo was the first licensee of Disney merchandise. His daughter Bobette, at the age of 12, wrote the book Mickey Mouse Book, containing stories, games, and cutouts. He contributed the song Mickey Mouse (You Cute Little Feller). It was illustrated by Walt Disney Studios, and published by Bibo and Charles Lang in 1930.
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
San Francisco.
Birth place
Hollywood.
Death place
Selected compositions
• Huggable, Kissable You
• Forever and a Day
• Cherie (an American fox trot song with a Parisian twist), lyrics by Leo Wood
• Those Panama Mamas
• Am I Wasting My Time on You
• My Cutey's Due at Two-to-Two To-Day
• Sweet Little You
• Do You Believe in Dreams
• Lo-Ki (1919, with Ed Rose and Henry Bergman)
• I've Got the Profiteering Blues (lyrics by Al Wilson, featuring the complaint "the more I make, the more they take")
• Where Are You, Girl of My Dreams? (1932, written with Bing Crosby and Paul McVey, featured in the film The Cohens And Kellys in Hollywood).
• Letty Pepper, a musical comedy produced by Oliver Morosco, a sequel to Morsco's earlier Letty productions So Long Letty, Linger Longer Letty, and Let 'Er Go, Letty, all starring Charlotte Greenwood. It was an adaptation of Charles Klein's play Maggie Pepper; Bibo contributed lyrics with Leo Wood, the music was by Werner Janssen. It ran for 32 performances in 1922 at the Vanderbilt Theatre. Songs included:
• Every Little Miss Must Have a Mister
• (Once Upon) A Moonlight Night, written with Sydney Clare
• Where have those Old Timers Gone (1924, written with Howard Johnson and Henry Santly)
• Dancing Down in Dixie Land (with Abe Olman)
• Ain't Nature Grand (1921, lyrics by Billy Rose)
• Old Man Atom (a satirical anti-nuclear song from around 1946 popularized by Pete Seeger, written with Vern Partlow, for which Bibo sold the rights to Alamo Music in 1950)
• Oriental Eyes (with Leo Wood, an adaptation of Cesar Cui's Orientale)
• Sealed Hearts (1919, lyrics by Alex Sullivan)
For schools:
• The Stanford Scalp Song (1953, with Paul Yoder)
• Sing UCLA
• Fight On Michigan State
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Irving Bibo, revision 1345860817 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record.
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: the Composers, the Songs, the Performers, and their Times. 188.
- 2.Burton, Jack. The Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters. No. 81 - Billy Rose. The Billboard. 39. December 16, 1950.
- 3.Collection Overview. Online Archive of California.
- 4.Mickey Mouse Book. (Story and game originated by B. Bibo. Drawings by Walt Disney Studios.) WorldCat.org. search.worldcat.org.
- 5.RR Auction. Hollywood Auction - April 2013. 105. 2013.
- 6.Wood, Leo, 1882-1929. Cherie: An American Fox Trot Song with a Parisian Twist.
- 7.Jasen, David A. Tin Pan Alley: The Composers, the Songs, the Performers, and Their Times: the Golden Age of American Popular Music from 1886 to 1956. New York: D.I. Fine, 1988;
- 8.secondhandsongs.com.
- 9.Irving Bibo, 72, Writer of Songs, Film Scores. The New York Times. 33. May 3, 1962.
- 10.Moon, Krystyn R. Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s. Rutgers University Press. 176. 2005. 978-0-8135-3507-4.
- 11.Holloway, Diane. American History in Song: Lyrics from 1900 to 1945. iUniverse. 195. 2001-08-01. 978-1-4697-0453-1.
- 12.Hayter-Menzies, Grant. Charlotte Greenwood: The Life and Career of the Comic Star of Vaudeville, Radio and Film. McFarland. 77. 2007-05-02. 978-0-7864-2995-0.
- 13.Wood, Leo, 1882-1929. Every little miss must have a mister : fox-trot, from Oliver Morosco's musical comedy "Letty Pepper".
- 14.Silva, Luiz Carlo Nascimento. Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 121. 2000-03-30. 978-0-313-09653-2.
- 15.'Atom' Rights to Alamo. The Billboard. 14. August 5, 1950.
- 16.Ewen, David. All the Years of American Popular Music. Prentice-Hall. 449. 1977. 978-0-13-022442-2.
- 17.Glickman, J. S. Sealed Hearts.
- 18.Vaché, Warren W. The Unsung Songwriters: America's Masters of Melody. Scarecrow Press. 31. 2000. 978-0-8108-3570-2.
- 19.Stanford Songs and Songbooks collection. oac.cdlib.org.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 31 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
41,276 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Irv KlugerPerson
- Irvine ArdittiPerson
- Irving AshbyPerson
- Irving BerlinPerson
- Irving FazolaPerson
- Irving FinePerson
- Irving GertzPerson
- Irving MillsPerson
Best supported in this field
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