76. Harry Warren

You might not realize it, but the tunes you sing in the shower may be that of a great Italian-American composer! In fact, you wouldn't realize that even if you knew the composer's name, because Harry Warren couldn't sound less Italian. In fact, Harry Warren wrote the music to some of the most popular American standards ever.

He was born in Brooklyn Salvatore Guaragna in 1893, but the Guaragna family, like many Italian immigrants during this period, opted to change their name to an "American" one because of the rampant prejudice they experienced.

"I remember as a child I had no interest in being Italian, only in being an American," he said. "Strangely, many years later, as an adult, I got to appreciate my Italian background and thought about sometimes going to Italy to live."

From 1932 to 1957, Harry Warren, paired with a variety of lyricists, including Johnny Mercer, Mack Gordon, and Al Dubin, produced over 250 songs for motion-picture musicals, which were then in their golden age. From this output, an astonishing fifty titles are considered standards and are sung and played almost daily somewhere in the world. One of his earliest successes was his music for the film 42nd Street (1932), with two big hits in "Shuffle off to Buffalo" and "You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me." From there, it was only up, up, up.

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