Tonight's selection is the ever popular Smiles by Lee S Roberts, a familiar name to player piano afficianados. This song was written in 1917, and is a marker for the end of an era. Romantic songs, songs about Mother, minstrel songs, and Great War songs all were part of a genre that mostly disappeared after Smiles. The Jazz Age began in 1920 with the recording Whispering by Paul Whiteman, and recording and performing styles would undergo rapid changes when microphones came into use in the mid-1920's. Note the barbershop type of ending on this song...it made me smile.
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