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Grace Notes: Musical Nicknames

If you are studying to become a contestant on Jeopardy, enjoy regaling your friends with your fund of trivial knowledge, and are tired of memorizing the Time Almanac or World Book Encyclopedia, I have another source to suggest. Musical AKAs: Assumed Names and Sobriquets of Composers, Songwriters, Librettists, Lyricists, Hymnists, and Writers on Music by Jeanette Marie Drone is an index to over 15,000 assumed identities of over 9,000 composers, librettists, lyricists and songwriters. The author has combed through biographical dictionaries, encyclopedias, individual biographies, journal articles, websites, etc. to ascertain all of the legal name changes, nicknames and pseudonyms and has provided the corroborating bibliographic citations.

Here are some fun ones:

Gene Autry America's Number One Singing Cowboy

John Coltrane Blue Train

Amy Grant Madonna of Gospel Music

Charles Edward Ives American Father of Musical Modernism

Michael Jackson King of Pop

Audrey Lynn Little Organ Annie

Jim Morrison Lizard King

William Smith The Lion

Stephen Sondheim Broadway's Brightest Hope

John Philip Sousa The March King


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