Jerome Kern
Kern was born in 1885 in New York, and studied piano from a very young age (exact age? Not quite sure.). In his early teens Kern went to Germany to study at a music conservatory, After which he returned to New York to work at various jobs in the music industry, as a song plugger and a rehersal pianist, and at the age of 17 he had his first song published! After that point Kern quite frequently had his songs interpolated into scores written mainly by other composers (as was typical at the time), but did not write his whole own score until 1915 when, working with book and lyricist Guy Bolton, he wrote Nobody Home. Although not an overwhelming success, it was well recieved and the first of the "Princess Theatre Musicals." The Princess Theatre was a tiny theatre (seating 299) and a string of musicals written for the theatre were little, intimate, well integrated musicals. The next in the string was Very Good Eddie, which was a smash hit, and after that sucess Bolton and Kern were joined by P.G. Wodehouse, who helped by taking over the lyrics while Bolton concentrated on the book for subsequent (popular) musicals.