David Rose born 15 June 1910

 

David Rose (June 15, 1910 – August 23, 1990) was a British-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, and orchestra leader and was one of the most popular and distinctive mainstream instrumental pop composers of the '40s,'50s and '60s, He was responsible for two numbers that embody the two moral poles of exotica: "Holiday for Strings" and "The Stripper." 

Recipient of four Emmy awards, David Rose was born in London to Jewish parents and raised in Chicago and he studied at the Chicago College of Music. After starting as an arranger for NBC Radio in Chicago, he moved to Hollywood in 1928 and led the orchestra for the Mutual Broadcasting network. Mutual is supposed to have forced Rose to cut his orchestra back to just a string section to save costs, leading him to focus on writing for strings.  

He was married on October 8, 1938, to the actress Martha Raye. They were divorced on May 19, 1941. He was married for a second time, on July 28, 1941, to the actress and singer Judy Garland. They had no children, though Garland reportedly underwent at least one abortion during the marriage, at the insistence of her mother, her husband, and the studio that employed her, MGM. Garland and Rose divorced in 1944. He had two daughters with his third wife, Betty Bartholomew. His granddaughter is singer-songwriter Samantha James.   

 

The climax of this period was his 1944 hit, "Holiday for Strings," or as we all know and love it, "that shopping song." "Holiday for Strings" was also later used as the theme song for the Garry Moore and Red Skelton shows.  

Rose joined MGM after the war and worked for the studio in television, film, and recordings. He orchestrated much of the first few seasons of "Bonanza." He backed a number of MGM's vocalists, including Connie Francis on her hit, "My Happiness," and had several instrumental hits of his own. He cashed in on the calypso craze of 1956-57 with "Calypso Melody," a Top 40 hit. He also released an album of classical pieces done with upbeat rhythm sections, titled "Concert with a Beat."  Rose was a live steam hobbyist, with his own backyard railroad.   

"The Stripper" was composed by Rose and recorded in 1958. It was originally used as the B-side to his single, "Ebb Tide". The choice of the record's B-side was not by Rose, but by an MGM office boy. MGM indicated they wanted to put the record on the market quickly. A B-side was needed and with Rose away, the office boy went through some of Rose's tapes searching for one. "The Stripper" featured especially prominent trombone lines, giving the tune its lascivious signature, and evokes the feel of music used to accompany burlesque striptease artists. The piece features in the films Slap Shot, The Full Monty and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as well as TV series Little Britain and Scrubs. It was also famously used in a parody by British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, where they danced to the tune while making breakfast.
 

He continued to work in television, serving as musical director for the series "Little House on the Prairie" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He died in Burbank, California of a heart attack at the age of 80 and was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California. (info edited from spageagepop.com & Wikipedia)