WINTER: (Reading) I have since checked your statement and found it to be true. WINTER: (Reading) I was delighted with the parts of your letter praising my work and thrown into consternation by the unwelcome news about the eccentrically frigid behavior of ewes in June. He raised sheep, he said, and they mate just once a year in late autumn, hence spring lamb. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) Because it's June. All the rams that chase the ewe-sheep are determined there'll be new sheep, and the ewe-sheep aren't even keeping score. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) The sheep aren't sleeping anymore. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) June is bustin' out all over. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'JUNE IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER') After a backer's audition for 'Carousel,' he got a note from a potential investor who was also a farmer praising his work but saying if accuracy mattered. MONDELLO: Not that Hammerstein was always right. I had never heard the expression before, and neither had you. WINTER: (Reading) The expression was originated by me, and if it was an old one and in the public domain, the public seemed blindly unconscious of it until 1926, when the song was introduced. In 1937, a Hollywood studio planned a film to be titled 'Ol' Man River,' and the lawyer said he'd investigate, but he didn't think he could stop it since Hammerstein hadn't originated the phrase he'd just used an old expression that was in the public domain. MONDELLO: He would later have to correct even his own lawyer about this particular song. WINTER: (Reading) They are from a song called 'Can't Help Lovin' That Man.' In 'Ol' Man River,' there is nothing about either swimming or flying. You may also inform them that these words are not from 'Ol' Man River.' HARRY WINTER: (Reading) You may tell the Nash Airflight Magazine that it is OK to use the words fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly in the context they submitted. MONDELLO: The best of the best that made it into the volume showcase not just the creative Hammerstein, but Hammerstein the businessman, the mentor and occasionally the corrector - as when a magazine asked permission to quote the lyrics of 'Ol' Man River.' Hammerstein's response read for the audience by actor Harry Winter. MARK EDEN HOROWITZ: And ended up transcribing over 4,600 of them. He had, he told the audience, read through virtually all of the 25,000 letters in the Oscar Hammerstein collection. And critic Bob Mondello says the publishing on Friday of a volume called 'The Letters Of Oscar Hammerstein II' will make his correspondence widely available for the first time.īOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Shortly after sending the thousand-page manuscript to the publisher, editor Mark Eden Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the Library of Congress, hosted an evening at the library called As Ever, Oscar. SHAPIRO: Hammerstein's papers are now housed at the Library of Congress. Take it while I think of it, and it'll be off my mind. SHAPIRO: He recorded this for his secretary. OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN: This has nothing to do with the 'Flower Drum Song,' but this is a letter I have to write, so will you. When Hammerstein wasn't writing lyrics, he was still writing. Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein helped revolutionize the American musical, arguably, twice first with 'Show Boat' in 1927 and then with 'Oklahoma!,' which he wrote with Richard Rodgers in 1943. ALFRED DRAKE: (As Curly, singing) Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

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