Mills, Kerry (real name, Frederick Allen)
Mills, Kerry (real name, Frederick Allen)
Mills, Kerry (real name, Frederick Allen), American composer and music publisher; b. Philadelphia, Feb. 1, 1869; d. Hawthorne, Calif., Dec. 5, 1948. He was active as a violinist, and taught violin at a private cons, in Ann Arbor, Mich., known as the Univ. School of Music (1892–93). Adopting the name Kerry Mills, he publ, his own cakewalk march Rufus on Parade (1895). Encouraged by its favorable sales, he moved to N.Y., where he became one of the most important publishers of minstrel songs, cakewalks, early ragtime, and other popular music. His own compositions were particularly successful; At a Georgia Campmeeting (1897) became the standard against which all other cakewalks were measured; performed in Europe by John Philip Sousa, it became popular there as well; it was roundly denounced in the Leipzig Illustrierte Zeitung (Feb. 5, 1903), and may well have been the inspiration for Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk. Some of his other hits also reached Europe; his Whistling Rufus (1899) was publ, in Berlin as Rufus das Pfeifergigerl. He also wrote the popular song Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis (1904) for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis that year; it was revived for the film of that title starring Judy Garland (1944). He also wrote sacred songs as Frederick Allen Mills.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire