Fleta Jan Brown Spencer, from the cover of 1915 sheet music for her song, "Dandelion"
Born
Fleta Jan Brown
March 8, 1882
Iowa
Died
September 2, 1938
Hackensack, New Jersey
Nationality
American
Occupation(s)
songwriter, composer
Fleta Jan Brown Spencer (March 8, 1882 – September 2, 1938) was an American songwriter, composer, pianist, and singer.
Early life
Fleta Jan Brown was born near
Sioux Rapids, Iowa, the daughter of William Edward Brown and Jennie Etta Watkins Brown. Her father was a barber. She trained as a pianist and composer at the
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.[1]
Career
Brown moved to
St. Louis, Missouri, after her studies in Cincinnati, and published her first three songs in 1905. After she married fellow songwriter Herbert Spencer, the pair moved to New York, and there were prolific songwriters, sharing credit on dozens of songs published by
M. Witmark & Sons, and by
Jerome H. Remick. They also performed together at times, both as singers and pianists, in concerts and on the
vaudeville stage.[1][2]
Songs with music, lyrics, or both by Brown included "Tangle Foot Rag" (1907),[3] "Fancies" (1908), "I Wish I was in Heaven Sittin' Down" (1908),[4] "The Party That Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was a Married Man" (1908, later covered by
Jerry Garcia),[5] "O Wondrous Night in June" (1909), "I Know a Blossom" (1909), "In the Dusk" (1909), "The Birth of Love" (1909), "Tickle Toes" (1910), "Back to the Old Folks At Home" (1913), "Kiss Me Again (I Like it)" (1914), "In the Candle-Light" (1914),[6] "When All The World's at Peace" (1914),[7] "Dandelion" (1915),[8] "Underneath the Stars" (1916), "Somewhere my Love Lies Dreaming" (1916), "Now that the Fighting is Over" (1918),[9] "Kiss Me With Your Eyes" (1923),[10] "Rose of Old Castille" (1924) "I Know a Blossom" (1936), "In a Gipsy Camp" (1936), "Vagabond's Bridal March" (1936), and "The Vagabond's Dream" (1936).[11][12][13][14]
Personal life
Fleta Jan Brown married fellow composer and songwriter Herbert D. Spencer in 1907.[15] She died in 1938, aged 56 years, at a hospital in
Hackensack, New Jersey.[2]
^"Brown-Spencer". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. September 10, 1907. p. 6. Retrieved July 20, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
External links
"In Old Brazil" (1916), sheet music for a song by Herbert Spencer and Fleta Jan Brown, in the Vocal Popular Sheet Music Collection, DigitalCommons@UMaine.
"Underneath the Stars" (1915), sheet music for a song by Herbert Spencer and Fleta Jan Brown.