Carrie Jacobs-Bond

An enterprising spirit, Carrie Jacobs-Bond formed her own publishing company to publish her music and achieved great success through her parlor and art songs.

Photo: Carrie Jacobs-Bond, public domain.

Print This Page

About

Born in Wisconsin, Carrie Jacobs-Bond composed at a young age, and her only formal training came from with local teachers. At 18, she married E. J. Smith, and after their son was born, the two separated. She remarried to Frank Lewis Bond in 1889. Her first song was published in 1894, the same year that her husband died, and soon afterwards, she moved to Chicago and began her own publishing company, Carrie Jacobs-Bond & Son, due to frustration with established publishing companies.

In order to have her songs heard, Jacobs-Bond played and sang them herself, and baritone David Bispham sang an entire recital of her songs in Chicago in 1901. Of her 175 published songs, two became very popular: I Love You Truly (1901) and Perfect Day (1910). The publishing business continued throughout her lifetime, and after moving the company eight times, it finally settled in Hollywood. In 1927, Jacobs-Bond published her autobiography, The Roads of Melody, but stopped composing after her son’s suicide in 1928.

–Christie Finn

Source: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Related Information

Songs

Videos

Recordings

Paul Robeson - The Complete EMI Sessions

(Charles Wakefield Cadman, Henry T. Burleigh, Benjamin Carr, Will Marion Cook, Stephen Foster, Langston Hughes, Carrie Jacobs-Bond, Ethelbert Nevin, Oscar Rasbach and Oley Speaks)

1938

Songs You Love

(Victor Herbert and Carrie Jacobs-Bond)

1954

Songs My Grandmother Taught Me

(Carrie Jacobs-Bond)

2001

Rosa Ponselle On the Air, Vol. 1

(Carrie Jacobs-Bond, Ethelbert Nevin and Charles Gilbert Spross)

2000

Moonlight Bay

(William Bolcom, Oley Speaks, George M. Cohan, Paul Dresser, Victor Herbert and Carrie Jacobs-Bond)

1999

Songs of America

(William Bolcom, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Stephen Foster, Charles Ives, Carrie Jacobs-Bond, Sergius Kagen, Theodore Roethke, Ned Rorem, Carl Sandburg, William Jay Smith and Gertrude Stein)

1988

Books

Sheet Music

"A Perfect Day" (High Key)

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Voice Type: High

Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

"A Perfect Day" (Low Key)

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Voice Type: Low

Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

First Solos: Songs by Women Composers, Volume I: High Voice

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Song(s): Her Greatest Charm

Buy via the Hildegard Publishing Company

Half-Minute Songs

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Song(s): 1. Making the Best of It
2. First Ask Yourself
3. To Understand
4. How to Find Success
5. The Pleasure of Giving
6. Answer the First Rap
7. A Good Exercise
8. A Present from Yourself
9. Now and Then
10. When They Say the Unkind Things
11. Keep Awake
12. Doan' Yo' Lis'n

Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

"Nothin' But Love" (High Key)

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Voice Type: High

Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

"Nothin' But Love" (Low Key)

Composer(s): Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Voice Type: Low

Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

Support us and help us grow

Dear friends, Thank you for helping us build a comprehensive online archive of American song. Your gift is greatly appreciated.