Scope and Content Note
This collection represents neither all nor most of Byers’ work as a composer, arranger and orchestrator, but provides a sampling of the diverse styles, musical forces, variety of performers and situations that he worked for and with. The scores here range from works for recordings, live performances, television shows, and film scores; for groups that range from small combos to big bands to orchestras of symphonic proportions; and for an eclectic array of singers, from pop to jazz to rock to rhythm and blues to disco; and even dancers. Missing here are any of Byers’ arrangements and orchestrations for Broadway musicals. It is hoped that someday this gap, too, will be filled by other collections in the Library.
Unless otherwise noted, all items in the Billy Byers Collection are full scores in Byers’ hand, and most of these are in ink on transparencies.
The collection came to the Library with most of the scores in envelopes marked in alphabetical order, usually marked with the name of a performer, but occasionally marked with the name of a project or a song title. We have retained that organization as closely as possible. In some cases, this arrangement results in scores for the same project ending up in different places. For instance, there were several envelopes marked “Steve and Eydie” which contained, among other things, scores for the television special Steve and Eydie Celebrate Irving Berlin. There were also scores for the same show in envelopes for the performers Carol Burnett and Sammy Davis Jr. Rather than put these scores together, we have kept them in the original order, but have included cross-references to help researchers find related materials. There are a few scores that may well have been inadvertently placed in the wrong envelopes before coming to the Library; for example, “Intro to 3 girls revised” which was included with the Ann-Margret materials. Unless there was additional evidence which convinced us that this was a mistake (such as an entry for this item appearing in another designation in the notebook inventorying the collection), we left it where it was found, but added a cross-reference–in this case to Three Girls Three.
In addition to song/work titles, other relevant information that appears on title pages is included in our listing following the colon. This information is often a date, a show title, the name of a record label, or some other piece of information that might help the researcher better identify the piece. Several of the scores include the designation “vaudeville.” We inquired of several people who had worked with Byers about the use of this term. The best guess was provided by the conductor Ian Fraser, who thought it indicated that fees for the arrangement had been calculated according to the scale charged for a live performance (original use); if the arrangement subsequently was used on a recording or as part of a television performance, an additional fee might be charged.
Because most of the collection is organized by the name of a performer, we have added a song index at the back of the finding aid. This index also includes songs we were able to identify among the many medleys (we were not able to identify all of them). It does not include the individual cue titles found in the film scores; instead, the major work titles for those films are indexed by “Miscellaneous cues.”
Mark Eden Horowitz, 2003