Background
Important end-of-life details for composer Alonzo Elliot:
In the late 1950s or early 1960s he enrolled as a student of Russian at University of Texas (Austin). I was a classmate of his. He'd often invite the class to his Austin apartment for snacks and music... and tell us about his life. During his time at UT, he wrote music to the Russian poem жди меня "Wait for Me". I do not know if that music was ever published... and I do not hold a copy. Another interesting "factoid" is that he told the class that he had named his car (back in New England) "Sir John Rabbit"! Zo's life at UT is not mentioned in any biography that I can find... and is totally missing from the entry for him in Wikipedia. I hope you might find corroborating sources for this information and see that this end-of-life detail might be added to Alonzo Elliot's biography!
Education
Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, Elliot was educated at Saint Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, Phillips Academy (Andover, Massachusetts), Yale University, Cambridge University, and Columbia Law School. He also studied music privately with Nadia Boulanger and Leonard Bernstein, among others
Career
His best-known composition is "There"s a Long Long Trail A-Winding", a popular song from the era of World War I. Elliott wrote the music, and Stoddard King (1889–1933), Elliot"s chief song collaborator, wrote the lyrics, when they were seniors at Yale. The song was published in London in 1914 (no United States publisher would gamble on it), but a December 1913 copyright for the music is claimed by Zo Elliot. In Elliot"s own words told to me shortly before his death in 1964, he created the music as an idle pursuit one day in his dorm room at Yale in 1913.
King walked in, liked the music and suggested a first line.
Elliot sang out the second, and so they went through the lyrics. And they performed it—with trepidation—before the fraternity that evening.
The interview was published as an article in the New Haven Register and later reprinted in Yankee Magazine. lieutenant then appeared on page 103 of "The Best of Yankee Magazine".
