Background
Joseph was born on January 11, 1870 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Charles and Theresa (Katz) Stern. His parents had both been born in Germany, his father in Cologne and his mother in Frankfort.
Joseph was born on January 11, 1870 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Charles and Theresa (Katz) Stern. His parents had both been born in Germany, his father in Cologne and his mother in Frankfort.
He completed his elementary education.
After studies Stern was put to work as a traveling salesman in his father's neckwear business (C. Stern & Mayer). Since he had a gift for composing tunes, he decided to start a music-publishing business in partnership with a friend, Edward B. Marks. Later Stern and Edward B. Marks began to publish songs together. They opened offices as Joseph W. Stern & Company at 304 East Fourteenth St. in 1894.
Partly because it was one of the sentimental narrative songs then in great vogue, and partly because Stern and Marks displayed great enterprise in promoting it, their "The Little Lost Child" proved a tremendous success. It was one of the first songs to be sung with illustrated "song slides, " which the authors themselves ordered made.
Weekly they visited the principal resorts where music was performed, to persuade singers, pianists, and orchestra leaders to include Stern songs in their repertoires.
In 1896 they wrote "My Mother Was a Lady, or, If Jack Were Only Here, " a rather maudlin effort as successful as their first, suggested by an incident that occurred in a German restaurant when a waitress spoke indignantly in the words of the title to a patron who annoyed her by his attentions.
By ascertaining popular trends and observing public demand they secured from other writers compositions that achieved wide circulation, and they soon stood among the leading publishers of current successes. For many years Stern went abroad annually, bringing back with him the American rights to such foreign songs as the English popular song, "Elsie from Chelsea, " which they published in 1896, Paul Lincke's "Glow Worm, " and "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, " which was published in 1911 but did not achieve popularity until it was used in the Chauve-Souris in 1922.
When the craze for dancing swept America in the years just before the World War, Stern and Marks were quick to put their firm in the lead as publishers of dance music for the latest steps.
In 1920 Stern retired from the business and devoted himself largely to raising prize flowers at his home in Brightwaters, Long Island. A few weeks before his death, which occurred at Brightwaters, he had decided to reenter the song publishing business.
Joseph William Stern together with Edward B. Marks were well-known as the publishers of popular American songs: "A Hot Time in the Old Town" (later called "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight"), "Sweet Rosie O'Grady, " "Under the Bamboo Tree, " "Everybody Works But Father, " and many others. Stern and Marks became virtual pioneers in the art of "song plugging. "
He married Leona Lewis in 1899.
