There are many reasons for musical artists to write or compose under an assumed name: be it hiding or drawing attention to their ethnicity or gender, pursuing an additional career or genre, or writing a parody or humorous music. Often, nicknames are assigned to composers and lyricists, whether they want them or not. Whatever the reasons for these artists to use assumed names instead of or in addition to their own, this comprehensive resource has amassed and cataloged them.
Musical AKAs
is a wide-ranging index of assumed names and sobriquets of approximately 9,800 composers, songwriters, lyricists, librettists, hymnists, and writers of music. More than 15,000 assumed names—whether legal name changes, pseudonyms, pen names, or nicknames—have been collected into one easy to reference listing. Author Jeanette Drone has assembled information from numerous music sources—including comprehensive and biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias, biographies, journals, Internet web sites, and print and online copyright sources—and organized them into this extensive four-part volume. Part I alphabetically lists the sources in which assumed names or sobriquets were found for three or more individuals. Part II lists alphabetically the original names of artists from both popular and classical music, detailing their assumed names and sobriquets, dates, occupations, source codes, and complete bibliographic citations for print and Internet sources. The pseudonyms are cataloged alphabetically in Part III, with references to the original names.
concludes with Part IV, offering additional explanatory information on both original and assumed names.