His most recent book, Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics, was published in April of 2006 as part of the Library of America’s American Poets Project. He is currently compiling and editing The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer with Barry Day and Miles Kreuger for publication during the Mercer centennial in 2009. He previously edited The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter (Knopf, 1983); The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart (with Dorothy Hart, Knopf, 1986); The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin (Knopf, 1993); Reading Lyrics (co-edited with Robert Gottlieb, Pantheon, 2000), The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin (with Linda Emmet, Knopf 2001), and The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser (with Steve Nelson, Knopf 2003). His other books include Cole (with Brendan Gill; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971); The Gershwins (with Alfred Simon, Atheneum, 1973), and Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake (with William Bolcom, Viking, 1973).

Born in New York City in 1939, he is a graduate of Yale College (BA, 1961) and the Yale Law School (LLB, 1967). After serving as a Carnegie Teaching Fellow in American History at Yale (1961-62), he became the Legislative Assistant to Representative John V. Lindsay of New York (1962-1963), and then served as Director of the Republican Legislative Research Association, an organization established by Charles Taft and Alfred Landon to assist Republican Congressmen in the deliberations on civil rights legislation during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. As a principal aide to the House Republican leaders, he was one of the architects of the key bipartisan compromise of October 1963 that led to passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. After graduation from the Yale Law School, he pursued his long-standing interest in the American musical theatre when he was appointed Curator of Yale University’s Collection of the Literature of the American Musical Theatre. He held that position from 1967 to 1971, and during his tenure began to write extensively on the American musical.

He has lectured on the history of the American musical theatre at Yale, New York University, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and the Manhattan School of Music. From 1973 to 1986 he was a music and dance reviewer for the New York Post, and was the newspaper’s chief classical music critic from 1986 to 1988.

In 1987, he received a Drama Desk Award for his rediscovery of lost musical-theatre manuscripts at the Warner Bros. Secaucus, New Jersey warehouse, and in 1992 he was nominated for two Grammy Awards for his work on the Indiana Historical Society’s comprehensive reissue project of Cole Porter recordings.

He has lectured on the Gershwins, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin on the QE2, Royal Viking Sun, Seabourn Sun and Crystal Symphony. In October of 2004 he appeared as a commentator on the PBS series Broadway: The American Musical.

He and his wife, Abigail, a former music and dance reporter for Newsweek, live in New York City and are the parents of Philip and Miranda.