In all My Dreams I Dream of you 

Dominic Vautier  2/7/2012

Al Piantadosi was in every girl's Dream.

The famed piano player and composer came back to New York from Europe in 1906.  He then played a ragtime piano at Callahan’s Bowery Saloon.  His first song hit was called My Mariuccia Take a Steamboat, followed by several others.

Piantadosi's music had an indirect but subtle influence on the development of popular music because it launched his rival Irving Berlin on his own songwriting extravaganza.  Berlin was working as a singing waiter at Mike Salter’s Pelham Cafe, which was losing trade nightly to Callahan’s and Piantadosi’s hot ragtime.

So Salter decided to fight back and talked Berlin and another waiter, Nick Michaelson into writing some music that would get customers to come back.  So Berlin launched his own career with Marie From Sunny Italy, and you then had two popular Italian songs competing for Italian customers.

Piantadosi was born in Lower Manhattan.  He studied medicine but decided he wanted to play piano. The wisdom of this became evident because he wrote five million-seller songs, headed his own publishing firm, pioneered American popular ragtime in Europe and Australia, and played all the principal vaudeville houses in this country.  He also got Berlin into the business, which was no small accomplishment.

And so this handsome young guy wound up in everybody's dream.

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