DOUGH-RE-MI

These are boom times for songwriters, but alongside the work of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon—both of whom recently made nine-figure sums selling the rights to their music—sits a song catalog that hasn’t delivered a new hook since 1959. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, best known for musicals like Oklahoma! and The Sound

of Music, created a songbook that to this day generates $40 million in annual revenue. Can’t place them? Think of hits like “My Favorite Things” and “Getting to Know You,” which are still routinely licensed for high school musicals, pop songs and potato chip ads. With an estimated value of $350 million, the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre sits third among the world’s most valuable song catalogs.