“Mary’s Boy Child” Harry Belafonte (45/1956) This song had its genesis when composer Jester Hairston was sharing a room with a friend. The friend asked him to write a song for a birthday party. Hairston wrote the song with a calypso rhythm because the people at the party would be mainly West Indians. The songs original title was He Pone and Chocolate Tea, pone being a type of corn bread. It was never recorded in this form. Some time later Walter Schumann, at the time conducting Schumanns Hollywood Choir, asked Hairston to write a new Christmas song for his choir. Hairston remembered the calypso rhythm from his old song and wrote new lyrics for it. Harry Belafonte heard the song being performed by the choir and sought permission to record it.[2] It was subsequently released in 1956 as a single reaching No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1957. It was the first single to sell over one million copies in the UK alone. To date, Belafontes version has sold over 1.18 million copes. Merry Christmas!
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:18:00 +0000
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