Harry Simeone

Vacation chorale conductor and arranger Harry Simeone was in charge of popularizing the yuletide perennial “THE TINY Drummer Son.” Created in Newark, NJ, on, may 9, 1911, Simeone got a childhood passion for the Metropolitan Opera, which influenced him to go after a career like a concert pianist. After graduating from the Juilliard College of Music, he visited just work at CBS Radio as an arranger for well-known bandleader Fred Waring, also marrying among Waring’s vocalists, Margaret McCravy. In 1939 Simeone relocated to Hollywood to are an arranger at Paramount Images, collaborating with composer Victor Teen on some movies, including 1944’s Bing Crosby automobile Here Arrive the Waves aswell as many of Crosby’s “Street” films with Bob Wish. Simeone rejoined Waring in 1945, after that in 1952 agreed upon on as the conductor and choral arranger for television’s The Firestone Hour. In 1958 Simeone contracted using the 20th Hundred years Fox label to record a Xmas LP. Amid assembling the 25-member Harry Simeone Chorale, he also started seeking materials to record, finding “THE TINY Drummer Guy” via friend Henry Onorati. The melody, of unknown origins but presumably predicated on melodies of both Czech and Spanish descent, was presented with English-language lyrics by Katherine Davis in 1941 however, not documented until 1957, when it made an appearance over the Jack port Halloran Performers’ Onorati-arranged Xmas Is normally A-Comin’. Simeone enjoyed the melody, and managed to get the first one from his 1958 LP, Sing WE HAVE NOW of Xmas. “THE TINY Drummer Boy” was instantly hailed as today’s classic, producing some 150 cover variations and global product sales topping 25 million. In 1960 Simeone came back to the graphs with “Onward Christian Military,” and in 1962 came back to Bethlehem with another enduring seasonal preferred, “Perform You Hear What I Hear?” He passed away in NEW YORK on February 22, 2005.