Showing posts with label Mary's Boy Child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary's Boy Child. Show all posts

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Mary's Boy Child

Mary's boy child - Oh, my Lord lyrics

Mary's Boy Child - by Harry Belafonte
Vienna Boys Choir: Mary's boy child
MARY'S BOY CHILD - ukulele performance of Christmas carol made famous by Harry Belafonte

Mary's Boy Child

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Mary's Boy Child"
Released
Language
"Mary's Boy Child" is a 1956 Christmas song, written by Jester Hairston.[1] It is widely performed as a Christmas carol.

Contents

  [hide
·         1History
·         2Covers
·         3Translations
·         4Other uses
·         5References

History[edit]

The song had its genesis when Hairston was sharing a room with a friend. The friend asked him to write a song for a birthday party.[2] Hairston wrote the song with a calypso rhythm because the people at the party would be mainly West Indians. The song's original title was "He Pone and Chocolate Tea", pone being a type of corn bread.[2] It was never recorded in this form.
Some time later Walter Schumann, at the time conducting Schumann's 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.[2]
Harry Belafonte heard the song being performed by the choir and sought permission to record it.[2] It was recorded in 1956 for his album An Evening with Belafonte. An edited version was subsequently released as a single,[3] reaching No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1957.[1] It was the first single to sell over one million copies in the UK alone.[1] To date, Belafonte's version has sold over 1.19 million copes.[4] In 1962. the full-length version was added to a re-issue of Belafonte's previously released album To Wish You a Merry Christmas.
The song was also recorded by Mahalia Jackson in 1956 but titled "Mary's Little Boy Child"