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"
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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"