The Hillside Singers were an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 group

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

. The ensemble was assembled by advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 agency McCann Erickson

McCann Erickson

McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, with offices in more than 130 countries. McCann is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry....

 for the purposes of singing

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 in a television commercial. McCann Erickson had written

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 the jingle

Jingle

A jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...

 "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" for Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...

, and had sought to have The New Seekers

The New Seekers

The New Seekers are a British-based pop group, formed in 1969 by Keith Potger after the break-up of his group, The Seekers. The idea was that the New Seekers would appeal to the same market as the original Seekers, but their music had rock as well as folk influences...

 sing it, but The New Seekers could not fit the project into their schedule and turned it down. McCann Erickson then got in touch with producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 Al Ham

Al Ham

Albert W. Ham was an American composer and jingle writer. He was notable as the composer of the Move Closer to Your World music package used since the 1970s on WPVI-TV's Action News broadcasts in Philadelphia, as well as many on many other newscasts in the United States throughout the 1970s and...

, who then put together a group of singers for the project (including his wife, Mary Mayo, and their daughter Lori). The commercial began airing late in 1971 and was extremely popular, convincing Ham to rewrite the song as "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing

"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing " is a popular song which originated as a jingle in the groundbreaking 1971 "Hilltop" television commercial for Coca-Cola. The song, produced by Billy Davis and performed by The New Seekers, portrayed a positive message of hope and love sung by a multicultural...

" and to record

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 and a Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 record

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

; the single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 hit #13 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 and #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart, which convinced The New Seekers to issue it as a single as well.

Despite a slight tracking problem, subsequently corrected, The Hillside Singers disc sold a reported one million copies, but it was The New Seekers version that sold on a much bigger scale. Nevertheless the Hillside Singers received a gold disc

Music recording sales certification

Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

 awarded by the Recording Industry Association of America

Recording Industry Association of America

The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

.

The Hillside Singers also sang the vocal version of Move Closer to Your World

Move Closer to Your World

Move Closer to Your World is a television news music package composed by jingle writer Al Ham under his Mayoham Music label. In the 1970s it was considered an anthem for local television news, and is considered the anthem of WPVI-TV in Philadelphia for its Action News programs to the current day...

, a theme created for television news by Ham, and is most well-known for its long-time use by WPVI-TV

WPVI-TV

WPVI-TV, channel 6, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. WPVI has its studios located on the border between Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd, and its transmitter is located in the...

 in Philadelphia.

Ham went on to create a syndicated radio music format called Music of Your Life

Music of Your Life

Music of Your Life is a satellite-delivered radio network featuring the Adult Standards music format. Created by record executive and jingle writer Al Ham, and now under the direction of Marc Angell, Music of Your Life has more than 50 AM, FM and HD-2 radio station affiliates, and has been in...

, but he died in 2001. Lori Ham (now known as Lori Hafer) continues to work as a professional singer and is also an on-air personality on the Music of Your Life network.

In 2009 several of the former Hillside Singers, under the name Treehouse 10, released Bug in a Puddle, an album of original children's songs.

Members

• Lori Ham
• Mary Mayo
• Joelle Marino
• Bill Marino
• Frank Marino
• Laura Marino
• Rick Shaw
• Ron Shaw
• Susan Wiedinman
• Lee Ann Kinner

Discography

• The Hillside Singers (Metromedia Records, 1972) U.S. #71
• Merry Christmas From the Hillside Singers