Tom Glazer
Encyclopedia
Thomas Zachariah "Tom" Glazer (September 3, 1914 – February 21, 2003) was an American
folk singer
and songwriter
known primarily as a composer of ballad
s, including: "Because All Men Are Brothers", recorded by The Weavers
and Peter, Paul and Mary
, "Talking Inflation Blues", recorded by Bob Dylan
, and "A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Anymore". He wrote the lyrics to the songs "Melody of Love
" (1954), and "Skokian" (1954)
.
. His father, a carpenter in a shipyard, died during the 1918 flu epidemic, and Glazer was brought up by a series of relatives before being placed in the Hebrew Orphan Home in Philadelphia with his two brothers; his younger brother Sidney Glazier
was to become a producer, most notably of Mel Brooks
' The Producers
. Their father's record collection influenced Glazer musically, and at school he learned to play the tuba, guitar and bass. At 17, he hitchhiked to New York where he took night course to complete his education while working at Macy's during the day. He subsequently attended City College of New York
for 3 years.
Glazer moved to Washington D.C and began work at the Library of Congress
. There he met Alan Lomax
who worked for cataloguing American folksongs, and who was a great influence. Glazer began performing as an amateur and was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt
to perform at the White House
for soldiers working there as guards. He made a successful professional début at the New York City Town Hall in January 1943 during a blizzard, and in 1945 had a radio show Tom Glazer's Ballad Box. His songs of the period, such as "A Dollar Ain't a Dollar Anymore", "Our Fight is Yours", "When the Country is Broke", and "Talking Inflation Blues" took strong social stands. Glazer's songs were recorded by Bob Dylan
, Pete Seeger
, Burl Ives
, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary
, Perry Como
and Frank Sinatra
. He was part of the strong folk music scene in New York in the 1940s, and with Leadbelly
, Woody Guthrie
, Pete Seeger
and Josh White
helped prepare for the commercially successful folk revival of the 1960s. "He wasn't fancy," Seeger reported after his death "He was just straightforward. He had a good sense of humor."
Glazer married to Miriam Reed Eisenberg with whom he had two sons. The marriage ended in divorce
in 1974.
Glazer recorded a number of children's records in the late 1940s and early 1950s with Young People's Records, Inc. These included When I Grow Up, The Chugging Freight Engine, and Come to the Fair. In the 1960s he hosted a weekly children's show for children on WQXR radio in New York.
film A Face in the Crowd (1957). Glazer also wrote and sang the title song in the 1966 movie Namu, the Killer Whale
starring Robert Lansing
and Lee Meriwether
.
(lyrics) and Lou Singer (music). One of these albums, Space Songs
, included the song "Why Does the Sun Shine?" which was later covered by They Might Be Giants
.
His greatest commercial success came with his original recording of the song parody "On Top of Spaghetti
" based on the tune of On Top of Old Smoky
. Glazer was to become ambivalent towards his creation. He was to fantasize that "I'm standing in line before the Pearly Gates in the musicians' line, in which I stand last. When I'm asked what have I done in music and I say I wrote "On Top of Spaghetti", I'm told, "Sorry, buster, you can't enter." In 2008, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGGGGG and Other Children's Favorites, a collection of Glazer's live performances.
Glazer died at his home in Rochester on February 21, 2003 at the age of 88.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
folk singer
Folk Singer
Folk Singer is a 1964 album by Muddy Waters. Waters plays acoustic guitar, backed by Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar...
and songwriter
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...
known primarily as a composer of ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s, including: "Because All Men Are Brothers", recorded by The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
and Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
, "Talking Inflation Blues", recorded by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and "A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Anymore". He wrote the lyrics to the songs "Melody of Love
Melody of Love
"Melody of Love" is a popular song. The music was originally written by Hans Engelmann in 1903. The lyrics were added by Tom Glazer in 1954.An instrumental version recorded by Billy Vaughn was the highest-charting version on the Billboard charts in 1955...
" (1954), and "Skokian" (1954)
Skokiaan
"Skokiaan" is a popular tune originally written by Rhodesian musician August Musarurwa in the tsaba-tsaba big band style that succeeded marabi...
.
Life
Thomas Zachariah Glazer was born in Philadelphia on 2 September 1914 to Russian émigré parents from MinskMinsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
. His father, a carpenter in a shipyard, died during the 1918 flu epidemic, and Glazer was brought up by a series of relatives before being placed in the Hebrew Orphan Home in Philadelphia with his two brothers; his younger brother Sidney Glazier
Sidney Glazier
Sidney Glazer was an American film producer best known for his work on the Mel Brooks film The Producers.-Early life:...
was to become a producer, most notably of Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
' The Producers
The Producers (1968 film)
The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop...
. Their father's record collection influenced Glazer musically, and at school he learned to play the tuba, guitar and bass. At 17, he hitchhiked to New York where he took night course to complete his education while working at Macy's during the day. He subsequently attended City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
for 3 years.
Glazer moved to Washington D.C and began work at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. There he met Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
who worked for cataloguing American folksongs, and who was a great influence. Glazer began performing as an amateur and was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
to perform at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
for soldiers working there as guards. He made a successful professional début at the New York City Town Hall in January 1943 during a blizzard, and in 1945 had a radio show Tom Glazer's Ballad Box. His songs of the period, such as "A Dollar Ain't a Dollar Anymore", "Our Fight is Yours", "When the Country is Broke", and "Talking Inflation Blues" took strong social stands. Glazer's songs were recorded by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Burl Ives
Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
, Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. He was part of the strong folk music scene in New York in the 1940s, and with Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
helped prepare for the commercially successful folk revival of the 1960s. "He wasn't fancy," Seeger reported after his death "He was just straightforward. He had a good sense of humor."
Glazer married to Miriam Reed Eisenberg with whom he had two sons. The marriage ended in divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
in 1974.
Glazer recorded a number of children's records in the late 1940s and early 1950s with Young People's Records, Inc. These included When I Grow Up, The Chugging Freight Engine, and Come to the Fair. In the 1960s he hosted a weekly children's show for children on WQXR radio in New York.
Cinema
Glazer wrote the musical score for Elia KazanElia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
film A Face in the Crowd (1957). Glazer also wrote and sang the title song in the 1966 movie Namu, the Killer Whale
Namu, the Killer Whale
Namu, the Killer Whale is a 1966 American film about a killer whale being studied by a local marine biologist and initially feared by local townspeople. The fictional story was filmed on location in the San Juan Islands and at Rich Cove near Port Orchard in the US state of Washington...
starring Robert Lansing
Robert Lansing (actor)
Robert Lansing was an American stage, film and television actor.Born in San Diego, California as Robert Howell Brown, he reportedly took his acting surname from the state capital of Michigan. As a young actor in New York City, he was hired to join a stock company in Michigan, but was told he would...
and Lee Meriwether
Lee Meriwether
Lee Ann Meriwether is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She is perhaps best known for her role as Betty Jones, the crime-solving partner in the long-running 1970s crime drama, Barnaby Jones. The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in...
.
Children's songs
Glazer, with Dottie Evans, recorded three children's records in 1959 and 1960 that were part of a six-album set known as the Singing Science Records. They contained songs intended to explain science concepts for young children, all of which were written by Hy ZaretHy Zaret
Hy Zaret was an American Tin Pan Alley lyricist and composer best known as the co-author of the 1955 hit "Unchained Melody", one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century.-Biography:...
(lyrics) and Lou Singer (music). One of these albums, Space Songs
Space Songs
Space Songs is an album in the "Ballads For The Age of Science" or "Singing Science" series of scientific music for children from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Songs were written by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer...
, included the song "Why Does the Sun Shine?" which was later covered by They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
.
His greatest commercial success came with his original recording of the song parody "On Top of Spaghetti
On Top of Spaghetti
"On Top of Spaghetti" is a ballad and children's song written and originally performed by folk singer Tom Glazer with the Do-Re-Mi Children's Chorus in 1963. The song is sung to the tune of "On Top Of Old Smokey". It is essentially the tale of a meatball that was lost when "somebody sneezed"...
" based on the tune of On Top of Old Smoky
On Top of Old Smoky
"On Top of Old Smoky" is a traditional folk song and a well-known ballad of the United States which, as recorded by The Weavers, reached the pop music charts in 1951....
. Glazer was to become ambivalent towards his creation. He was to fantasize that "I'm standing in line before the Pearly Gates in the musicians' line, in which I stand last. When I'm asked what have I done in music and I say I wrote "On Top of Spaghetti", I'm told, "Sorry, buster, you can't enter." In 2008, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGGGGG and Other Children's Favorites, a collection of Glazer's live performances.
Glazer died at his home in Rochester on February 21, 2003 at the age of 88.
External links
- [ All Music Guide]