Harry Simeone
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Harry Moses Simeone (Newark, New Jersey, May 9, 1911 - February 22, 2005, New York City, United States) was a distinguished arranger, conductor and composer, best known for arranging the classic Christmas song The Little Drummer Boy, for which he received co-writing credit.
Sparked by his childhood passion for the Metropolitan Opera, Simeone sought a career as a concert pianist and eventually attended the Juilliard School of Music for three years before leaving to take work at CBS as an arranger for bandleader Fred Waring. After garnering vocal and music arrangement credits on the 1938 RKO motion picture Radio City Revels, Simeone moved to Hollywood with his wife Margaret McCravy, who was Benny Goodman's first singer using the stage name Margaret McCrae, and later a Fred Waring vocalist. Once there, he took various music production jobs on a number of Paramount films from 1939 to 1946, including several that starred Bing Crosby. In 1948, Simeone joined NBC's "The Swift Show" as the program's orchestra leader, and in 1952, he joined NBC's The Firestone Hour as conductor and choral arranger.
When 20th Century Fox Records contracted Simeone to make a Christmas album in 1958, he assembled the Harry Simeone Chorale and searched for recording material. After being introduced to an obscure song (titled "Carol of the Drum") by friend and credited song co-author Henry Onorati, Simeone recorded the tune as "The Little Drummer Boy" for his album Sing We Now of Christmas. He received co-writing credit on the album, although he did not actually compose the song. The "Little Drummer Boy" single quickly became enormously popular and stayed on the U.S. music charts from 1958 to 1962.
A group called the Harry Simeone Songsters, whose style was similar to that of the Ray Conniff Singers, produced a baseball-oriented song in 1960 called "It's a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame". The song is on one of the Baseball's Greatest Hits CDs and is still played at major league baseball parks today.
On May 22, 2000, Harry and Margaret McCravy Simeone officially established the Harry and Margaret Simeone Music Scholarship at Yale University by bestowing a gift of US$1 million.
