Recorded by Perry Como and the Ray
Charles SingersWith Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra
on July 13, 1959,at Webster Hall, New York City, for
RCA VictorRecording Engineer: Bob Simpson
Notes: ~ This popular Christmas
carol was written by Phillips Brooks and Lewis H. Redner
in 1868. Brooks,
pastor of the Holy Trinity Church in
Philadelphia, visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem in December
1865.
Three years later the impressions of Bethlehem
remained clear in his mind. In early December 1868,
Brooks
wrote a five-stanza poem (modern hymnals omit the
third stanza) about Bethlehem. He asked his church
organist and Sunday school superintendent, Lewis Redner,
to write music to the poem. Redner wrote the
music on the
night of December 26-27, 1868. That Sunday morning (the
27th), "O Little Town of Bethlehem"
was sung
for the first time by a chorus composed of six Sunday
school teachers and thirty-six children.
Originally,
Brooks called his Christmas carol "St. Louis" -
a different spelling of Lewis Redner's first name.
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