(A collection of forty-four Mother Goose rhymes set to mus...)
A collection of forty-four Mother Goose rhymes set to music with complete lyrics, piano music, and guitar chords, including Three Blind Mice, Jack and Jill, Old King Cole, and There was a Crooked Man.
(Robert Lansing and Lee Meriwether star in this warm and c...)
Robert Lansing and Lee Meriwether star in this warm and compelling family drama about a compassionate scientist who forms an unlikely friendship with a magnificent killer whale.
(Akin to Private Benjamin, this comedy deals with the toug...)
Akin to Private Benjamin, this comedy deals with the tough life of female army recruits going through basic training. Through their training, they come to realize that there is more to being tough than having muscles.
(A day in the life of Austin, Texas as the camera roams fr...)
A day in the life of Austin, Texas as the camera roams from place to place and provides a brief look at the overeducated, the social misfits, the outcasts and the oddballs.
(Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin ...)
Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin Powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly named villain Goldmember, who is working with Dr. Evil.
(An uptight, middle-aged, repressed woman turns into a sex...)
An uptight, middle-aged, repressed woman turns into a sex addict after getting hit on the head, and she then falls into an underground subculture of sex addicts in suburban Baltimore.
(It's a story of New Orleans through words, sound and pict...)
It's a story of New Orleans through words, sound and picture in this extraordinary documentary featuring the best of New Orleans' musicians, plus special guests Ahmet Ertegun, Bonnie Raitt, and Keith Richards.
(When Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in...)
When Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in December 1972 he left his footprints and his daughter's initials in the lunar dust. Only now is he ready to share his epic but deeply personal story of fulfillment, love, and loss.
(The gang vacations at Rob's army buddy's new resort, but ...)
The gang vacations at Rob's army buddy's new resort, but when Rob incapacitates its headlining comic, he gets the gang to help put on a show to make up for it.
Tom Glazer was an American folksinger, writer, and composer. He was best known for a novelty hit cover version of On Top Of Old Smokey, entitled On Top Of Spaghetti. Along with Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, and Burl Ives, Glazer was a folksinger, who made folk music a national phenomenon in the 1940s, presaging its commercial popularity in the 1960s.
Background
Ethnicity:
Tom Glazer's parents were of Russian-Polish-Jewish descent from Minsk.
Tom Glazer was born as Thomas Zachariah Glazer on September 2, 1914, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Jacob, a carpenter, and Sophie (Schekid) Glazer. After the death of his father during the 1918 flu epidemic, his mother remarried, her new husband, Solomon Levick did not want her children in the house. Tom and his other two brothers were raised by their mother and assorted relatives and were placed in the Hebrew Orphan Home in Philadelphia.
Education
At school, Tom Glazer studied a variety of musical traditions and instruments (among them the guitar, bass, and tuba) before relocating at 17 to New York City. Glazer attended City College of New York for three years from 1938 to 1941.
At the age of 17, Tom Glazer moved to New York, where he worked at Macy's department store while finishing high school at night. In 1943 he relocated to Washington, District of Columbia, accepting a job at the Library of Congress and befriending the legendary musicologist Alan Lomax. Lomax was in charge of the Archive of American Folk Song, and his influence on Glazer was profound. Soon, Glazer was teaching himself to play the guitar and began a performing career, even appearing at a small White House function organized by Eleanor Roosevelt before making his formal public debut in early 1943 at Manhattan's Town Hall. His success has been credited with helping to popularize folk music during the 1940s through the 1960s. Glazer's popular-song compositions include Our Fight is Yours; When the Country is Broke; Talking Inflation Blues; Old Soldiers Never Die; Don't Weep, Don't Mourn, Don't Worry; A Dollar Ain't a Dollar Any More; Care; Ballad for the Babe; and Mama Guitar. He was the composer of songs covered by the likes of Frank Sinatra (Melody of Love), which was a number one hit in the United States in 1956, Perry Como (More), Till We Two Are One, and A Worried Man. Glazer wrote many of his own songs, some of which were performed by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Perry Como, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and the Kingston Trio, and was widely credited alongside Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Josh White.
Beginning in 1945 Tom starred in his own radio show, Tom Glazer's Ballad Box, which aired on ABC Radio. Although he first set out to court adult audiences, he quickly began writing and adapting material for children as well, and in 1947 won the Annual Record Music Award for his recordings geared for young audiences. The works include a six-album set Ballads for the Age of Science, Building a City, The Circus Comes to Town, The Men Who Come to Our House, The Little Fireman, On a Rainy Day, Muffet in the City, When I Grow Up, Let's Play Zoo, Going West: A Group of American Pioneer Songs, Hooray! Today is Your Birthday, When the Sun Shines Again, The Little Gray Ponies, Who Wants a Ride?, The Chugging Freight Engine, Everyday We Grow I-O, Daniel Boone, and Come to the Fair. In 2008, Smithsonian Folkways released Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGGGGG and Other Children's Favorites, a collection of Glazer's live performances. One of his children's songs, On Top of Spaghetti, sung to the melody of the traditional folk song On Top of Old Smokey, which he recorded for Kapp Records with the Do-Re-Mi Children's Chorus became a hit of almost cult status. On Top of Spaghetti appeared in the movies including She's in the Army Now, Austin Powers in Goldmember, A Dirty Shame, and in the television series The Simpsons, episode Selma's Choice. His other songs such as Melody of Love, Skokiaan, More, and A Worried Man also appeared in several films and television series.
For NBC radio, Glazer also hosted Tom, Timmie, and Mae, a children's program that featured actress Mae Questrel, the voice of cartoon icon Betty Boop as well as an imaginary character named Timmie. In 1957, Glazer composed a series of songs and incidental music for the Elia Kazan film A Face in the Crowd. In the 1960s Tom had another radio show that aired on WQXR in New York City and featured music for children. Glazer also appeared on radio programs including We the People, Listening Post, True Story, and Theatre Guild on the Air.
In addition to writing and recording music, Tom also penned books, mostly about music and often for children. Some of these include Eye Winker, Tom Tinker, Chin Chopper: Fifty Musical Fingerplays (1973), All about Your Name ten books, published in 1978, Tom Glazer's Treasury of Songs for Children (1981), Tom Glazer's Christmas Songbook (1989), and The Mother Goose Songbook (1990). Tom Glazer died of complications following a stroke at his home in Philadelphia on February 21, 2003, at the age of 88.
(Rome, 1973. John Paul Getty III, the heir and younger mem...)
2018
Politics
Tom Glazer turned professional in 1943, with campaigning songs much in the grain of such groups as the leftwing Almanac Singers. He joined the Priority Ramblers, whose Viva La Quince Brigada (Long Live The 15th Brigade) developed a life far beyond its Spanish civil war birth. It appears, like other Glazer contributions to the cause - such as A Dollar Ain't a Dollar Anymore, Our Fight is Yours, No More Blues, and I'm Gonna Put My Name Down - on the remarkable 10-CD set, Songs For Political Action: Folk Music, Topical Songs And The American Left 1926-1953 (1996). Glazer used his radio broadcasts not only to expand his audience but also to disseminate his political beliefs. Songs like Because All Men Are Brothers, When the Country Is Broke, and Citizen C.I.O. are typical of the period in their strong social stance and plainly articulated the populist leanings at the heart of much of his music.
Glazer's 1946 protest against the proposed abolition of the Office of Price Administration Talking Inflation Blues, was later recorded by a young Bob Dylan. In 1944, Glazer was singing lyrics about racial segregation in the American military: "No more, no more, no more Jim Crow down the line. Fascist bullets can't see no color, they're color blind."
The tenor of the times can be felt from the names of albums to which he contributed, including Songs For Victory, and Songs Of The Lincoln Brigade. Yet in 1948, Glazer distanced himself from the United States Progressive party's presidential bid when its candidate, Henry Wallace, was pilloried as pro-communist. Glazer was also criticized for memorializing General Douglas MacArthur in Old Soldiers Never Die (1951).
Views
Quotations:
"I hope the child in me never dies."
Membership
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
,
United States
1949
Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
,
United States
Songwriters Guild of America
,
United States
Personality
Tom Glazer learned himself to play the guitar, bass, and tuba while at school. Glazer occasionally speculated about meeting St. Peter at the Pearly Gates in the musicians' line, in which he stands last and being asked what he accomplished in music. Glazer mumbles that he wrote "On Top of Spaghetti." The imagined St. Peter replies: "Sorry, buster, you can't enter."
Quotes from others about the person
"He wasn't fancy. He was just straightforward. He had a good sense of humor." - Pete Seeger.
"Glazer, who was formally educated in music, had a soft, easy voice that did not sound trained." - Oscar Brand.
Connections
Tom Glazer married Miriam Reed Eisenberg on June 25, 1944, and divorced in 1974. He had two children: John and Peter.