Читать книгу Sisters In Song; Women Hymn Writers - Leslie Clay - Страница 8

1923-2008

“Do You Hear What I Hear?”

Born in Brookline Massachusetts to a Jewish family, Gloria grew up next door to Joseph and Rose Kennedy and their large family. With her two sisters, she formed a singing trio. Though her birth surname was Shain, she changed the spelling for professional reasons. After getting her degree from the Boston University School of Music, she moved to New York and worked as a pianist, arranger and vocalist for composers like Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim. She met Noel Regney while playing a piano in a New York City hotel in 1951. They married that year, but divorced in 1973. Later, she married William Baker. She died of cancer in March 2008.

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, her then husband, Noel Regney, along with most adults in the United States at the time, was dismayed and pondering the possible destruction of the world. While walking the streets of New York, he saw two babies in strollers—happy, peaceful, and unaware of the pending doom. He was inspired to write the words to “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and asked Gloria to write the music. This was a switch for them, for in most of their collaborations, she wrote the lyrics and he the music. The song has sold tens of millions of records. Bing Crosby, Glen Campbell, Whitney Houston and the U.S. Air Force Symphony Orchestra included it in their repertoire.