Mary's Boy Child

Written by Jester Hairston, Mary's Boy Child is widely performed as a Christmas carol. The song had its genesis when Hairston was sharing a room with a friend. The friend asked him to write a song for a birthday party. Hairston wrote the song with a calypso rhythm because the people at the party would be mainly West Indians. The song's original title was He Pone and Chocolate Tea, pone being a type of corn bread. It was never recorded in this form. Some time later Walter Schumann, at the time conducting Schumann's Hollywood Choir, asked Hairston to write a new Christmas song for his choir. Hairston remembered the calypso rhythm from his old song and wrote new lyrics for it. Harry Belafonte heard the song being performed by the choir and sought permission to record it. It was recorded in 1956 and released as a single that year. Belafonte released it again the following year in 1957 on his album An Evening with Belafonte. One of the best-known cover versions of the song is from the German-based disco-group Boney M. This version returned the song to the top of the UK chart. It is one of the best-selling singles of all time in the UK. The song has been recorded twice by Andy Williams. It has also been recorded by Jim Reeves, Roger Whittaker, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tom Jones, Jose Feliciano, John Denver, Harry Connick Jr, Bryn Terfel and many others. The Bee Gees recorded the song as part of a medley with Silent Night for their 1968 album Horizontal.

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