Carol of the Little Drummer Boy (repost from 2021)

At the moment, I'm doing a re-rip which has proved to be a tremendous sound-editing challenge. Had I known ahead of time what I was in for, I'm not sure what I'd have done with the four 45-rpm EPs. Tossed them down the bank? Hammered them into small pieces on the studio workbench? Used lighter fluid and a match? (No--I don't want to risk a fire.)  At any rate, they'll serve as an ample tribute to SPC's epic lack of quality control.  Like most cheap label groups, SPC saved on quality control by not having any.  (That'll do it!)

In the meantime (assuming I ever finish that project), a repost of the actual/factual/true/I-took-the-time-to-verify-the-details history of The Little Drummer Boy, which was plagiarized from Katherine K. Davis' 1941 Carol of the Drum--though, the last time I checked, Wikipedia was still getting the story incorrect. It's not rocket science. And, currently, Wikipedia gives the correct background for the number, only it has Simeone "popularizing" it in 1958.  I prefer to call theft "theft."  Or robbery, stealing, snatching, thieving, swiping, appropriating, etc.  Anyway, my 2021 essay:

Above is the original manuscript of Katherine K. Davis' 1941 choral piece Carol of the Drum.  Davis' song was stolen by Harry Simeone in 1958 and retitled The Little Drummer Boy.  As you can see below, Simeone initially attempted to take sole credit for it:

Classy.  Then things got even classier when Henry Onorati, the 20th Century-Fox Records head, decided he wanted a piece of the song, too, and so his name was added to Simeone's.  Now, the various on-line Drum accounts that I've read (say that ten times in a row) tiptoe around the issue in a rather inane fashion, as if reluctant to accuse Simeone or Onorati of theft, maybe because--I don't know--maybe because it might upset people who grew up thinking that The Little Drummer Boy was a 1958 original.  And so they soft-pedal the history.  Not sure.  It could be a case of not wanting to shatter people's illusions.  Or of bowing to common bias.  Or, simply, not giving a holy hoot.

What I do know is that, if you take something you didn't create and treat it as your own creation, you have committed an act called plagiarism.  Period.  It doesn't matter if Wikipedia or some other source wants to pretend that Simeone's record is merely a different version of Katherine K. Davis' song (!!), because suppose you or I decide to take the Beatles' Hey Jude, retitle it Make It Bad, throw in a few original guitar licks, and claim it as our own?  What do you think would happen?  Do you think we'd get co-composer credit with John and Paul?  No, I very seriously doubt that would be the result.

But, I guess, when two musical powerhouses decide to help themselves to someone else's work, it's somehow a different matter.  At any rate, Katherine Davis sued, and she retained partial ownership of the song, though she clearly should have gotten back the entire thing (plus the title).  

To make things less rational, I guess, Wikipedia and other sources seem to be operating under a very weird notion that major changes have been made to Katherine's original work over the years (in the choral realm, that is), but that's utter nonsense, at least when we're talking Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass settings.  First of all, four-part harmony is four-part harmony, whether it's sung by four people or forty, and whether it's done in SATB or "close" harmony fashion.  It's true that the Trapp Family Singers' 1951 version utilizes three voices for the women, with the female leads moving in triads rather than in a duet fashion, but I regard the addition of a fifth voice to be an embellishment of four-part harmony, not a new type or texture.  Katherine's setting is the template for all the standard choral versions.  All of them.  Period.

The Trapp Family's 1952 recording is the earliest I (or apparently anyone else) is aware of, and it's clear that, come the late 1950s, the work was turning into a standard holiday choral item, given that it enjoyed at least three 1957 recordings--those of The Jack Halloran Singers, The Testor Chorus, and The Moody Chorale.  Compared to the quiet but lively Trapp version, Halloran's arrangement is something closer to a dirge, and I much prefer a faster tempo.  Both the Testor Chorus and the identified singers on the lone "fake hit" version I've located (which was released by at least three different budget label groups) speed things up like they should, but Halloran's treatment, which was swiped by Simeone along with Davis' tune, is the standard, draggy one.  Maybe that's why so many people pan this Christmas standard--it seems to take forever to get to the "smiled at me" part.  I've included two recordings of the lone "fake" version, one in stereo, and the other in mono, and both mastered at different pitches.  (Not by me, I should note.)

The Trapp Family, of course, was the super-talented group whose story was fictionalized in The Sound of Music.  The true vs. invented details make for some hilarious reading.  By the way, the family's 1952 recording was reissued as a single by Decca in 1959 (left--image swiped from Discogs).  1959 was the year The Sound of Music opened on Broadway, and I'm pretty sure that explains the release.

Anyway, Davis, a profoundly gifted composer whose specialty was choral pieces for children--girls, especially--certainly didn't deserve to be treated like this.  I mean, it must be nice to have one of your works become hugely popular, but not so nice to have to share it with two thieves.

A question that always comes up is how to classify Drum/Drummer--as in, what specific Christmas song tradition does it conform to?  That's easy. Generally speaking, it belongs to the longtime Christmas carol tradition of treating the Nativity as a current event, in a "You Are There" fashion (e.g., Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella).  More specifically, it belongs to the popular "What gift can I give?" tradition--as in, what gift do I have to give the baby Jesus?  The all-time great example of same has to be the 1872 masterpiece, In the Bleak Midwinter: 

What can I give Him, 

Poor as I am? — 

If I were a Shepherd 

I would bring a lamb; 

If I were a Wise Man 

I would do my part, — 

Yet what I can I give Him, — 

Give my heart.

The same sentiment is expressed, in a slightly different way, in Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne, in which the no-room-at-the-inn situation is ingeniously answered:

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus 

There is room in my heart for Thee

And so the drummer boy, who is poor like the Baby Jesus, wonders what gift he can give.  Answer: the drum.  So, the drummer boy gives the baby his drum, and the baby smiles at him.  A lovely touch, and one that appeals to children.  My late foster mother Bev, the English prof, felt that it takes a special genius to speak to children in art.  In this case, that genius belonged to Katherine K. Davis, and not to the two guys who shoved their way into the song credit.

A big thanks to Ernie, who ripped his Jack Halloran track for me from the hard to find Christmas Is A-Comin' LP of 1957, on which Davis is listed as the arranger, kind of ironically.  (The "Arr." part could be a typo--dunno.)  Halloran was the honest guy out of the three.  So, naturally, he ends up as a footnote.

DOWNLOAD: Carol of the Little Drummer Boy.zip

Carol of the Drum (Czech Carol, Katherine K. Davis)--The Trapp Family Singers, 1952
Carol of the Drum (Katherine K. Davis)--The Testor Chorus, C. Dr. Harry T. Carlson, 1957
Carol of the Drum (Katherine K. Davis)--The Moody Chorale, Dir. by Don Hustad, 1957
Carol of the Drum (Arr. K.K. Davis)--The Jack Halloran Singers, 1957
The Little Drummer Boy (Same as SPC and other budgets)--The Broadway Pops Orch. With Featured Vocalists and Chorus (Tiara TST 105, Record 2)
Little Drummer Boy (Same as SPC, etc.)--Unknown choir, from Tops in Pops (Ultraphonic 5020L).

Lee