Little Sir Echo
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| "Little Sir Echo" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Multiple | |
| Released | 1917, 1939 |
| Songwriters | Laura Rountree Smith, John Sylvester Fearis, Adele Girard, Joe Marsala |
"Little Sir Echo" is a song originally composed in 1917 by John Sylvester Fearis with lyrics by Laura Rountree Smith. It became popular in the 1920s and 1930s as children's camp song. In 1939, Adele Girard and Joe Marsala wrote a revised version with a new arrangement and additional verse; the revised version was recorded by at least 22 artists in 1939, including versions by Horace Heidt, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Doris Day, Guy Lombardo, and other big bands. It became one of the biggest hits of 1939 and has since been covered by additional artists, including Jonah Jones with Roy Eldridge, Jerry Lewis, Louis Prima, Joe Williams, The Bonzo Dog Band, and The Wiggles.
John Sylvester Fearis, the original composer, came to Chicago from Iowa in the early 1900s and was known principally as the composer of hymns and sacred music. He composed "Little Sir Echo" in approximately 1917 with Laura Rountree Smith of Wisconsin writing the lyrics.[1] No known recordings have been found of the original version.[2] Fearis and his brother owned a music publishing firm and bought the rights to the verse from Smith. The Fearis brothers then published the song in a collection of "unison songs for Children."[1] It was also included in "The Song Book of the Y.W.C.A" in 1926,[3] an it became a popular camp song and sing-along in the 1920s and 1930s.[4][5][6][7]
Girard and Marsala adaptation
Swing harpist and songwriter Adele Girard remembered the song from her youth singing around the campfire as a Girl Scout in Massachusetts. In the late 1930s, Girard and her husband Joe Marsala, a swing clarinetist and the leader of the orchestra in which Girard played, collaborated on a "modernized" version of the song with a new arrangement and an extra verse. They introduced their new version of the song at the Hickory House in New York, and it was then published.[1][8][9] The new version was released in January 1939 by Horace Heidt and was covered the same year by multiple artists, including Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo, Doris Day, Mantovani, Bebe Daniels, and Eddy Howard. Many of the 1939 releases were by big bands of the day, but there were also country music versions released by Gene Autry and Riley Puckett.[2][10][11]
By July 1939, 250,000 copies of the sheet music had been sold. It rose to No. 2 on Your Hit Parade in April 1939 and became one of the year's most popular ballroom and radio hits.[1][12] Autry's version reached No. 1 on the Billboard hillbilly chart and remained on the chart for 13 weeks.
Foreign language versions were also released in Danish, Dutch, French, and German.[11] The song was later covered by many notable artists, including Jerry Lewis, Tony Randall, Louis Prima, The Bonzo Dog Band, and The Wiggles.