Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (
14 June 1909 –
14 April 1995) was an acclaimed American
folk music singer, author and actor.
Born in
Jasper County, Illinois, Ives is probably best remembered for his music.
Carl Sandburg described him as "the mightiest ballad singer born in any century". He dropped out of college to travel about as an itinerant singer during the early
1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his
banjo. He was jailed in
Mona, Utah, for singing "
Foggy Foggy Dew", which the authorities decided was a bawdy song.
Ives attended Indiana State Teachers College, now
Indiana State University, and graduated in
1931 from
Eastern Illinois University. During college he was a member of the
Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. While in
Terre Haute, Indiana, he worked for WBOW Radio.
In
1940 Ives began his own
radio show, titled
The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his popular ballads. The show was very popular, and in
1946 Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the
film Smoky. His first book,
The Wayfaring Stranger, was published in
1948.
Other movie credits include
East of Eden (
1955);
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (
1958);
The Big Country (
1958), for which he won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; and
Our Man in Havana (
1959), based on the
Graham Greene novel.
In the
1940s Ives popularized several traditional folk songs, such as "
Lavender Blue" (his first hit, a folk song from the
17th century), "
Foggy Foggy Dew" (an English/Irish folk song), "
Blue Tail Fly" (an old
Civil War tune) and "
Big Rock Candy Mountain" (an old
hobo ditty).
In 1952, Ives starred as Ben Rumson in the national tour of the popular musical
Paint Your Wagon, co-starring
Nola Fairbanks as his daughter, Jennifer Rumson.
Ives's reputation was tarnished in the eyes of some and elevated in those of others when he cooperated with the
House Unamerican Activities Committee, and named fellow folk singer
Pete Seeger and others as possible
Communists. His cooperation with the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue with his movie acting.
In the
1960s Ives began singing
country music. In
1962 he released three major hits, "A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Me Mr In-Between", and "Funny Way of Laughing", all three of which crossed over and topped the pop charts as well.
Possibly his most remembered role today is as narrator
Sam the Snowman in the
Rankin-Bass animated television special,
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (
1964). Ives performed in other television productions, most notably
Pinocchio (
1968) and
Roots (
1977).
Ives's "A Holly Jolly Christmas" is a very popular tune during the
Christmas season, as it's frequently played on the radio and was featured in the
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special.
Frank Black of
The Pixies is a contemporary fan of Ives according to Apple's
iTunes Music Store. In a contribution to "Celebrity Playlists", Black includes no less than 15 of Ives' hits in his playlist.
Madison, Wisconsin,
punk rock band
Killdozer released the EP
Burl in 1986, which they dedicated "in loving memory of" Ives, who was still alive (and evidently still remembered) at the time.
The Ren and Stimpy Show's first season episode "Stimpy's Invention" featured a record, "Happy Happy Joy Joy", which contained a variety of spoken-word segments meant to parody some of Ives' albums from the 1960s. When Ives saw the episode, he contacted Ren and Stimpy Show creator John K. and said that he would have been willing to do the voice-over work for it.
Ives is known to
Star Wars fans for his role as the narrator in the
1984 made-for-TV film
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.
During his lifetime, Ives and his wife lived with their children in a home located alongside the water in
Anacortes, in the
Puget Sound area of
Washington, where he died of cancer of the mouth at the age of 85. Burl Ives is interred in Mound Cemetery in Jasper County, Illinois.
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Christmas Day in the Morning (1952)
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Christmas Eve with Burl Ives (1957)
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Scouting Along with Burl Ives (1963)
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Chim Chim Cheree & Other Children's Choices (1964)
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Have a Holly Jolly Christmas (1965)
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Sings the Great Country Hits (1968)
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Songbook (1973)
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1995)
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Songs I Sang in Sunday School (2001)
Burl Ives Song Book,1953, Ballantine Books, New York.
More Burl Ives Songs, 1966, Ballantine Books,New York.
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Official website for Burl Ives*
Burl Ives performance review 1951
