Things you didn't know about WINTER WONDERLAND! ! Behind the Christmas Hits

Facing an illness that would ultimately take his life, lyricist Richard Smith wrote what he believed was his best work.  Here are things you didn't know about the Christmas hit Winter Wonderland.
 
Winter Wonderland is rare among Christmas songs in that it’s one of the most famous, but there’s no real consensus on who’s version is the definitive version. 

Perry Como made it a top 10 hit.  Ella Fitzgerald re-imagined it with a jazz flavour and the Eurythmics gave it an 80’s new wave vibe.  But which is the definitive version?  

Written in 1934 by lyricist Richard Smith and composer Felix Bernard. The landscape that inspired that original Winter Wonderland was the town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. It’s a small town – only 4,100 people live there now…let alone back in 1934. 
 
The lyrics come from a beautiful moment experienced by a man ravaged with a terrible illness.  Richard Smith was just 33 and was seeking treatment for tuberculosis in Scranton.  He opened the window in his room and what he saw reminded him of the winter scenes in Honesdale Central Park – the park across the street from the house he grew up in. A half-dozen kids were playing the snow.  They had a snowball fight and built a snowman. Smith watched for over an hour until the sun started to set and the kids went home.   
 
He picked up a pencil, wrote down what he had seen and expanded those thoughts with memories of his own youth…and some about young love.  A few hours later, he had what he thought was a poem…and what he thought was his best work.
 
Richard recovered enough for a time that he was able to leave the hospital and reunited with his friend and professional piano player, Felix Bernard.  Felix knew this poem was something special and if he could find the right melody they might be able to attract a major act to record it.    
 
Later in 1934, the Richard Himber Orchestra recorded it, but that wasn’t the first “hit” version.  Canada’s Guy Lombardo heard the Himber recording and was instantly taken back to his own childhood in London, Ontario.  He and his Royal Canadians immediately recorded their own version of the song, which was released by Decca Records that December and peaked at #2 on the pop charts.  Hearing Guy Lombardo – a bandleader with over 70 hits – record his song and make it a hit, gave Smith the feeling that he would have a legacy after his time here was over.  Richard Smith died less than a year later…on his 34th birthday: September 29, 1935.  
 
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