Evelyn Danzig

b. 16 January 1902, Waco, Texas, USA, d. 26 July 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA. After growing up in Texas, Danzig exhibited sufficient early musical promise to result in her being sent to study at the Academy of Holy Name Conservatory in Albany, New York. She then studied piano and composition with Polish composer Sigismund Stojowski. Playing piano, the two appeared together regularly on radio. Her first substantial commission came with an offer to write incidental music for a theatrical adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In 1949 she co-wrote ‘Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)’ with Jack Segal (b. 1919, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, d. 10 February 2005, Tarzana, California, USA), which was recorded first by Juanita Hall then Dinah Shore and Jo Stafford. It was only when Harry Belafonte recorded it in sessions for RCA - Victor Records that it became a well-known song, finally becoming a hit in 1956. Such disparate artists as Cliff Richard, Doris Day, Jim Reeves, Val Doonican, Duane Eddy, Nina And Frederick, Ken Dodd, Nana Mouskouri, Joan Baez, Sinead O’Connor, the London Male Voice Choir and the Men They Couldn’t Hang have all recorded the same song at one time or another. None of her other compositions, which included ‘Midnight In Manhattan’, ‘Half A Heart’ and ‘Rippling Stream’, ever came close to emulating its success.