Jingle Bells
James Lord Pierpont
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Browse piano sheets by James Lord Pierpont on Zen Virtual Piano. James Lord Pierpont (25 April 1822 – 5 August 1893) was an American songwriter, arranger, organist and composer, best known for writing Jingle Bells in 1857, originally entitled The One Horse Open Sleigh. He was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Perhaps election to the Songwriters Hall of Fame for a writer best known for one song ties that tune closely to his name. As a boy he ran away to sea aboard a whaling ship called the Shark and then served in the U.S. Navy until the age of twenty-one. In 1849, during the California Gold Rush, he left his wife and children with his father in Massachusetts and went to San Francisco to open a business; he also worked as a photographer, and the business failed after a fire burned his goods. On 27 March 1852 he published The Returned Californian, based on his experiences in San Francisco, in Boston. A whaling ship, a Navy post and a Gold Rush shop, all before the famous sleigh song, suggest a life of restless moves from one trade to the next, each one leaving the next chapter open. After his brother, Reverend John Pierpont Jr., accepted a post with the Unitarian congregation in Savannah, Georgia, James followed, taking a post as the church’s organist and music director. The songhall.org profile says Jingle Bells was written in 1857 for a Thanksgiving church service in Savannah, and it was so well received that the children were asked to repeat the performance at the Christmas service. A Boston University feature says that The One Horse Open Sleigh was presented regularly by Ordway’s performers, one of about a dozen songs Pierpont wrote for them. The sheet music was first published in 1857 by Oliver Ditson under the title The One Horse Open Sleigh and was reissued two years later with one title change chosen by the public: Jingle Bells. From a Thanksgiving service to a repeat at the Christmas service, the songhall.org account lets the song be heard as moving from one occasion toward a season of its own. Later arrangements of the song changed the word “joy” to “fun” in the chorus and slightly simplified the chorus melody, which was more musically complex in the original. At the outset of the Civil War he joined the Isle of Hope Volunteers, the Fifth Georgia Cavalry, for the Confederacy, and after the war he moved his family to Valdosta, Georgia, where he taught music. He died in Winter Haven, Florida. At his request he was buried in Savannah’s Laurel Grove Cemetery, beside his brother-in-law Thomas, who had been killed in the first battle of Bull Run. A changed word and a simplified chorus in later arrangements, next to a burial at his own request beside family, point to a song reshaped by later hands and a man who chose where to rest.
Browse piano sheets by James Lord Pierpont on Zen Virtual Piano.
James Lord Pierpont (25 April 1822 – 5 August 1893) was an American songwriter, arranger, organist and composer, best known for writing Jingle Bells in 1857, originally entitled The One Horse Open Sleigh. He was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Perhaps election to the Songwriters Hall of Fame for a writer best known for one song ties that tune closely to his name.
As a boy he ran away to sea aboard a whaling ship called the Shark and then served in the U.S. Navy until the age of twenty-one. In 1849, during the California Gold Rush, he left his wife and children with his father in Massachusetts and went to San Francisco to open a business; he also worked as a photographer, and the business failed after a fire burned his goods. On 27 March 1852 he published The Returned Californian, based on his experiences in San Francisco, in Boston. A whaling ship, a Navy post and a Gold Rush shop, all before the famous sleigh song, suggest a life of restless moves from one trade to the next, each one leaving the next chapter open.
After his brother, Reverend John Pierpont Jr., accepted a post with the Unitarian congregation in Savannah, Georgia, James followed, taking a post as the church’s organist and music director. The songhall.org profile says Jingle Bells was written in 1857 for a Thanksgiving church service in Savannah, and it was so well received that the children were asked to repeat the performance at the Christmas service. A Boston University feature says that The One Horse Open Sleigh was presented regularly by Ordway’s performers, one of about a dozen songs Pierpont wrote for them. The sheet music was first published in 1857 by Oliver Ditson under the title The One Horse Open Sleigh and was reissued two years later with one title change chosen by the public: Jingle Bells. From a Thanksgiving service to a repeat at the Christmas service, the songhall.org account lets the song be heard as moving from one occasion toward a season of its own.
Later arrangements of the song changed the word “joy” to “fun” in the chorus and slightly simplified the chorus melody, which was more musically complex in the original. At the outset of the Civil War he joined the Isle of Hope Volunteers, the Fifth Georgia Cavalry, for the Confederacy, and after the war he moved his family to Valdosta, Georgia, where he taught music. He died in Winter Haven, Florida. At his request he was buried in Savannah’s Laurel Grove Cemetery, beside his brother-in-law Thomas, who had been killed in the first battle of Bull Run. A changed word and a simplified chorus in later arrangements, next to a burial at his own request beside family, point to a song reshaped by later hands and a man who chose where to rest.
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James Lord Pierpont
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James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) was an American songwriter, arranger, organist and composer, best known for Jingle Bells.
It was written in 1857, and the sheet music was first published in 1857 by Oliver Ditson under the title The One Horse Open Sleigh.
He took a post as organist and music director of the Unitarian church in Savannah, Georgia.
It was a composition by Pierpont, based on his experiences in San Francisco and published in Boston on 27 March 1852.