1962 Songs: A Little Bitty Tear

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House repairs call yet again. I’m still paying less than rent (or a mortgage), so who’s complaining. It’s just the nuisance of having to get the estimates and then get it done. Oh, well. Back in 1962 I didn’t have to worry about that because I was a baby! Here’s another turn from sixty years ago. A Little Bitty Tear - Burl Ives Sam the Snowman SINGS! And he sings something other than “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” too!! As Johnny Cash said in the introduction to the clip linked below, Burl Ives was “the great American balladeer.” People my age and younger probably only remember Ives for voicing the narrator/snowman in the Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He had a LONG career before that. His most memorable acting role may be that of Big Daddy in the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Paul Newman as the star). Ives was a traveling musician in the 30s, leading to one of the funniest things I have ever read about a musician: he was arrested for vagrancy in Utah for singing what the authorities declared to be a “bawdy song” (the English folk song “Foggy Dew”). I’m sure he didn’t find it very funny then, but….. Anyway, over the years he served in the Army, got blacklisted by McCarthy for being a commie (he testified, ending the blacklisting), acted, sang, and acted, and sang some more. His hit “Lavender Blue” was nominated for an Oscar for best original song in 1949. After a full, rich career Ives died in 1995 at the age of 85. While he was considered primarily a “folk balladeer,” many of his songs crossed to various charts. This one was a pop and country hit in 1962. You see, there was a lot to that old Sam the Snowman. A Little Bitty Tear Written by Hank Cochran Recorded by Burl Ives From The Versatile Burl Ives!, 1961 Pull a funny as you walked out the door: