Locating version of "The Little Drummer Boy" by a young boy.

November 26, 2008 7:30 PM

A friend has spent over ten years trying to locate a version of the song "The Little Drummer Boy" that he listened to as a child. What he remembers is that it was performed by a young boy (or, possibly, a girl) and that while there may have been other singers on the track, it definitely wasn't a choir version. This ring a bell for anyone?
posted by djaevle to media & arts (8 comments total)

Aled Jones and Terry Wogan's version?
posted by fshgrl at 7:57 PM on November 26, 2008

The Harry Simeone Chorale rendition of Little Drummer Boy is the 1960's-era release of the tune that many recall from childhood. It's sung as a harmonized duet, with a basso backup.
posted by terranova at 8:30 PM on November 26, 2008

When was your friend a child? When I was a kid in the late 80s, I had a tape that was all Holiday songs sung by kids. There was a version of that song. As I recall, the kid did not have a very good voice (I think that was supposed to be part of the effect). Of course, now I can't remember the name of the tape, but maybe that's it?
posted by lunasol at 11:29 PM on November 26, 2008

He would have been a child in the early 80s. It definitely was a single child singing the song.
posted by djaevle at 5:06 AM on November 27, 2008

My thought was Aled Jones as well, who was born in Dec 1970, so would be a boy in the early 80s. Here's a version of him singing O Holy Night, but fshgrl shows he sung Little Drummer Boy, too.
posted by losvedir at 9:04 AM on November 27, 2008

I grew up around the same time and my parents used to play the Boney M Christmas Album... the Little Drummer Boy song on the album has a boy singing the second verse. Maybe this one?
posted by irishkitten at 3:53 PM on November 27, 2008

...and here's a youtube link to the song.
posted by irishkitten at 3:57 PM on November 27, 2008

Could it have been from the Rankin/Bass production of "Little Drummer Boy"? Here's a youtube link of the last five minutes of the movie which features what sounds like a choral version of the song, but I was a child (well, a young teenager) in the 80's and this was constantly shown then and when I was younger.
posted by h00py at 3:19 AM on November 29, 2008