Norman Luboff

Norman Luboff (May 14, 1917 – September 22, 1987) was an American choir director, music arranger, and music publisher. Luboff was the founder and conductor of the Norman Luboff Choir, one of the leading choral groups of the 1950s and '60s. He won a Grammy Award in 1961 for Best Performance by a Chorus, and the holiday albums Songs of Christmas (1956) and Christmas with the Norman Luboff Choir (1964) were bestsellers for many years. In addition to recording, Luboff arranged and conducted for radio, television, and film. He also founded Walton Music, a choral music publisher.

Early years

Norman Kador Luboff was born on May 14, 1917 to a working class family in Chicago, Illinois. His music experience began at home, where Luboff, his older brother Avy, and their parents entertained themselves with group singing. He took piano lessons, and participated in his school choir and orchestra. He graduated from high school in 1935.

Luboff entered a music competition and won a scholarship to Central YMCA College, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in music in 1939. It was there that he became friends with Ray Charles, who like Luboff would go on to a distinguished career as a choir director. After graduation, he continued his studies at the University of Chicago and the American Conservatory of Music, including with noted composer Leo Sowerby. In addition to tutoring, Luboff picked up singing jobs to make ends meet, including as a caroler at Marshall Field's department store during the holidays. He was part of a quartet with his friend Ray Charles, professor Rus Wood, and future singing cowgirl Dale Evans that sang on Chicago radio stations. When he couldn't afford tuition, he sometimes audited classes to further his education.

Luboff served in the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. After his military service ended in the spring of 1943, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in music.

Radio, TV, and film

In New York City, Ray Charles helped Luboff get an audition with Lyn Murray, an important contractor for singers in the city. He quickly found work singing baritone on various radio programs, including Your Hit Parade. It was there that, in addition to singing, he began to serve as the backup choral director. By 1945, Luboff had quit singing and was writing arrangements and conducting choirs full time.

Luboff moved to Los Angeles in 1948 to become the choral director for The Railroad Hour, a new radio program starring Gordon MacRae. The success of the show led to offers to conduct choirs for Hollywood films. The first film he worked on was Lullaby of Broadway starring Doris Day, released in 1951. Luboff went on to work on more than 80 motion pictures. He provided arrangements for films including The Jazz Singer (1952), The Desert Song (1953), and Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958), and served as a vocal coach for actors like Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). He also composed and arranged for television shows like the Bell Telephone Hour, the Dinah Shore Show, and Ford Star Jubilee.

The Norman Luboff Choir

Doris Day also recorded a companion album for Lullaby of Broadway, with Luboff again arranging and conducting the choir as he had for the film, credited as "The Norman Luboff Choir". This began a decade-long relationship with Columbia Records, providing choral accompaniment to Columbia recording artists such as Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, Paul Weston & his Orchestra, and Frank Sinatra. The Norman Luboff Choir accompanied Jimmy Boyd on his 1952 No. 1 hit "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". They also accompanied Bing Crosby on his 1955–1962 series of Christmas Eve radio specials on CBS and the accompanying album for Decca Records, A Christmas Sing with Bing Around the World (1956). Though not credited on the original release, they contributed to three songs on Harry Belafonte's RCA Victor album Calypso (1956), the first LP to sell one million copies.

The Norman Luboff Choir began to release recordings under their own name in 1952, when they produced the 7" EP Christmas Carols. An expanded 10" LP version with the same title was released the following year, along with an album of children's lullabies titled Sweet Dreams. Their first full-length (12") album was Easy to Remember in 1954. They went on to record dozens of albums over the next fifteen years.Template:Efn Luboff won a Grammy for Best Performance by a Chorus at the 3rd Annual Grammy Awards for the 1960 album Songs of the Cowboy, beating out his old friend Ray Charles, who was nominated in the same category for Deep Night by the Ray Charles Singers. On February 8, 1960, Luboff was awarded a star for Recording on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1620 Vine St.

In 1961, Luboff left Columbia Records and signed with RCA Victor, where he continued to record for the rest of the decade. RCA offered the opportunity to record with larger choruses and orchestras, prompting Luboff to make the change. He was nominated for a Grammy again at the 4th Annual Grammy Awards for This Is Norman Luboff! (1961), losing to the Johnny Mann Singers. The following year he was nominated for Grammies in two categories: Best Performance by a Chorus for A Choral Spectacular (1962), and Best Gospel or Other Religious Recording for Inspiration: Great Music for Chorus and Orchestra (1962) with Leopold Stokowski and the New Symphony Orchestra of London. Neither album won.

The studio choir was an ad hoc group of session singers. There were frequent contributors like Norma Zimmer, Betty Noyes, and Thurl Ravenscroft, but membership varied from one recording session to the next depending on the requirements of the project and the availability of the performers. In 1963, Luboff assembled a touring choir for live performances. This version of the choir consisted of 20-30 regular members who traveled with Luboff to perform concerts, sometimes appearing in more than a hundred shows per year.

By the end of the 1960s, declining record sales and changing musical tastes brought the Norman Luboff Choir's recording career to a close. However, the touring choir continued to perform until Luboff's death in 1987.

Music publishing

Luboff claimed to have composed more than 6000 arrangements during his career. During the 1950s, he founded Walton Music to publish his works.Template:Efn Later it became an important outlet for both domestic and international choral composition, allowing composers such as Waldemar Åhlén of Sweden and Egil Hovland of Norway to have their works published in the United States. After Luboff's death in 1987, his widow Gunilla continued to operate the company until it was sold to GIA Publications in 2013.

In 1965, Luboff published an anthology of folk music that he co-wrote with Win Stracke. Titled Songs of Man: The International Book of Folk Songs, the book details 180 folk songs from around the world with music and illustration.

Personal life and death

One of Luboff's fellow singers on Your Hit Parade was Elizabeth "Betty" Mulliner. Born November 15, 1916 in upstate New York, she attended Syracuse University before moving to New York City. Luboff and Mulliner began dating, and they were married on November 6, 1944. Betty continued to sing on radio, including on Your Hit Parade and The Railroad Hour. She also sang soprano in the Norman Luboff Choir and as a session singer in Los Angeles. She had several recording credits, often under her maiden name, including "Some Day My Prince Will Come" from the 1944 Decca album Selections from Walt Disney’s Feature Production Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and early Mickey Mouse Club recordings from the 1950s. The couple divorced in the mid-1960s.Template:Efn On February 19, 2006, Betty died in Santa Monica, California.

The couple had two children: Peter Luboff, born 1945, and Bettina "Tina" Luboff, born 1948. Peter Luboff, a 1967 graduate of Dartmouth College, was a singer-songwriter who co-wrote songs for Patti LaBelle and Bobby Womack in the 1980s. He died at the age of 77 on May 21, 2023.

As his recording career diminished in the late 1960s, Luboff continued to find himself in demand as a guest conductor and educator, participating in choral workshops at home and abroad, especially in the Scandinavian countries. During a trip to Sweden in 1971 to conduct the Swedish Radio Choir, Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television produced a documentary about his visit titled (Norman Luboff in Sweden). Luboff became acquainted with the producer of the program, Gunilla Marcus, and two and a half years later they were married.

Luboff and Gunilla moved from New York to Bynum, North Carolina, in 1985 to enjoy the rural lifestyle. It was there that Luboff died on September 22, 1987, after a ten month battle with lung cancer. He was cremated, and his wife took his ashes to Gotland, Sweden, where they had a summer home.

Much of his personal archives were donated to the Library of Congress in 1993 as the Norman Luboff Papers.

Discography

List of albums by the Norman Luboff Choir

Title	Year	Label	Catalog No.		Peak chart	Notes
			Mono	Stereo
Sweet Dreams	1953	Columbia	CL-6252	—	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Christmas Carols			CL-6272	—	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Easy to Remember	1954		CL-545	—	—
Songs of the West	1955		CL-657	CS-8329Template:Efn-ua	14
Songs of the South	1956		CL-860	CS-9045Template:Efn-ua	19
Just a Song			CL-890	—	—
Songs of Christmas			CL-926	CS-8846Template:Efn-ua	22	Template:Unbulleted list
Songs of the Sea	1957		CL-948	CS-8775Template:Efn-ua	—
Calypso Holiday			CL-1000	—	19
The Hymnal	1958		CL-1106	—	—
Broadway			CL-1110	CS-8052	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Sleepy Time Songs / Wide Awake Songs			CL-1179	—	—
Songs of the World, Vol. 1			CL-1218	CS-8140	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Songs of the World, Vol. 2			CL-1219	CS-8141	—
Reverie	1959		CL-1256	CS-8074	—
But Beautiful			CL-1296	CS-8114	—
Songs of the British Isles			CL-1348	CS-8157	—
Songs of the Caribbean			CL-1357	—	—
Moments to Remember	1960		CL-1423	CS-8220	—
Songs of the Cowboy			CL-1487	CS-8278	—	Template:Unbulleted list
This is Norman Luboff!	1961	RCA Victor	LPM 2342	LSP 2342	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Apasionada			LPM 2341	LSP 2341	—
You're My Girl			LPM 2368	LSP 2368	—
Sing! It's Good for You	1962		LPM 2475	LSP 2475	—
Choral Spectacular			LPM 2522	LSP 2522	—	Template:Unbulleted list
The Gospel Truth			LPM 2548	LSP 2548	—
Inspiration: Great Music for Chorus and Orchestra			LM 2593	LSC 2593	—	Template:Unbulleted list
Aloha From Norman Luboff	1963		LPM 2602	LSP 2602	—
Grand Tour			LPM 2521	LSP 2521	—
On the Country-Side	1964		LPM 2805	LSP 2805	—
Great Movie Themes			LPM 2895	LSP 2895	—
Go Team, Go			LPM 2924	LSP 2924	—
Christmas with the Norman Luboff Choir			LPM 2941	LSP 2941	—
Blues–Right Now!	1965		LPM 3312	LSP 3312	—
Remember			LPM 3400	LSP 3400	—
Songs of the Trail	1966		LPM 3555	LSP 3555	—
Latin Luboff			LPM 3637	LSP 3637	—
Side by Side	1967	RCA Camden	CAL 2129	CAS 2129	—	Template:Unbulleted list
The Night Before Christmas	1968	Elba Productions	—	none	—
"Four Walls" and Other Country Classics	1969	RCA Camden	—	CAS 2294	—
ChristmasSing: A Gift of Carols For One and All	1981	Triangle Records	—	TR-144	—
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that format.

Further reading

• Template:Cite thesis
• (titles in Swedish, dialog in English)
• Template:First word Template:PAGENAMEBASE at AllMusicTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• Template:Trim/ Template:PAGENAMEBASE at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• Template:PAGENAMEBASE at the TCM Movie DatabaseTemplate:Preview warningTemplate:WikidataCheck