Jester Hairston

Jester Hairston was an American composer, arranger, choral conductor and actor who became a leading authority on black spirituals and choral music. Born in Belews Creek, North Carolina, he grew up in Homestead, Pennsylvania, where hearing spirituals from his grandmother and her friends set him on a path to preserve that music. He studied at Tufts University and the Juilliard School, sang with the Hall Johnson Choir, and worked on Broadway before going to Hollywood in 1936 for The Green Pastures. Dimitri Tiomkin invited him into a 30-year collaboration arranging and collecting music for films. He wrote Mary's Boy Child and arranged Amen, which he dubbed for Lilies of the Field (1963). His acting work included The Alamo (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Lady Sings the Blues (1972). He composed hundreds of spirituals, appeared on Amos 'n' Andy and Amen, and in 1985 led the Jester Hairston Chorale to China.