Jerry Livingston
Musician · 1909–1987 · Denver, Colorado
Best known for
Songwriter
Jerry Livingston was a Denver-born Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood composer whose 1937 song “My Window Faces the South” became a Bob Wills Western-swing standard, and who later wrote the songs for Walt Disney’s 1950 animated Cinderella (“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes”).
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
- Born Jerry Levinson on March 25, 1909, in Denver, Colorado.
- Studied music at the University of Arizona before moving to New York to work as a Tin Pan Alley songwriter in the early 1930s.
- Co-wrote “My Window Faces the South” with Mitchell Parish and Abner Silver in 1937; Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys cut a definitive Western-swing version that has carried the song through the bluegrass and Western-swing repertoires ever since.
- Co-wrote “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” and “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” with Mack David and Al Hoffman for Walt Disney’s 1950 Cinderella.
- Co-wrote “The Twelfth of Never” (words by Paul Francis Webster, music by Livingston, 1956); Johnny Mathis’s 1957 recording was a Top-Ten hit (later a 1957 Top-Ten hit for Johnny Mathis and a 1973 No. 1 UK hit for Donny Osmond).
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1981.
- Died July 1, 1987.
