For years, one of my favorite Christmas carols has been \"The Little Drummer Boy,\" a story about a boy who goes to the manger in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
The song says that this boy was poor and had nothing to offer the Christ Child but the rasping sound of his drum, which made the newborn smile at him. This Christmas carol has become very popular thanks to its English and Spanish versions<\/strong>, but its origins are little known to the general public.<\/p>\n The author of this famous Christmas carol was Katherine Kennicott Davis<\/strong> (1892-1980). She was a composer born in St. Joseph, Missouri (United States), who began composing music at a very young age: she wrote her first piece at 15. During her long life, she wrote more than 600 songs<\/strong>, many of them intended for school choirs. Her extensive musical repertoire included Christmas carols and many other songs of religious and popular themes.<\/p>\n Once, while trying to take a nap, Katherine became obsessed with an 18th-century French carol entitled \"Patapan,\"<\/strong> which you can listen to here in a version recorded in 2009 by the Canadian choir The Stairwell Carollers:<\/p>\n
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