Bob Merrill

Henry Merrill Levan was an American songwriter, theatrical composer, lyricist, and screenwriter. Merrill was one of the most successful songwriters of the 1950s on the US and UK single charts. His musicals for the Broadway stage include Carnival! and Funny Girl. Merrill played an important role in American popular music, tapping out many of the hit parade songs of the 1950s on a toy xylophone, including " That Doggie in the Window?", "Mambo Italiano", and "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake". In the estimation of composer Paul Sportelli, Merrill’s ballads have great emotional depth, while his up-tempo lyrics display a humorous sense of the vernacular. Merrill was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987. Other career accolades include five Tony Award nominations, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for his work on Carnival! in 1961. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Mer...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)