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Biography
Nancy Binns Reed, a prolific composer of musicals and operas in the Washington area who achieved worldwide notice as a co-author of the early 1950s pop tune "Oh, Happy Day," died of lung cancer Feb. 26 at her home in Burke. She was 75.
Unrelated to the hit gospel tune of the same name, "Oh, Happy Day" was a sunny, million-selling ditty in 1953 for the Four Knights, Lawrence Welk and Don Howard (co-composer Donald Howard Koplow's pseudonym). Subsequently, it was performed by Tab Hunter, the Five Satins, the Three Suns, Peter Yarrow, J.J. Johnson and Homer & Jethro.
Despite the early hit -- and controversy surrounding the co-author credit -- Mrs. Reed was considered a composer of sophisticated musical works that blended her interest in popular and classical styles. In all, she poured out 250 marches, operas and other musical creations until her death.
Her credentials included the 1976 musical "Tocqueville!" about the French writer, in which Washington Post critic Richard L. Coe found the "crisp verve" of Mrs. Reed's songs the "sole virtue."
A 1994 composition, "The Blue Opera," retold the Orpheus and Eurydice myth with the former envisioned as a blues singer. When the opera had its premiere at Northern Virginia Community College in 1997, Washington Post critic emeritus Joseph McLellan praised the music and clever adaptation.
"She very definitely felt there should be more cross-fertilization between concert music and popular music, and she very deliberately used popular music techniques," McLellan said in an interview. "Her death was a real loss to a very special kind of music that does not find itself confined to the usual categories."
Mrs. Reed started composing during her high school years in her home town of Palo Alto, Calif., where she played the trumpet and sang in choirs. She graduated from the University of California at Davis with a bachelor's degree in social work in 1945 and later received an associate's degree in fine arts from Northern Virginia Community College.
She was a social worker in California and moved to the Washington area around 1950. A Post article three years later described her as a 28-year-old housewife who made headlines for insisting she first wrote "Oh, Happy Day" as a teenager.
The tune previously had been attributed to Koplow, a 17-year-old high school student from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Mrs. Reed, who obtained affidavits to prove she wrote "Oh, Happy Day" a decade earlier, settled out of court. In the end, she and Koplow shared credit for the words and music.
Koplow, in an interview from his home in Mentor, Ohio, insisted he wrote the song while at summer camp. But he said his lawyer father and the music publisher counseled him to let Mrs. Reed share credit since that was all she wanted. "I never heard of her, and she never heard of me before I made the record," said Koplow, a salesman and former private investigator.
"Oh, Happy Day," which Mrs. Reed said was one of several songs she would dash off in her spare time, featured the refrain: "You said you loved me, I know it's true/ My life's complete, dear, for now I have you/ Oh, happy day for lucky me."
Mrs. Reed, who in the 1960s and early 1970s moved to Korea and Germany with her Defense Department-employed husband, also wrote three children's books, "A Tale of the Heidelberg Lion" in 1974 and "The Sun and the Moon" and "The Magic Gourds," both in 1969.
She belonged to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which recognized many of her works with awards from 1961 to 1999. Her other memberships included the National League of American Pen Women and the Friday Morning Music Club.
An avid sculptor and painter, she participated in art shows throughout the Washington area.
There are no productions for this artist in the Season Schedule of Performances which currently only dates back to 1991.
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Artist Information
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