“Folks Who Live on the Hill” (1963) – Gloria Lynne

“Folks Who Live on the Hill” (1963) – Gloria Lynne * Written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II * LP: Gloria, Marty and Strings * Produced by Murray Cohen * Arranged by Marty Paich * Label: Everest

Peggy Lee’s 1957 version of this late thirties song (from the movie High, Wide and Handsome) is a classic, but the underappreciated Gloria Lynne sings with enough authority on her 1963 recording to give it definitive status. Marty Paich’s arrangement is a work of sublime beauty, with a French horn intro that likely informed David Rose’s theme for Little House on the Prairie, the long-running ’70s-’80s TV drama depicting the agonies and ecstasies of a pioneer family. Surely the opening sequence of the Ingalls family traveling on a hilltop to their “little house” got Rose thinking about Lynne’s and Paich’s take on a similar subject.