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Billy May was born William E. May on November 10, 1916 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and started playing the tuba in the high school band. At seventeen he began playing with Gene Olsen’s Polish-American Orchestra and a few local bands. Hearing Charlie Barnet’s band on the radio, he approached the bandleader in 1938 and asked if he could write arrangements for the band. For the next two years he arranged, played trumpet and recorded with Barnet, with his arrangement of Ray Noble’s Cherokee becoming a major hit during the swing music era.

By 1940 Glenn Miller hired May away from Barnet to arrange, play and record prior to performing the same duties with Les Brown before settling in as staff arranger for the NBC radio network and the n at Capitol Records.

He composed for television with such familiar scores as The Green Hornet, Batman, Naked City and Emergency; and for film Sergeants 3, Pennies from Heaven, Orchestra Wives, Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return among others. While at Capitol Records, Billy’s orchestra backed many of the arrangements he wrote for the top singers, including Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Peggy Lee, Vic Damone, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mercer, Jack Jones, Bing Crosby, Nancy Wilson and the list continues.

With his own band, May had a hit single, “Charmaine” though his most famous composition was the children’s song “I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat” recorded with Mel Blanc in 1950. He released an album as a leader titled Sorta-May, won a Grammy in 1959 for Best Performance By An Orchestra, went on to work with Verve, Reprise, Warner Bros. and Roulette record labels collaborating with Duke Ellington, Sammy Davis Jr., Petula Clark, Mel Torme, Jo Stafford, Dean Martin and Keely Smith on one of his final musical works. Composer, arranger and trumpeter Billy May passed away on January 22, 2004 at the age 85.

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