Geoff Duncan

Ray Evans died of heart failure today; he was 92.

With partner Jay Livingston, Evans was one of the last living "great American songwriters;" the duo's partnership lasted more than six decades, and the two we well known for songs they composed for Paramount movies as well as landmark television shows, although they wrote quite a lot of more-sophisticated fare. Jay Livingston died in late 2001.

Livingston wrote the music and Evans focused on the lyrics for the duo's songs, although Evans wasn't some dilettante poet who didn't know his way around a scale. The two met playing in a dance band Livingston put together at the University of Pennsylvania—Evans played clarinet, the equivalent of lead guitar back in the day. (Evans also got a degree in Economics from the Wharton School.)

The duo's best-known songs are probably "Mona Lisa" and "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)"—the former was written for for the basically forgettable 1950 movie Captain Carey, U.S.A. and made famous by Nat King Cole, while the latter was written for the Hitchcock classic The Man Who Knew Too Much and sung by Doris Day. Both tunes won Oscars for Best Song. The duo also took home a statue in 1948 for the song "Buttons and Bows" in the movie The Paleface and were nominated again in 1957 for the song "Tammy" in Tammy and The Bachelor.

I'll personally remember Evans and Livingston best for some of their work unrelated to movies. Although the duo worked on Broadway shows (and got a Tony nomination for Best Musical in the late 50s, if I recall), they also composed the themes for the television shows Bonanza and Mr. Ed. Mr. Ed is integrated into the warp and woof of American culture, but Bonanza has always held a special place for me because it was set (and occasionally) filmed in the Reno/Tahoe area where I grew up. Among the series' fourteen years on the air you'll once or twice see the Bowers Mansion state park go by—I can't tell you how many school field trips went out to Bowers Mansion—and, of course, the Ponderosa Ranch was a real place until it was snapped up by developers and shut down in 2004. The last few seasons of the show used the ranch as a filming location. The Bonanza theme was also the piece I cited as a child when my grandmother asserted it was impossible for any of that "new" music with an electric guitar to be listenable. But she admitted the Bonanza theme was alright.

Evans is also famous for the Christmas song "Silver Bells," so—since Evans was Jewish—the song shares some of the same irony associated with "White Christmas." "Silver Bells" has sold more than 500 million copies and been covered by everyone from Dean Martin to the Chipmunks; it originally appeared in the film The Lemon Drop Kid, but was first recorded by Bing Crosby. In 2005, National Public Radio did a story on "Silver Bells" with an audio interview with Ray Evans—it shines a little light int Evans' character…as a lyricist, would you have told the story of the song's original title, "Tinkle Bell?"