Sherman Oaks Tutors

About Sherman Oaks

Due to Sherman Oak’s nestling of beautiful homes into the hillside, it’s unsurprising that it is a magnet for those who value privacy. Coupled with its convenient location, accessibility to Hollywood and surrounding movie studios, it continues to be a good hiding spot for some of Hollywood’s most famous residents.

Sherman Oaks tutors have a wealth of success stories relating to local residents of the area, which provide motivation for their students who exhibit artistic prowess. A relatively unknown fact about this part of the San Fernando Valley, which has reached peak temperatures well over 100 degrees, is that it provided the inspiration for one of the most popular ‘Christmas’ songs ever written.

It was over 70 years ago that the postwar hit “The Christmas Song” was penned by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé, on one of the typical Sherman Oak’s boiling hot summer days. According to Mel Tormé’s son, James Tormé who is also a singer and songwriter himself, the song came about completely by surprise. Composer and writer Bob Wells was attempting to cool down by imagining it to be cold. According to James, Bob had attempted various ways to cool himself down. He had been swimming in the pool, drank glasses of cold water, and had stood directly in front of the fan, but could not become comfortable. In a last ditch effort he began mentally writing things down that if he could put himself into that mental state he hoped would make him physically shiver with cold. This is where the lyrics to the song were born. “Jack Frost nipping at your nose” and “folks dressed up like Eskimos”. Mel Tormé then walked over to Bob and examined the four lines scribbled on a piece of paper, and declared that these lyrics would be a great start to a Christmas Song.

It would seem once that idea was conceived that the song pretty much wrote itself and the next stop for Bob and Mel was to visit their pal Nat King Cole who lived over the hill in Hancock Park. Needless to say it only took one run through of the song for Nat to fall in love with it. It would become not only one of Nat King Cole’s most well known songs, but one of the best known Christmas Songs ever written.

This song is played across the world during the holiday season, and can be heard on radio stations, television commercials, in the local grocery store, or even at the airport as people fly home to be reunited with family and friends. Sherman Oaks tutors use this example to describe how creativity can strike anywhere. Over one hundred new artists have recorded their own versions of this American classic song.