Tom Glazer

Best-known for authoring the children's classic "On Top of Spaghetti," folksinger and songwriter Tom Glazer was born in Philadelphia on September 2, 1914. After the death of his carpenter father four years later, he and his siblings were raised by their mother and assorted relatives, sometimes living in an orphanage. At school, Glazer studied a variety of musical traditions and instruments (among them guitar, bass, and tuba) before relocating at 17 to New York City, where he worked at Macy's department store while finishing high school at night. After three years at New York C...