1930-1999
Shel Silverstein
1930-1999
Shel Silverstein
Sheldon Allan Silverstein was born September 25, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, he is best known for his children’s books as well as his songs “A Boy Named Sue,” popularized by Johnny Cash, and Loretta Lynn’s “One’s on the Way.” One of his most famous works The Giving Tree will be honored by the United States Postal Service this year through the creation of a stamp. The stamp is designed by art director Derry Noyes and features an illustration of the boy catching an apple, released in the USPS 2022 Forever Stamps collection. Find out more on the USPS website. Shel Silverstein grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, where he attended Roosevelt High School. He began drawing at age seven, stating "when I was a kid—12 to 14, I'd much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls, but I couldn't play ball. I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn't have anybody to copy or be impressed by. I had developed my own style.” He enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, which he attended until he was drafted into the U.S. Army, while serving as a GI in Japan and Korea he became a cartoonist for the Pacific Stars & Stripes in the 1950s.
After Silverstein completed his time in the army he became a cartoonist for several magazines including Look, Sports Illustrated, and Playboy. Silverstein's cartoons appeared in every issue of Playboy from 1957 through the mid-1970s, earning him national recognition. Throughout the 1950s, Silverstein expanded his talents, focusing on his writing and songwriting. In 1959 he recorded his first album, Hairy Jazz, and in 1963, Silverstein met Ursula Nordstrom, a book editor, who convinced him to begin writing children's books, he released Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back that same year. In 1964 he wrote two more, A Giraffe and a Half and The Giving Tree. The latter became one of the most discussed children’s books of all time, it has been translated into more than 30 languages, sold over 20 million copies, and is continually named one of the best children’s books of all time.
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Throughout the 1970s Silverstein honed in on his songwriting, mentored by Bob Gibson, he played the guitar and began writing songs first with Gibson and then alone. He also co-wrote with writers like Mike Settle, Pat Dailey, Dennis Morgan, Kris Kristofferson, and many others. Several of his songs were chart hits including “The Unicorn” (Irish Rovers), “A Boy Named Sue” (Johnny Cash), “The Cover of the Rolling Stone”, and “Sylvia’s Mother” (Dr. Hook). His full-length albums include Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball, Drain My Brain, A Boy Named Sue and Other Country Songs, and Legends and Lies. He also wrote many of the songs performed by Bobby Bare, including "Rosalie's Good Eats Café", "The Mermaid", "The Winner", "Warm and Free", and "Tequila Sheila". Other notable song mentions include his works “25 Minutes to Go” (Johnny Cash), "Hey Loretta" (Loretta Lynn), "So Good to So Bad," “The Father of a Boy Named Sue” (Johnny Cash), and "Yes, Mr. Rogers.” In addition, Silverstein worked on motion picture soundtracks for films such as Ned Kelly, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, Postcards from the Edge, and more. He was also an accomplished playwright, his credits include The Lady or the Tiger and The Devil and Billy Markham, the latter produced at Lincoln Center in 1989.
Silverstein continued releasing memorable children’s titles throughout his life, including A Light in the Attic (1981), a collection of poems and drawings, and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981). One of the latter musical projects Silverstein completed in his lifetime was Old Dogs, a 1998 album with songs about getting old, all of which Silverstein wrote or co-wrote. Shel Silverstein passed away on May 10, 1999, from a heart attack in Key West, Florida. Throughout his career, Silverstein earned a multitude of accolades, his song "A Boy Named Sue" won a 1970 Grammy. He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his song "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. Silverstein was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2014.
