The first time I heard "Turn Around" was some time in the late 1950s, and it was sung by Nancy Reynolds, the daughter of Malvina Reynolds.

One of the regulars in the folk singing group in Seattle during the late 50s was Shirley Starkenberg. Shirley didn't sing, but she hosted a lot of get-togethers of local singers. She was from Seattle, but she spent some time in the mid-Fifties in the San Francisco Bay area where she met both Malvina and Nancy Reynolds. In the late Fifties, Nancy came to Seattle to visit Shirley for a week or two and during that time we had a song fest.

Most of us at the time didn't know anything about Malvina Reynolds. At the song fest, Nancy sang "Turn Around," saying that her mother had written it for her.

It was a few years later that I heard it on the radio. Harry Belafonte had recorded it. A few years after that, it was used in a television commercial (I'm pretty sure it was Kodak).

Leeneia's corrections at 19 Dec 10 - 11:34 p.m. above are, indeed, correct.

(One of the advantages of being an Old Geezer is that I remember when lots of things happened. Like, when the Big Bang occurred, I'm the one who said, "What the hell was THAT!??")

Don Firth