Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)

"Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)" is a folk music single, and the debut recording of the Serendipity Singers in 1964. The song was based on the English nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man".

The song was first recorded as "Crooked Little House" by Jimmie Rodgers in 1960, on his album At Home with Jimmie Rodgers - An Evening of Folk Songs, on which the songwriting was credited to Ersel Hickey and Ed E. Miller.^[2]

In 1964, it was recorded by the Serendipity Singers in a calypso music-based adaptation and arrangement by the group's musical director Bob Bowers, with group members Bryan Sennett and John Madden. In the midst of Beatlemania, the record reached #2 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart, #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #7 in Canada^[3] in April and May 1964.^[4] "Don't Let the Rain Come Down" (Phillips 40175) was the #1 song on the April 17, 1964 WLS Silver Dollar Survey,^[5] and also topped surveys in Louisville, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. The song reached #6 on the New Zealand Lever Hit parade chart.^[6] It was released on their premiere album, The Serendipity Singers. Later reissues of the Serendipity Singers' recording credited Hickey and Miller as the song's writers.^[7] In a "My Music, Folk Rewind" video, the group's nine members appear as three groups of three, with each group singing its particular verse; all nine members sing in each repetition of the chorus.

The song was also covered by The Brothers Four on their album More Big Folk Hits; Trini Lopez on The Folk Album (1965);^[8] and Ronnie Hilton, whose version was a hit in the UK, peaking at #21 in 1964.