Geoffrey O'Hara

Geoffrey O'Hara (February 2, 1882 – January 31, 1967) was a Canadian-American composer, singer, music professor, and Broadway performer. Born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, he initially pursued a military path, enrolling at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario at age 18 and training with the 1st Hussars. The death of his father, Robert O'Hara, ended that ambition and redirected his life toward music.

O'Hara relocated to the United States in 1904, the same year he entered vaudeville performance. He began recording for Edison Records in 1905. In 1913, the American government commissioned him to document traditional Indian songs, and by 1914 he had been recorded on phonograph cylinder both lecturing on the complexity of Navajo traditional music and performing several of those songs. During World War I, he served as a singing instructor of patriotic songs for American troops, and he later served in the United Service Organizations during a subsequent conflict.

His output as a composer exceeded 500 songs spanning popular, patriotic, and sacred genres. Several songs achieved moderate popularity in the 1910s, among them Your Eyes Have Told Me What I Did Not Know (1913), Tennessee, I Hear You Calling Me (1914), and Over the Top: Military March (1917). His most celebrated composition was K-K-K-Katy, published in 1918, which became one of the most widely sung tunes of the World War I era and remained in circulation during World War II. The Wilson administration commissioned O'Hara to compose the modern version of the Star Spangled Banner.

On Broadway, O'Hara appeared in 1927 in both Rogues and Vagabonds and the musical Half a Widow. His organizational involvement in the music industry was extensive: in 1920 he helped found The Composers' and Lyric Writers' Protective League, served as a board member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), and held the presidency of the Composers-Authors Guild. He was also a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

O'Hara held academic appointments at Teachers' College of Columbia University from 1936 to 1937, as well as positions at Huron College and the University of South Dakota, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1947. He continued lecturing for the remainder of his life. In 1919, he married Constance Dougherty of Massachusetts, and the couple had two children; that same year he became a naturalized United States citizen. O'Hara died on January 31, 1967, one day before his 85th birthday.