Barry Wood

Barry Wood (born Louis Rappaport; February 12, 1909 – July 19, 1970) was an American singer and television producer. He is best known for being Frank Sinatra's immediate predecessor as the lead male vocalist on the long running NBC radio program Your Hit Parade.

Biography Born on February 12, 1909, in New Haven, Connecticut, Wood was the younger brother of bandleader Barney Rapp. He attended Yale (where he swam and played water polo). He was a sideman for Buddy Rogers's band. He left Rogers to become a singer, and he eventually signed on at Your Hit Parade, where he maintained his popularity for several years and was promoted as the nation's "sweater boy" (a counterpart to the sweater girl pin-ups popular in the World War II era). Another notable song he recorded for a war bond drive was called "Ev'rybody Ev'ry Payday", written by Tom Adair and Dick Uhl, and heavily promoted by the radio division of the United States Treasury to encourage workers to purchase bonds through payroll deductions.

According to music critic Will Friedwald, Wood had "an interesting voice, gray and appropriately woody", and a "sort of robust charm", but "his super-stiff rhythm makes him tough to listen to today." In 1948, his quarter-hour radio program, Barry Wood Show, was syndicated by Frederick Ziv via electrical transcription.

He later became a television producer.

In 1948 and 1949, Wood hosted and produced Places Please, a three-nights-a-week variety TV show on CBS.