George Shearing was the composer of over 300 songs!! He had multiple albums on theBillboard Chart during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s.  Born in London in 1919,  the youngest of nine children.  Shearing started studying piano at the age of 3 and later attended a school for the blind where he studied for four years.  In 1947, Shearing emigrated to the US, where his harmonically complex style mixing swing, bop and modern classical influences gained him a huge audience and his first hit was "September in the Rain".  Hear the beautiful and unique style of George Shearing tonight on the 9 O'clock special

He was born blind to working class parents: his father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains in the evening.  he started out working in pubs and formed his own trios in England before coming to the states.  He died of  heart failure on February 14, 2011 in New York city, at the age of 91.