John Raymond Hubbell

Who was John Raymond Hubbell?

John Raymond Hubbell, also known as Raymond Hubbell, was an American writer, composer and lyricist. Today he is most remembered for the popular song, "Poor Butterfly".

Hubbell was born in Urbana, Ohio. He attended schools in Urbana and studied music in Chicago, where he formed a dance band. He worked for Charles K. Harris Publishers as a staff arranger and pianist. His first compositions for stage musicals were the songs for Chow Chow, which ran for 127 performances in Chicago in 1902. Renamed and revised as The Runaways in 1903, the show ran for 167 days in New York and then toured for several years. Hubbell began composing music for the Ziegfeld Follies in 1911 and eventually scored seven editions.

In 1915 he was hired as musical director for the Hippodrome after the previous music director, Manuel Klein, left abruptly after a disagreement with Lee Shubert and Jacob J. Shubert. He continued composing for the theater until 1923. The song he is most remembered for, "Poor Butterfly", was written for one of the first shows he wrote for the Hippodrome, The Big Show.