Tom Merriman

Composer, arranger and executive in the commercial music and recording business, born March 20, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois; died November 11, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. Wrote radio jingles and among other things wrote and arranged all of the original music for Six Flags Over Texas. He had a company called TM Productions, Inc. A graduate of Indiana University, Merriman was a student of the Julliard School of Music and established his musical credentials with an impressive list of clients. Over the years, he wrote and produced music for Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, as well as corporate and film clients – winning a Cannes Film Festival Award and an award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Before partnering with Jim Long in 1967 to create one of the nation’s most influential commercial jingle and radio ID production companies, TM Productions, Merriman was a staff writer for various production houses, an independent producer, the owner of CRC (Commercial Recording Corporation), where he wrote and recorded a custom jingle for the Dallas Morning News: “Start the day with the world on your doorstep, with the Dallas Morning News”. All the while, he kept his “day job” as the Music Director at The Hockaday School – until the success of the TM Companies far exceeded his wildest dreams. He was also one of the original owners of KVIL Radio in Dallas.