Vince Guaraldi (July 17; 1928 February 6; 1976) was an American jazz musician and pianist best known for composing music for animated adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. Guaraldi was born in San Francisco; California.He graduated from Lincoln High School; attended San Francisco State College; and served as an Army cook in the Korean War.In his first serious gig; he had to fill in for Art Tatum. "Linus and Lucy" is a popular jazz piano piece written by Vince Guaraldi appearing in many of the Peanuts animated television specials. Named for the fictional siblings Linus and Lucy van Pelt, it was released in 1964 on the Vince Guaraldi Trio's album Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. A Charlie Brown Christmas introduced the song to a television audience of millions of children beginning in 1965. Since that special, the song has introduced most of the Peanuts TV specials, with the exceptions of the specials and other TV programs produced between 1979 and 1992.
The song was played to the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavour as wake-up music on Day 2 of the STS-123 mission on March 11, 2008. It was also used as background music for The Weather.