"Mill Valley" is a song written and composed by American singer-songwriter and teacher Rita Abrams, and performed by her and the students in the third grade who were attending Strawberry Point Elementary School during the 1969–1970 school year, initially billed under Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point Third Grade Class.
In early 1970, Rita Abrams, a singer-songwriter who had then been teaching at Strawberry Point Elementary School in the city of Mill Valley, located in the U.S. state of California, had met record producer Erik Jacobsen, who requested and received a tape recording of "Mill Valley" after Abrams informed him of the song she had just written that past Christmas.
[1][7] "Mill Valley" was described as an "off beat, delightful salute to the California locale," an "important chart item," and a "[potential] left field giant" by a writer for Billboard magazine, who furthermore compared it to Frank Sinatra's "High Hopes," likely due to its children's singing choir and similar song arrangement.
Abrams also appeared on To Tell the Truth, and performed for The Steve Allen and Smothers Brothers shows at some point, but was unable to be accompanied by the children.
[17] Also that year, Dr. Kimberly Berman, superintendent for the Mill Valley School District, hosted a virtual celebration of the song's anniversary, interviewing Abrams as well as a couple of the former third-grade students.