Mitch Miller, band leader, TV host, recording executive and classical musician.
As head of Artists & Repertoire at Columbia Records in the 50’s and 60’s, Miller had tremendous influence, well beyond the well known “Sing Along With Mitch” show.
While his choices of arrangements and songs were not always the best (artists like Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney did not have their best records when they were on Columbia), he pioneered recording techniques that later became standard for all producers and engineers, putting the music and arrangements right up front with the vocalists.
He also often used non-musical sounds in his artists recordings (i.e., the snapping whip in “Mule Train”). Also, Frankie Laine's rougher vocals, unlike the crooners of the 50’s, helped pave the way for harder edge vocals of rock and roll (although Bing Crosby did record a version of "Mule Train" which charted in 1950.)
Miller became a household name with his early to mid 1960’s show, and his hit records (with the "Mitch Miller Orchestra") included “This Old Man”, “ “The Yellow Rose of Texas”,”Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”, and the theme from “Bridge on the River Kwai” and others.
He was 99 years old, and had lived in New York.
> He was 99 years old, and had lived in New York.
Amazing. I would have bet money that he'd died years ago. I wonder what the secret of his longevity was. Younger women? That last supplement would be easy enough when you're 99 since all women would probably be younger.
I loved Sing Along with Mitch. I, too, assumed he had died many years ago.
I remember my folks listening to his albums when I was a kid. 99 is a long time to be around. RIP, indeed.
>
> Amazing. I would have bet money that he'd died years ago. I wonder what the secret of his longevity was. Younger women?
Well, if that is true then that is why nobody has heard from him in all these years. They were keeping him very busy.:-)
I remember Sing along..
with his lil beard and popular songs. It hearkened back to the days when movie goers sang along with the 'bouncing balls' and days when people sang along in public as an act of community gathering. Depression era thinking, that is unthinkable now.
I think that his show acted on that nostalgia for that generation.
as a side note, I read recently that Martin Scorcesee as a young man and assistant director on the movie Woodstock was the one who came up with the idea to add the "sing along with the bouncing ball' for the Country Joe segment in that movie.
I used to listen to his LPs as a kid.
I heard he blocked rock and roll from Columbia Records (for as long as he could), he said that fad wasn't really "musical".
:beer:
