[napscoordinator]

Anyone heard of him before? I never did but prayers to his family just the same.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

My dad loved the show.
It was from a kinder, gentler time...

[Publius]

Mitch Miller was one of the most important producers of the Fifties. He defined the country and rockabilly sound at Columbia Records, where he was the director of A&R (artists and repetoire). Marty Robbins and other country singers got a huge leg up with Miller's male chorus backing them on recordings.

I truly didn't know he was still around. He was a genuine giant.

[mware]

Mitch Miller. Oh yes, us older FReepers probably sang along with him when we were kids.

"Be Kind to your web footed FRiends."

[paddles]

Listen to the theme of the movie “The Longest Day” and you’ll get a nice appreciation for the man and his music.

[justiceseeker93]

Anyone ever heard of him before?

He was one of the best known entertainment personalities in the US in the sixties. Then it seems as if no one ever heard from him since.

Your question indicates that you are young. (LOL!!!)

[Borges]

Miller established the primacy of the producer, proving that even more than the artist, the accompaniment, or the material, it was the responsibility of the man in the recording booth whether a record flew or flopped. Miller also conceived of the idea of the pop record “sound” per se: not so much an arrangement or a tune, but an aural texture (usually replete with extramusical gimmicks) that could be created in the studio and then replicated in live performance, instead of the other way around. Miller was hardly a rock ‘n’ roller, yet without these ideas there could never have been rock ‘n’ roll. “Mule Train”, Miller’s first major hit (for Frankie Laine) and the foundation of his career, set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock. The similarities between it and, say, “Leader of the Pack”, need hardly be outlined.