Posted on 08/02/2010 11:45:19 AM PDT by happygrl
AP) - Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to "Sing Along With Mitch" on television and records, died Saturday at age 99. Miller was a key exec at Columbia Records in the pre-rock 'n' roll era, making hits with singers Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, and Tony...
Read more: http://www.newser.com/tag/54238/1/mitch-miller.html#ixzz0vTXIpyy6
Let me be the first to endorse that thought. Indeed, R&R did go away, about the end of the 60s, though some may have lingered into the 70s. The stuff after that? Ugh. But, if you never heard anything but the junk produced thereafter, how would you know?
You’ve met my dad???
See where that got us!
We ate dinner at 6pm sharp every evening. NO excuses were accepted for not being there. We only had one tv - as children we were "allowed" to watch certain programs - Mitch Miller was one, Lassie, Perry Como, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, Make Room For Daddy, to name a few. Sunday was spent with the family going to church and then off to grandma's for Sunday dinner along with aunts, uncle, cousins etc. My parents had one vehicle and the whole family piled into it and we all went to our destination together. We did not have tv's or vcr's or dvd players in the vehicle, we actually communicated with each other on the ride to wherever. We had two phones in the house, one downstairs one upstairs and as teenagers we were allowed only a certain amount of time to talk on the phone, the rest of the time was spent doing school work. On weekends (and after school) we had chores to do and homework, no one went out until everything was done. We even had a curfew! AND if we were late we would get grounded, none of this "time out" crap - we were not allowed out and not allowed to talk on the phone or watch tv or have friends over for a certain amount of time - depending how late we were - I can remember being grounded for two months during the summer, no going out, no phone, no tv, no friends over, just chores, cleaning out the cellar, the yard, the attic, etc. And.....my kids were brought up under the same rules - they used to say I was the meanest person on the planet, but, now that they have kids they are bringing them up under the same rules!!
LOL, classic Mitch!
And, as others have said, living then...when families were watching TV together, was wonderful. Our parents knew where we were, and we knew where they were...without having to TEXT them.
I remember singin’ along with Mitch on TV. That was back in the day when only Bonanza and Disney were in color!!!
Thanks, SamAdams76, for taking the post in the spirit in which it was offered. You should be jealous, sir. You missed out on a great time to be alive in America.
I am immensely glad that I was born when I was. I was able to be “sentient” in 1950-54 to enjoy the popular music of the day and then to be a teenager when rock and roll erupted in 1955. And I never saw it as a rebellion to my parents, either.
In school, all of us were proud to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in class. We admired our government, too. And for good reason. Lucky America, to have Dwight Eisenhower as its President. A man of integrity.
And to address your comments about children in the 50s. If you failed in school, you failed and were kept in that grade for another year. No excuses were made to or by the parents. Individualsm ran rampant in those days. And I can remember getting hit in the behind with a paddle by more than one teacher; deserved it, too. And strangely enough, those teachers were not disciplined, nor was the police called.
A better time, sir, a better time.
“Someone told me once, that LaLane didn’t even start exercising until he was in his 50’s. “
Jack LaLanne had a poor physique as a teenager and ate all kinds of junk foods; but shortly after that he started his training regimen.
Wikipedia:
“LaLanne wrote that as a boy he was addicted to sugar and junk food. At age 15, he heard Paul Bragg give a talk on health and nutrition. Bragg’s message had a powerful influence on LaLanne, who decided to focus on his diet and exercise habits. He studied Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body and concentrated on bodybuilding and weightlifting.”
Mitch’s own chorale LPs and TV show were good cheesy fun, but what he did as a producer/A&R man was criminal. When it came to other artists, his taste was strictly in his mouth. This is the guy who tried to turn Frank Sinatra into a novelty singer and teamed him with Dagmar. There’s a famous story about Sinatra crossing paths with him in an airport years after he left Columbia. Miller reportedly walked up to him with hand outstretched, and Frank shot him an obscene suggestion and said something along the lines of, “If you don’t wanna lose that hand, keep walkin’.”
Playing outside and the only rule was be home for dinner.(and you better be home for dinner)
Saturday morning cartoons
Going to the drive-in to watch the latest monster movie.
Putting baseball cards in the spokes of your bike.
Building a tree house in the back yard.
Sunday rides in the Buick
Looking at the stars on a crysal clean summer evening.
Going swimming at the river after dad got home from work.
Watching television as a family.
Catching fireflies in a mason jar
Re: Jack Lalane
I remember many years ago, when after one of his super-human birthday feats, announced: “I can never die. It would ruin my reputation.”
Mitch Miller was also a successful studio musician. I believe that’s him playing the oboe solo on Frank Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year.”Not likely. Frank Sinatra a) was recording for his own Reprise label at the time, whereby Miller I think was still bound in one or another way to Columbia even if he was no longer the label's A and R boss; and, b) Sinatra despised Mitch Miller and the feeling was quite mutual.
In Sinatra's final days on Columbia Records, when Miller had become the A and R boss, Miller fell into the habit of compelling the pop roster to make rather trite, and almost novelty records, a habit he sustained for quite a few years even after Sinatra left Columbia and signed with Capitol. Sinatra was so sickened by the barking dogs and other gimmicks Miller imposed on some of those records (Sinatra was convinced that the gimmicks wore down some of his credibility, and he was probably right) that he went off on Miller to anyone who'd listen.
Miller, for his part, fired right back at Sinatra's objection to the gimmicks: Let me tell you that the microphone is the greatest gimmick of them all. Take away the microphone and Sinatra and most pop singers would be slicing salami in a delicatessen. (Which makes you wonder what he thought of people such as Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, the Hi-Los, the Four Lads, or Peggy Lee, all of whom put in time on Columbia during Miller's tenure and a few of whom had pronounced jazz influence or background in their singing . . .)
Miller also snorted at Tony Bennett's inclinations when Bennett finally got to make full albums. ("If you were a pop singer," Bennett has said of the earlier days on Columbia, "you did singles.") Every time he has a hit, Miller said with more than a little contempt, he wants to do jazz.
I submit that the longevity of both Frank Sinatra's and Tony Bennett's careers have made Mitch Miller himself resemble a gimmick by comparison. I personally thought the Sing Along with Mitch television series and albums were about two steps removed from dentist's chair music myself. And his abject contempt for Columbia's jazz roster of the time---to the point where he may have obstructed the company from promoting the jazz performers on the label as strongly as he did the pop and classical roster (Duke Ellington once cajoled Charles Mingus back to a trio session with Ellington and Max Roach by showing him the promotion the label was offering their project and saying, "Mingus, my man, if Columbia had done that kind of thing I'd still be on that label")---should be considered deplorable. (Anyone who'd snort when his label is hoisting forth the like of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Art Blakey, and Billie Holiday, to name a few, should be laughed out of town on a rail.)
But give the devil his due. Perhaps without meaning to, he did open a door for cross-genre meldings. Tony Bennett may have felt a little weird about having a crack at country songs (he remembers asking Miller in amazement, "Why on earth do you want me to sing cowboy songs?"), but his hit on Hank Williams's "Cold, Cold Heart" helped pave the way for country music and pop music to meet on common grounds in later years.
But then Bennett probably had a far longer-sighted view of his music than Miller ever could. To Miller, apparently, music was disposable. To Bennett, it's much as he's quoted as saying in the case notes for the reissues of his vintage albums: I never said I wanted hit singles. I always said I wanted a hit catalogue.
Wrong again, Mitch, God rest your soul . . .
...without having to TEXT them.*snort* My cell phone plan includes free 24/7 text messaging. I never use it. I tell people that I hadn't realised Alexander Graham Bell thought he was trying to reinvent the typewriter . . .
I guess you know you've really made it when Rockwell draws you
Yep. You sure have.
(Rockwell called this painting "The Blues Singers"; the original now belongs to Al Kooper himself---Mike Bloomfield died in 1983---after it hung for years in a Columbia Records office. If the Miller portrait wasn't used on an album jacket, that would make The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper the only album jacket Rockwell was known to have painted under contract.)
awww... who DIDN’T love “Sing Along With Mitch Miller?”
Great list. They ticked off a lot of memories for me.
Wasn’t it great to be able to play outside and only worry about being back in time for din-din?
And the monster movies at the drive-ins? Wow, that was fun.
As I said, great list.
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