RIP Mitch Miller.....

[Richard King]

A few days late, but...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_en_mu/us_obit_miller

He did a lot more than sing alongs....

[rasputin1963]

Mitch was the one who forced Rosemary Clooney to sing the suggestive "Come on-a My House" in 1955...

 

She hated the song, but sang it. It proved to be her "career record".

[MikeRivers]

To many, Mitch Miller was the father of 20th century popular music. He was a skilled arranger, producer, and businessman.

[Richard King]

 

Mitch was the one who forced Rosemary Clooney to sing the suggestive "Come on-a My House" in 1955... She hated the song, but sang it. It proved to be her "career record".

 

 

A friend of mine played guitar on that session and has told the story often about how she tried to back out of the session right before it was to take place. Mitch pointed out that the studio was already booked, the musicians were booked, they had hired a (at the time) rare electric harpsichord and the engineer had been booked. She said she still didn't want to do it, at which point Mitch said "let me put it this way, if you don't do it you're off the label". She then reluctantly did it. So, we have Mitch to credit for her career and, who knows, maybe through her, her nephew, George.

[TimOBrien]

When I was a kid my parents tuned into Miller's show every week.

 

A lot of people would laugh it him now, but back in the day he was a very BIG thing.

[Dessalines]

Yeah, Mitch wasn't a fan of rock n roll but it had more to do with payola than with musical taste. R.I.P. Mitch, my mother was abig fan of yours.

[rasputin1963]

 

When I was a kid my parents tuned into Miller's show every week. A lot of people would laugh it him now, but back in the day he was a very BIG thing.

 

 

 

I suppose, from a marketing point-of-view, he was tapping into the generation of Americans who had grown up pre-WWII and even pre-WWI.

 

He essentially ushered this demographic-- distrustful of rock 'n' roll--- into the postwar era by giving them the haymishe, nostalgic feelings they desired...

 

Maybe the way RHINO RECORDS now does for Baby Boomers...?

[spokenward]

The NYT obit quotes an Audio magazine interview on the payola angle, but that was pretty much after the fact and I'm not persuaded.

 

His family was pretty candid about his strong tastes and about the fact that he just didn't like rock.

 

The NPR piece gave some context on his hop from the classical music domain. He was oboe soloist in Rochester and later in Chicago.

 

Interestingly, it was John Hammond who suggested him for a pop project.

 

 

After a decade playing on the radio and doing session work, famed music executive John Hammond tapped Mitch Miller's pop sensibilities for a job at Mercury Records, where Miller produced a string of hit singles for Frankie Laine. Miller described the whip cracking sounds in Laine's hit "Mule Train" to DJ Bill Randle in a 1978 interview. "We were hitting leather chairs with rulers, and things like that, and nothing worked," said Miller. "They were remodeling the studio, and there were two slats for flooring and I began to hit them together. So, we dubbed it in and in ten minutes we had it."

 

 

The Hammond connection helps with a piece that I never understood. How did Hammond persuade him to sign Dylan?

 

Personally, I am grateful for his blind spot for Rock. If he got it, dozens of little labels would not have been born.

[UstadKhanAli]

He passed away on the same day that the inventor of Cheez Doodles did. May they both R.I.P.