Mitch Miller

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Mitchell William Miller (born July 4, 1911) is an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive. He was one of the most influential figures in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s, both as the head of Artists & Repertoire at Columbia Records and as a best-selling recording artist.

Education and early career

Miller was born to a Jewish family in Rochester, New York. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Miller is an accomplished oboe and English horn player. He supported himself in the 1930s and 1940s as a session musician, and had known George Gershwin and toured in his orchestra. Among his more celebrated studio dates in the non-classical field were for The Voice of Frank Sinatra and bebop pioneer Charlie Parker’s famous Bird With Strings albums. He was a member of the Alec Wilder octet of the late '30s (his acquaintance with Wilder dating back to Rochester days), and played in the CBS house orchestra for the 1938 Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast. He later recorded Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela with Leopold Stokowski for RCA, and the Mozart Oboe Concerto for Columbia Records.

Miller as an A&R man

Miller served as the head of A&R (Artists and Repertoire) at Mercury Records in the late forties, and then joined Columbia Records in the same capacity in 1950. This was a pivotal position in a recording company, because the A&R executive decided which musicians and songs would be recorded and promoted by that particular record label.

He defined the Columbia style through the early 1960s, signing and producing many important pop standards artists for Columbia, including Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Jimmy Boyd, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, and Guy Mitchell (whose pseudonym actually was based on Miller’s first name), and helped direct the careers of artists who were already signed to the label, like Doris Day, Dinah Shore and Jo Stafford, to just name a few.

Miller also was responsible for not pursuing certain artists and tunes: he disapproved of rock 'n' roll, and passed on Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, who became stars on other labels. (He had offered Presley a contract, but balked at the amount Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was asking.) Despite his distaste for rock 'n' roll, Miller often produced records for Columbia artists that were rockish in nature. Songs like "A White Sport Coat(and a Pink Carnation) by Marty Robbins, and "Rock A Billy" by Guy Mitchell are just two examples.

Miller as a record producer

As a record producer, Miller gained a reputation for both innovation and gimmickry. Although he oversaw dozens of chart hits, his relentlessly cheery arrangements and his penchant for novelty material (e.g. "Come on-a My House", "Mama Will Bark") has drawn heavy criticism from some admirers of traditional pop music. Music historian Will Friedwald wrote in his book Jazz Singing (Da Capo Press, 1996) that "Miller exemplified the worst in American pop. He first aroused the ire of intelligent listeners by trying to turn -- and darn near succeeding in turning -- great artists like Sinatra, Clooney, and Tony Bennett into hacks. Miller chose the worst songs and put together the worst backings imaginable -- not with the hit-or-miss attitude that bad musicians... traditionally used, but with insight, forethought, careful planning, and perverted brilliance." (221)

At the same time, Friedwald acknowledges Miller's seminal influence on later popular music production:

While Miller's methods were resented by some of Columbia's performers, including Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney, the label maintained a high hit-to-release ratio during the 1950s.

Miller as a recording artist

In the early '50s Miller recorded with Columbia's house band as "Mitchell Miller and His Orchestra". He also recorded a string of successful albums and singles, featuring a male chorale and his own distinctive arrangements, under the name "Mitch Miller and the Gang" starting in 1950. The ensemble's hits included "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", "The Yellow Rose of Texas", and the two marches from The Bridge on the River Kwai: "The River Kwai March and Colonel Bogey March". In 1961 Miller also provided two choral tracks set to Dimitri Tiomkin's title music on the soundtrack to The Guns of Navarone. In 1965 they sang the "Major Dundee March", the theme song to Sam Peckinpah's infamous Major Dundee. Though the film was a box-office bomb, paradoxically the song remained popular for years. In 1987, Miller conducted the London Symphony Orchestra with pianist David Golub in a well-received recording of Gershwin's "An American in Paris," "Rhapsody in Blue," and "Concerto in F."

Sing Along with Mitch

In the 1960s Miller became a household name with his television show Sing Along with Mitch, a community-sing program featuring him and a male chorale. During the second season of Sing Along with Mitch, Miller himself coined the catchphrase "all smiles." These were preceded by the instructions to "sing along; just follow the bouncing ball" (a large dot that "bounced" above the words that were superimposed on television of the song that Mitch was singing). Steve Allen once performed a pointed satire of the show that spoofed the show's production values, including cameras panning among the vocalists, going out of control and knocking them over, then chasing Allen, made up as Miller, out of the studio.

Singer Leslie Uggams, pianist Dick Hyman, and the singing Quinto Sisters were featured on the program. One of the singers in Miller’s chorale, Bob McGrath, went on to a long career as one of the hosts of the PBS children’s television show Sesame Street.

Sing Along with Mitch ran on television for four years (1961–1964) before being cancelled, despite the fact that it was at the height of its popularity at the end of its run. The demographics of the show's audience ran too much toward mature viewers to attract advertisers more interested in targeting the youth market. (The show's format remained popular in England, where comedian Max Bygraves emceed his own version, "Sing Along with Max.")

Miller and rock music

Miller is frequently referred to by rock music historians as an “enemy” of early rock and roll. He did back John Hammond’s signing of Bob Dylan to capitalize on the folk music craze. He ultimately lost his job at Columbia for not signing the types of acts teenagers were buying.

Awards and recognitions

Miller has guest-conducted many of the top American orchestras.

Miller received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.

Cultural references

In The Flintstones Seaon 4 episode, The Flintstone Canaries, Fred and Barney and the rest of their barbershop quartet, Phil Kollin and Chad Rocksworth, compete in a contest on the "Hum Along With Herman" show.

Episode 8 of the "Topsy Turvy World" sequence of The Bullwinkle Show features the following exchange between Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale:

Boris: Who lives at North Pole?

Natasha: Penguins?

Boris: That's South Pole! Who lives at North Pole?

Natasha: Give me a hint!

Boris: You know! (sings) Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle-la-la-laaa!

Natasha: Swiss bell ringers!

Boris: No, no, no. With a beard and the ho-ho-ho-ho and jingle bells, jingle bells...

Natasha: I got it, Boris!

Boris: Who?

Natasha: Mitch Miller!

In one episode of the television series Beany and Cecil the villain Dishonest John, who had a moustache and goatee, was seen conducting a choral group of Dishonest Johns, using the Mitch Miller mannerisms, including a wide smile and closed eyes, as Miller used to do on his television program.

In an episode of "The Munsters", Eddie (Butch Patrick) tries a potion invented by Grandpa (Al Lewis) intended to make him grow taller and fend off the teasing from bigger kids at school. The following morning, Eddie wakes up not bigger, but with a full mustache and beard instead. Grandpa tries to lighten the mood by telling him he looks like Mitch Miller, causing Eddie to break down in tears.

An episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured the Rat Pack chess set, in which the white side is made up of Rat Pack members while the black side is their nemeses, with Miller as their king.

Mitch Miller Today

Miller, now 96, currently resides in New York City and continues to be a guest-conductor for many renowned orchestras.

External links

References

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Last updated on Monday February 25, 2008 at 15:20:20 PST (GMT -0800)
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