Songwriters Hall of Fame

The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online virtual museum, striving toward that goal. Ultimately it intends to offer a museum but at present it exists only as a virtual museum on the Web. It has an office in New York City, United States, and holds workshops, showcases, and provides scholarships to promising artists to help develop new songwriting talent....

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http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/

Eddie Fisher

Fisher, fourth of seven children, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Kate (née Winokur) and Joseph Fisher. His father's surname was originally Fisch, but was anglicised to Fisher upon entry into the United States. To his family, Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy" or "Sonny". It was known at an early age that he had talent as a vocalist and he started singing in numerous amateur contests, which he usually won. He sang on the radio in high school, WFIL The Magic Lady 6pm daily. He attended Simon Gratz High School in north Philadelphia. He also appeared on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a popular radio show which moved to television.

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Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American popular singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death.

One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses

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Jimmy Dorsey

James "Jimmy" Dorsey (February 29, 1904 – June 12, 1957) was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter and big band leader.

Jimmy Dorsey was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the son of a music teacher and older brother of Tommy Dorsey who also became a prominent musician. He played trumpet in his youth, appearing on stage in a Vaudeville act as early as 1913. He switched to alto saxophone in 1915, and then learned to double on clarinet. While little-known now, Jimmy Dorsey played on a clarinet outfitted with the Albert system of fingering, as opposed to the more common Boehm system used by most of his contemporaries including Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. With his brother Tommy playing trombone, he formed Dorsey’s Novelty Six, one of the first jazz bands to broadcast. On December 26, 1953, the brothers and their orchestra appeared on Jackie Gleason's CBS television program. The success of that television appearance led Gleason to produce a weekly variety program, Stage Show, hosted by the brothers on CBS from 1954 and 1956. Elvis Presley appeared on several of the telecasts. Jimmy took over leadership of the orchestra after Tommy's death. Jimmy survived his brother by only a few months and died of lung cancer, aged 53, in New York City. Broadcasts of Jimmy Dorsey and The Fabulous Dorsey Orchestra on NBC Bandstand survive from December 25, and December 31, 1956. At least two other extant broadcasts from the month of December 1956 are available as well.

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Robert Farnon

24 JULY 1917 Birth of Canadian-English composer Robert FARNON in Toronto, Ontario. d-Guernsey, 23 APR 2005.
Farnon was commissioned as a captain in the Canadian Army and became the conductor/arranger of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force sent overseas during World War II, which was the Canadian equivalent of the American Band of the AEF led by Major Glenn Miller. At the end of the war, Farnon decided to make England his home, and he later moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands with his wife and children. He was considered by his peers the finest arranger in the world, and his talents influenced many composer-arrangers including Quincy Jones, all of whom acknowledge his contributions to their work. Conductor Andre Previn called him "the greatest writer for strings in the world." Robert Farnon died at the age of eighty-seven at a hospice near his home of forty years in Guernsey. He was survived by five children.


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Cleo and Johnny at 80

JAZZ singer Dame Cleo Laine and her husband Sir Johnny Dankworth have the delightful insouciance that comes with having lived a full and happy 80 years on this planet.

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Summertime Vocal Medley

Your Hit Parade

Your Hit Parade was a popular American radio and television program, sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes and broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and 1950 to 1959 on television. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Each Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and other favorite songs from the past were known as "Lucky Strike Extras."

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BOBM SUMMER MUSIC

Ed Ames

Ed Ames (born Edmund Dantes Urick on July 9, 1927) is an American popular singer and actor.
He is best known for his Pop and Adult Contemporary hits of the 1960s like "When the Snow is on the Roses" and the perennial "My Cup Runneth Over." He also was originally part of a popular singing group of 1950s called The Ames Brothers.

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Jo Stafford dies

Jo STAFFORD ...R.I.P. .....Nov. 12th 1917/July 16th 2008
Jo Stafford, born Jo Elizabeth Stafford on November 12, 1917, in Coalinga, California; was an American pop singer whose career spanned the late 1930s through the early 1960s. Stafford was greatly admired for the purity of her voice and was considered one of the most versatile vocalists of the era. She was also viewed as a pioneer of modern musical parody, having won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 1961 (with husband Paul Weston) for their album Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris.

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Happy Birthday Diahann Carroll

DIAHANN CARROLL born on 17 July 1935, Nee Carol Diahann Johnson. The singer/actress of stage (“No Strings”) and screen (“Carmen Jones”) has Recordings on RCA, United Artists, and Columbia. She is an American Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actress and singer.
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Ginger Rogers...birth anniversary

16 JULY 1911 - Birthday Ginger Rogers (Virginia Katherine McMath), Academy Award winning American actress, singer and dancer who partnered with Fred Astaire...("Did everything he did but backwards and in high-heels")

Died 25 April 1995. Rogers introduced some celebrated numbers from the Great American Songbook, songs such as Harry Warren and Al Dubin's "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" from Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), "Music Makes Me" from Flying Down to Rio (1933), "The Continental" from The Gay Divorcee (1934), Irving Berlin's "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet (1936) and the Gershwins' "Embraceable You" from Girl Crazy and "They All Laughed (at Christopher Columbus)" from Shall We Dance (1937). Furthermore, in song duets with Astaire, she co-introduced Berlin's "I'm Putting all My Eggs in One Basket" from Follow the Fleet (1936), Jerome Kern's "Pick Yourself Up" and "A Fine Romance" from Swing Time (1936) and the Gershwins' "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from Shall We Dance (1937). Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in 1940s Kitty Foyle...dramatized on radio's Lux, Presents Hollywood:

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German conductor James Last honored

The former bass player and world-renowned pop big band leader James (originally Hans) Last will become honorary senator of the Hochschule fr Knste (University of the Arts) in his hometown of Bremen, Germany, next year as a tribute honoring his 80th birthday. In the 1950s Last had been an important jazz bassist who was regularly nominated Germany's number one bass player in jazz polls and recorded with the German All Stars. In the 1960s he formed his big band which moved away from jazz and became one of the most successful pop big bands. He developed a very specific big band sound that was loved by dancers from all over the world. He sold more than 80 million records and received 206 Golden and 16 Platin records.
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