Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner, American songwriter, lyricist. (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986)
Together with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre. Lerner wrote the lyrics for some of the theatre's most famous songs. He won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors. Born in New York City, he was the son of Joseph Jay Lerner, the brother of the owner of the Lerner Stores, Samuel Alexander Lerner. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Harvard, where he befriended classmate John F. Kennedy. Following graduation, Lerner wrote scripts for radio, including Your Hit Parade, until he was introduced to a down-on-his-heels Austrian composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a lyricist, in 1942. They scored My Fair Lady, Camelot, Brigadoon, Gigi, others.

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Singer Ralph Young dies at 90

Ralph Young, a singer best known as the English-language half of the popular multilingual duo Sandler & Young, died on Friday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 90...

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Kenny Rogers at 70

US country-popKenneth Ray "Kenny" Rogers (born August 21, 1938, in Houston, Texas) is an American country music singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor and entrepreneur. He has been very successful, charting more than 70 hit singles across various music genres and topping the country and pop album charts for more than 420 individual weeks in the United States alone.

singer Kenny Rogers, whose hits like Lucille and Lady capitulated him to the top of both pop and country charts, turns 70 on Thursday...

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Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey Band

In 1939 Frank Sinatra signed on with trumpeter Harry James to front his big band. Sinatra was unique in his ability to "talk" a lyric and make listeners feel as if he were speaking directly to them. Teenage female fans—known as "bobbysoxers" at the time—fell in love with the skinny crooner, and they came out to see him in droves. Nationally known band leader, Tommy Dorsey, who was admired for the mellow tones of his trombone, saw Sinatra's remarkable drawing power and asked the young man if he'd like to join his band as a featured singer. It was an offer Sinatra couldn't refuse, and James graciously let Sinatra out of his contract so that he could have his shot at the big time.

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The Lamp Is Low vocalist Jack Leonard

After You've Gone Instrumental

I'll Be Seeing You with Sinatra

There Are Such Things Sinatra with Jo Stafford & Pied Pipers

Violets For Your Furs Sinatra

I'll Never Smile AgainSinatra

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You Dorsey's theme song

Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick (born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940), is an acclaimed five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, actress, activist, United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, former United States Ambassador of Health, and humanitarian. She is best known for her partnership with songwriters and producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

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Anita Baker

Anita Baker (born 26th January 1958 in Toledo, Ohio, USA) is an eight-time Grammy Award-winning, multi-Platinum rhythm and blues and soul singer and songwriter.Anita Baker has been something of a recluse for the better part of a decade. Baker may not record much these days. (Her last album, the pleasant if unremarkable My Everything, came out in 2004 after a 10-year recording hiatus.) But she's a much better singer today than she was and Baker has just launched a comeback, performing a string of national dates in the last few years...

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Happy 89th birthday to George Shearing

GEORGE SHEARING born 13 August 1919 in Battersea, England. Pianist, combo leader - now Sir George Shearing OBE who, during the 1950s, had one of the most popular jazz combos on the planet and sold millions of records for MGM and Capitol in his heyday. He has written over 300 compositions and has had multiple albums on the Billboard magazine charts throughout the '50s, '60s, '80s and '90s. Was a member of Ambrose big band in the late 30s and worked with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli in London in early 40s. Shearing came to the USA in 1947 where he replaced Erroll Garner in Oscar Pettiord's group. He formed his first quartet in 1949. Recorded for Savoy, MGM, Capitol, Sheba (His own named after his seeing-eye dog), Concord and Telarc. He composed the jazz-pop standard Lullaby of Birdland...

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Freddy Martin and Merv Griffin

Frederick Alfred (Freddy) Martin (December 9, 1906 – September 30, 1983) was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist. Martin was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Raised largely in an orphanage and with various relatives, Martin started out playing drums, then switched to C-melody saxophone and later tenor saxophone, the latter the one he would be identified with. Early on, he had intended to become a journalist. He had hoped that he would earn enough money from his musical work to enter Ohio State. But instead, he wound up becoming an accomplished musician. Martin led his own band while he was in high school, then played in various local bands. After working on a ships band, Martin joined the Mason-Dixon band, then joined Arnold Johnson and Jack Albin. It was with Albin's "Hotel Pennsylvania Music" that he made his first recordings, for Columbia's Velvet Tone label in 1930...MORE Wiki Bio

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Watch 1950's TV Show with Merv Griffin

Karen Carpenter

Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) was a highly successful American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the popular 1970s duo Carpenters. Karen Carpenter was an accomplished drummer, placing first in Playboy's reader poll for Best Rock Drummer of 1975, thus pioneering the way for a plethora of female drummers to follow. However, it is her vocal style for which she is best remembered. Known for impeccable phrasing and perfect pitch, Carpenter suffered from anorexia nervosa, a little known disease at the time, and eventually died from complications related to recovering from the illness at the age of 32, in 1983.

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Harry James

Harry James was one of the most outstanding instrumentalists of the swing era, employing a bravura playing style that made his trumpet work instantly identifiable. He was also one of the most popular bandleaders of the first half of the 1940s, and he continued to lead his band until just before his death, 40 years later...

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Harry James w/ Helen Forrest You Made Me Love You:

Harry James Band plays...

Who's Sorry Now (1945) HCO1630 - COLUMBIA 36973 COLHCO1630

I've Heard That Song Before (1943) - CAPITOL

Heartaches (1947) - Columbia, 37305

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Trumpet Rhapsody (1941) - V-disc, 213A2

Wilbur Evans birth centennial

5 AUGUST 1908 Birth of Wilbur Evans who was a vocalist on radio and Broadway during the '30s-40s - Recordings include... "The Merry Widow" and "The Student Price" on Decca. He starred opposite Mary Martin in the London production of South Pacific. Mr. Evans was born in Philadelphia and attended the Curtis Institute of Music. He won the 1927 Atwater Kent Foundation's national radio-singing contest and went on to sing professionally on the air and to perform in operas and operettas around the country as well as on Broadway.

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pianist Lou Teicher has died at age 83

'Lou Teicher died 3 August 2008 at his summer home in North Carolina of a heart attack. His partner..Art Ferrante is devastated by this news'. Manager Scott Smith also adds 'The vast library of Ferrante & Teicher recordings (over 1,200 songs) is testament to the rich musical legacy Lou leaves behind. Adored by millions of fans worldwide... Piano's Gold Dust Twins will live on forever'. Their 1950s prepared piano pop (released on a half-dozen LPs before the duo achieved commercial success) was groundbreaking.

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HELEN MORGAN pop icon of the 1920's

Helen Morgan (August 2, 1900 – October 9, 1941)
... was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical Show Boat in 1927, and appeared in its two subsequent film adaptations, in 1929 (prologue only) and in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Hart's Broadway musical, Sweet Adeline (1929), her stage carreer was relatively short. Helen Morgan died from of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed in the 1957 biopic The Helen Morgan Story.

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Happy birthday Tony Bennett

3 AUGUST 1926 - Birth of Tony Bennett (Benedetto), American Grammy Award-winning singer. Tony Bennett (born Anthony Dominick Benedetto...singer of popular music, standards and jazz. After having achieved artistic and commercial success in the 1950s and early 1960s, his career suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback, however, in the late 1980s and 1990s, expanding his audience to a younger generation while keeping his musical style intact. He remains a popular and critically praised recording artist and concert performer in the 2000s. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter.

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Perry Como on radio & TV

Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an Italian-American singer, radio & television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with it in 1943. "Mr. C", as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for RCA and also pioneered weekly musical variety radio/television shows. His combined success on television and popular recordings was not matched by any other artist of the time.
Below is an audio and also video recording of a 1954 simulcast CBS-TV/Radio show with guest Peggy Lee. Selections include Sway, Someone to Watch Over Me, I Feel a Song Comming On, Papa Loves Mambo.

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Harry James Band

Harry James [March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983] was one of the most outstanding instrumentalists of the swing era, employing a bravura playing style that made his trumpet work instantly identifiable. He was also one of the most popular bandleaders of the first half of the 1940s, and he continued to lead his band until just before his death, 40 years later. HARRY JAMES broadcasts included vocalists Frank Sinatra, Helen Forrest, Dick Haymes, Kitty Kallen, and Helen Ward and others from radio remotes, the CBS Chesterfield shows, Coca-Cola shows and The Danny Kaye Show.

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Listen link below, a 1940 Mutual network sustaining band remote from The Chatterbox, Mountainside, New Jersey. Features Dick Haymes vocalist, 13 1/2 minutes.

birth anniversary Werner Muller

German conductor Werner Müller was born 2 August 1920 in Berlin, He died 28 December 1998, in Cologne, Germany. Müller was conductor of two of the most popular radio orchestras in Germany. From 1948 to 1967, he led the Tanzorchester for the powerful station RIAS in Berlin. During this period he was associated with the pop singer Caterina Valente, whose recording of "Malaguena" was popular all over the world. In 1967 Müller became the chief conductor of the Tanzorchester of radio station WDRP in Cologne.

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