But he did get Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel, who didn’t do badly. And he owned the 50s.
He had to go once rock took over, true. But everybody else wished they could be Columbia until then.
I think I have my folks “Sing Along With Mitch” albums somewhere.
Not just any VP - he was head of A&R, and had a lot of say on who got signed.
My parents had a lot of the records, but never watched the TV show at least. And in their defense they also owned Rock Around the Clock.
I used to watch it with my parents when I was a kid in the 50s. It was a particular favorite of my grandmother. Like others, I particularly remember The Yellow Rose of Texas.
I remember the show and the bouncing ball over the lyrics, which got parodied in “Woodstock” in the “Feel-like-I’m-fixing-to-die rag”.
Miller didn’t like rock music but similar sentiments were expressed by Frank Sinatra and Steve Allen. Of course you can find similar expressions by rock fans, with large amounts of racism and homophobia, towards disco in the late 1970s. “Disco Demolition” night in Chicago in 1979 got 50,000 rock fans to gather to destroy disco records. Miller didn’t sign many rock acts but lots of labels were the same, so he had company in his stupidity.
One interesting fact about Miller (who lived to be 99). He was part of the orchestra on the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” broadcast
Yeah, I remember my parents used to watch Sing Along With Mitch. I think I had the opinion then it was a show for parents to sing the songs they used to sing during WWII. If nothing else, from that show I learned the lyrics to “The Stars And Stripes Forever”
*Be kind to your web-footed friends,
For a duck may be somebody’s mother.
Be kind to your friends in the swamp,
Where the weather is very very dawmp.
Well you may think that this is the end,
Well it is. *
1:10 on BubbaDog’s link.
But Dylan was signed by John Hammond, despite the resistance of everyone at Columbia, and S&G by Tom Wilson. That was during the folk song era, and both handled folk (and jazz), so Miller probably didn’t pay attention until after they were making too much money to drop.
Actually, Columbia’s biggest success in the 50s was My Fair Lady; they put money into the show in exchange for doing the soundtrack. The smash hit musical did a lot for their bottom line.
I just watched all four parts of this. My god what a pot shit chowder. And everyone is white on that show. When they said that there was going to be a minstrel show, I held my breath but thankfully there wasn’t any black face.
Of note: In the middle of Part 4 during the rail road number, part of it is the same melody as Monty Python’s Lumberjack song.
The songs may be old-fashioned and corny, but you gotta admit those are some mighty fine orchestrations and vocals! :o
I guess it’s true that good singing never goes out of fashion, no matter how long it’s been.
hajario writes:
> And everyone is white on that show.
Say what? Around 7:25 in Part 4 they do a close-up on a black woman in the front of the stage. I assume that that’s Leslie Uggams, who is one of the lead singers on the show. Yes, other than her, there doesn’t appear to be anyone who isn’t white.
This was what, 1964 or '65, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement? I doubt they had the balls to pull a stunt like that, given the atmosphere in the US at the time! :eek:
The tenor in the bow tie reminds me of Pee-Wee Herman! 
It was 1961-64. Using Leslie Uggams as a regular was considered a great leap forward for Civil Rights. She was one of the few Black women on network TV at the time, and wasn’t playing a menial role – she was a lead singer.
Admittedly, racists were often willing to accept Blacks who sang and danced rather than acted, but Uggams was an important step forward.
To be fair, it would have been worth going just to hear Rosemary Clooney. She was fab.
Time to pull out one of my favorite fun facts: the BBC had a program called The Black and White Minstrel Showwhich featured white performers in blackface…which ran until 1978. :eek:
The bouncing ball sing-along device was invented by the Fleischer brothers studios, best known for Betty Boop and Popeye. Fun fact, the bouncing ball was originally a real ball on a stick that was filmed moving over the song lyrics typography.
I definitely remember the Mitch Miller shows on tv. I come from a very musical family and Mitch and Lawrence were popular fare for the grandparents. I can remember sitting on my grandmother’s lap as a small child and singing along with the tv. I’m fairly sure that was one of the reasons I read so early is from watching and singing with Mitch.
Years later, when my grandmother was 89, Lawrence Welk did a show near her town. I took her to the show and she was thrilled. I was 20-ish and uninterested, but seeing her delight made me enjoy it too. She was chosen out of the audience to go up on stage and Lawrence danced with her. She talked about that for the rest of her life (she passed at 95). She had lost a lot of her memories, but she never forgot seeing Lawrence and getting that dance.
Good memories of our family singing along . . .
Bob is front-and-center at the 1:10 mark.
After the Mitch Miller Singers did a tour of Japan, Bob decided to come back and became a relatively successful performer there, recording several albums of Japanese songs and English songs translated to Japanese.
Bob singing “Kaze no Yurete Oka de (On the Windy Hill)”
Here he is as the guest on “I’ve Got a Secret” after which he performs a couple of songs.
Better than Lucy and Desi
Better than Route 66
Better than Huntley and Brinkley
Better than quiz shows all fixed
Better than Kildare and Casey
Sing it With Mitch
Better than Hitchcock and Karloff
Better than clicking the switch
Better than movies at night
Or watching Emil Griffith fight
Better than anything
Except being in love…