Saturday 20 December 2014

Saturday Night/Sentimental/Memories Sing Along With Mitch – MITCH MILLER**

Saturday Night: Dancing With Tears In My Eyes/Silver Moon/Bye Bye Blackbird/Poor Butterfly/Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral- That’s An Irish Lullaby-Mother Machree (Medley)/Now Is The Hour/Baby Face/I Wonder What’s Become Of Sally-Ain’t She Sweet (Medley)/I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover/The Man On The Flying Trapeze-Ta Ra Ra Boom De E (Medley)/Sing Along/Little Brown Jug-After The Ball (Medley) Columbia 1414 Sentimental: Singin’ In The Rain-All I Do Is Dream Of You-Toot Toot Tootsie (Medley)/Heart Of My Heart/Little Annie Rooney-Hello My Baby (Medley)/Our Boys Will Shine Tonight-Give My Regards To Broadway (Medley)/While Strolling Through The Park One Day-Ida (Medley)/When The Saints Come Marching In/Jeannine/Just A-Wearyin’ For You/I’ll See You In My Dreams/When I Grow To Old To Dream/Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair/Three O’clock In The Morning Columbia 1457 Memories: My Blue Heaven/I’m Nobody’s Baby-You Were Meant For Me (Medley)/At Sundown-Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue (Medley)/Meet Me In St Louis Louis-Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home (Medley)/The Bowery-The Yankee Doodle Boy (Medley)/I’m Goin’ Back To Dixie-Dixie (Medley)/Honey-Sleepy Time Gal (Medley)/Ramona/Peg O’ My Heart-Peggy O’Neill (Medley)/I Love You/Home On The Range/Battle Hymn Of The Republic Columbia 1542

Conductor and TV show host Mitch Miller released a series of popular sing along albums which charted during 1958-62. These three albums from 1960 made respectively No. 8, No. 5 and No. 5 on the US album chart.

“As a recording executive, Miller was very much in tune with the tastes of the times, at least among adults. His work, epitomized by the Sing Along With Mitch albums, was the music listened to by millions of white middle-class (some would say middle-brow) adults, that seemed to suit everyone concerned just fine. Even as Miller’s artists and his own recordings were generating millions of dollars for Columbia, the label's market share was slowly being undercut by changes in public taste that he and the rest of the management were doing their best to ignore.”

“Miller's television show remained very popular, mostly with middle-aged and older viewers which, in the days before audience demographics mattered, was enough to keep it on the air. He was something of a media superstar during this period, his smiling, bearded visage was as well known as that of any variety show star.”

“The days of Mitch’s great fame lay far back in the early 1960s, when he produced a number of albums that invited listeners to Sing Along With Mitch. The music was principally choral, usually with no more accompaniment than a lone harmonica. But they were so well received that Miller was given his own television programme, which lasted five years.”

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