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'S Wonderful (album)
''S Wonderful!'' is a 1956 album by Ray Conniff, his orchestra and (wordless) chorus. It was his first album released under his name. The album was produced completely in Mono by Mitch Miller at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studios in New York City. Critical reception The Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ... review by William Ruhlmann gave the album 4.5 stars stating "Conniff updated the big band sound to the '50s, retaining its danceable tempos and building upon the unison section innovations of Glenn Miller...Employing standards with familiar melodies, the imaginativeness of his work became all the more noticeable." Track listing Recording dates Recording dates based on Ray Conniff's diaries: * November 11, 1955: Stardust/Begin the Beguine (to be rele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Conniff
Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 – October 12, 2002) was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s. Biography Conniff was born November 6, 1916 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, United States, and learned to play the trombone from his father. He studied music arranging from a course book. Early career After serving in the U.S. Army in World War II (where he worked under Walter Schumann), he joined the Artie Shaw big band and wrote many arrangements for him. After his stint with Shaw, he was hired in 1954 by Mitch Miller, head of A&R at Columbia Records, as the label's home arranger, working with several artists including Rosemary Clooney, Marty Robbins, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell and Johnnie Ray. He wrote a top-10 arrangement for Don Cherry's "Band of Gold" in 1955, a single that sold more than a million copies. Among the hit singles Conniff backed with his orchestra (and eventually with a male chorus) wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wagon Wheels (song)
__NOTOC__ "Wagon Wheels" is a Western song written by Billy Hill and Peter DeRose in the early 1930s. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Background The song was used as the title song in the 1934 western movie ''Wagon Wheels'', starring Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick. It was sung by Everett Marshall in the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' of 1934. "Wagon Wheels" has been recorded dozens of times over the years, by artists including Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra and Paul Robeson in 1934, and Sammy Davis, Jr., The Platters, and Johnnie Ray John Alvin Ray (January 10, 1927 – February 24, 1990) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Highly popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor to what became rock and roll, for his jazz and blu ... later on. References {{Reflist 1934 songs Songs with music by Peter DeRose Songs from musicals Songs written by Billy Hill (songwri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to utilize new communication technologies such as television, electronic microphones, and sound recordings. Carmichael composed several hundred songs, including 50 that achieved hit record status. He is best known for composing the music for " Stardust", "Georgia on My Mind" (lyrics by Stuart Gorrell), "The Nearness of You", and " Heart and Soul" (in collaboration with lyricist Frank Loesser), four of the most-recorded American songs of all time. He also collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer on " Lazybones" and "Skylark". Carmichael's "Ole Buttermilk Sky" was an Academy Award nominee in 1946, from ''Canyon Passage'', in which he co-starred as a musician riding a mule. " In the Cool, Cool, C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stardust (1927 Song)
"Stardust" is a jazz song composed by American singer, songwriter and musician Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Mitchell Parish. Now considered a standard and part of the Great American Songbook, the song has been recorded over 1,500 times either as an instrumental or vocal track, featuring different performers. During his time attending Indiana University, Carmichael developed a taste for jazz. He formed his own band and played at local events in Indiana and Ohio. Following his graduation, Carmichael moved to Florida to work for a law firm. He left the law sector and returned to Indiana, after learning of the success of one of his compositions. In 1927, after leaving a local university hangout, Carmichael started to whistle a tune that he later developed further. When composing the song, he was inspired by the end of one of his love affairs, and on the suggestion of a university classmate, he decided on its title. The same year, Carmichael recorded an instrumental version of the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Get A Kick Out Of You
"I Get a Kick Out of You" is a song by Cole Porter, which was first sung in the 1934 Broadway musical ''Anything Goes'', and then in the 1936 film version. Originally sung by Ethel Merman, it has been covered by dozens of prominent performers, including Frank Sinatra, Dolly Parton, and Ella Fitzgerald. A cover by Mel Tormé won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement with Accompanying Vocal(s) for arranger Rob McConnell, while a duet version by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga was nominated for three awards at the 2022 ceremony, including Record of the Year. Alterations to the song The lyrics were first altered shortly after being written. The last verse originally went as follows: After the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, Porter changed the second and third lines to: In the 1936 movie version, alternative lyrics in the second verse were provided to replace a reference to the drug cocaine, which was not allowed by Hollywood's Production Code of 1934. The original ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Background Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela ('Premely') Stephenson, both of Scotch-Irish descent. His family initially lived on his maternal grandmother Sheperd's farm in Atlantic, then moved to Andover, Ohio, where his father became a railroad fireman while studying to become a minister. They moved often, to follow their father's ministerial posts, and Maxwell was frequently sick, missing a great deal of school. He used his time sick in bed to read voraciously, and both his parents and Aunt Emma were storytellers, which contributed to Anderson's love of literature. During a visit to his grandmother's house in Atlantic, at age 11, he met the first love of his life, Hallie Loomis, a slightly older girl from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
September Song
"September Song" is an American standard popular song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. It was introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical production ''Knickerbocker Holiday.'' The song has been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists. Origins The song originated from Walter Huston's request that he should have one solo song in ''Knickerbocker Holiday'' if he was to play the role of the aged governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant. Anderson and Weill wrote the song in a couple of hours for Huston's gruff voice and limited vocal range. ''Knickerbocker Holiday'' was roughly based on Washington Irving's ''Knickerbocker's History of New York'' set in New Amsterdam in 1647. It is a political allegory criticizing the policies of the New Deal through the portrayal of a semi–fascist government of New Amsterdam, with a corrupt governor and councilmen. It also involves a love triangle with a young woman forced to marry the governor Pet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, ''Kiss Me, Kate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Begin The Beguine
"Begin the Beguine" is a popular song written by Cole Porter. Porter composed the song between Kalabahi, Indonesia, and Fiji during a 1935 Pacific cruise aboard Cunard's ocean liner ''Franconia''. In October 1935, it was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical ''Jubilee'', produced at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. Beguine is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rumba. Music Musicologist and composer Alec Wilder described it in his book ''American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950'' as "a maverick, an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music ... about the sixtieth measure I find myself muttering another title, ''End the Beguine.''" Artie Shaw version At first, the song gained little popularity, perhaps because of its length and unconventional form. Josephine Baker danced to it in her return to America in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bud Green
Bud Green (19 November 1897 – 2 January 1981) was an American lyricist especially of Broadway musicals and show tunes Early life and family Green was born Moses David Green in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and immigrated to the United States as an infant. Bud Green (Buddy) grew up in Harlem at 108th & Madison Avenue at the turn of the 20th century, the eldest of seven. He dropped out of elementary school to sell newspapers and help the family. While selling papers, he decided to become a songwriter and started keeping a notebook of poems and rhymes that he thought would be useful someday. His sister, Hannah, was married to the lyricist Bob Russell (1914–1970), who wrote "Brazil", "Frenesi", "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and many other songs. Career In his early career, he wrote material for vaudevilles. He was a staff writer for music publishers and wrote Broadway stage scores as well as songs for other musicals. By 1928, he had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Homer
Ben Homer (born Benjamin Hozer, 27 June 1917, Meriden, Connecticut – 12 February 1975, Los Angeles, California) was an American songwriter, composer and arranger. Biography He joined the Meriden Symphony Orchestra when he was eleven years old, and wrote a class song at Jefferson Junior High School in 1932. He became a member of the American Federation of Musicians when he was fifteen. He later attended the New England Conservatory of Music on a scholarship, and returned there as a teacher in the 1940s. He began his professional career by moving to New York City in 1938 and changing his name to Homer. He began composing for bandleader Les Brown in 1940, writing some material with lyricist Bud Green. His most popular works are " Sentimental Journey" (1944), "Bizet Has His Day" (1945) (a jazz arrangement of Georges Bizet's "Farandole The Farandole is an open-chain community dance popular in Provence, France. The Farandole bears similarities to the gavotte, jig, and tar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Brown (bandleader)
Lester Raymond Brown (March 14, 1912 – January 4, 2001) was an American jazz musician who led the big band Les Brown and His Band of Renown for nearly seven decades from 1938 to 2000. Biography Brown was born in Reinerton, Pennsylvania. He enrolled in the Conway Military Band School (later part of Ithaca College) in 1926, studying with famous bandleader Patrick Conway for three years before receiving a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy, where he graduated in 1932. Brown attended college at Duke University from 1932 to 1936. There he led the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils, who performed regularly on Duke's campus and up and down the east coast. Brown took the band on an extensive summer tour in 1936. At the end of the tour, while some of the band members returned to Duke to continue their education, others stayed on with Brown and continued to tour, becoming in 1938 the Band of Renown. The band's original drummer, Don Kramer, became the acting manager and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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