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Billy May
Edward William May Jr. (November 10, 1916 – January 22, 2004) was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music for ''The Green Hornet'' (1966), ''The Mod Squad'' (1968), ''Batman'' (with '' Batgirl'' theme, 1967), and '' Naked City'' (1960). He collaborated on films such as '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1981), and orchestrated '' Cocoon'', and '' Cocoon: The Return'', among others. May wrote arrangements for many top singers, including Frank Sinatra, Yma Sumac, Nat King Cole, Anita O'Day, Peggy Lee, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, Johnny Mercer, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Jack Jones, Bing Crosby, Sandler and Young, Nancy Wilson, Rosemary Clooney, The Andrews Sisters and Ella Mae Morse. He also collaborated with satirist Stan Freberg on several classic 1950s and 1960s comedy music albums. As a trumpet player in the 1940s Big Band era, May recorded such songs as "Measure for Measure", "Long Tall Mama", and "Boom Shot", with Glenn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music, and was a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as songs written by others from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including " Moon River", " Days of Wine and Roses", " Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Early life Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, where one of his first jobs, aged 10, was sweeping floors at the original 1919 location of Leopold's Ice Cream. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boom Shot
Boom Shot is a 1942 song composed by Glenn Miller and Billy May for the 20th Century Fox movie ''Orchestra Wives'' starring George Montgomery (actor), George Montgomery and Ann Rutherford. Billy May is credited as his first wife, Arletta May, because he had signed an exclusive composer's contract with Charlie Barnet that prohibited him from writing anything for Miller under his own name. The song was published by Mutual Music Society in the U.S. and by Chappell and Company in the UK. Though uncredited on the film soundtrack, "Boom Shot" appears in the movie ''Orchestra Wives'' twice, first as a 78 by Gene Morrison and His Orchestra on the Wurlitzer Wurlitzer jukebox, jukebox in the soda shop, then during the outdoor concert scene featuring Harry Morgan and Ann Rutherford dancing. Glenn Miller as Gene Morrison is shown conducting his orchestra on the bandstand. The title comes from the wide-angle, mobile camera shot used to film the scene, known as a boom shot. The arrangement is b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Instruments Big bands generally have four sections: trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, double bass, and drums. The division in early big bands, from the 1920s to 1930s, was typically two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three or four saxo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg (born Stanley Friberg; August 7, 1926 – April 7, 2015) was an American actor, author, comedian, musician, radio personality, puppeteer and advertising creative director. His best-known works include " St. George and the Dragonet", '' Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America'', his role on the television series ''Time for Beany'', multiple characters in the Looney Tunes such as Pete Puma and Bertie, and a number of classic television commercials. Early and personal life Freberg was born Stanley Friberg on August 7, 1926 in Pasadena, California, the son of Evelyn Dorothy (née Conner), a housewife, and Victor Richard Friberg (later Freberg), a Baptist minister. Freberg was of Swedish and Irish descent. He was drafted in the US Army from 1945 to 1947 where he served in Special Services attached to the Medical Corps aMcCornack General Hospitalin Pasadena, California. Freberg's work reflected both his gentle sensitivity (despite his liberal use of biting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ella Mae Morse
Ella Mae Morse (September 12, 1924 – October 16, 1999) was an American singer of popular music whose 1940s and 1950s recordings mixing jazz, blues, and country styles influenced the development of rock and roll. Her 1942 recording of "Cow-Cow Boogie" with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra gave Capitol Records its first gold record. In 1943, her single "Get On Board, Little Chillun", also with Slack, charted in what would soon become the R&B charts, making her one of the first white singers to do so. Morse stopped recording in 1957 but continued to perform and tour into the 1990s. In 1960 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Career Morse was born in Mansfield, Texas. She was hired by Jimmy Dorsey when she was 14 years old. In 1942, at the age of 17, she joined Freddie Slack's band, with whom in the same year she recorded "Cow-Cow Boogie (Cuma-Ti-Yi-Yi-Ay)", the first gold record released by Capitol Records. " Mr. Five by Five" was also recorded by Morse with Slack, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the Swing music, swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January 3, 1916 – October 21, 1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia "Patty" Marie Andrews (February 16, 1918 – January 30, 2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bistu Shein, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and "Rum and Coca Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso music, calypso. The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002) was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as " Botch-a-Me", " Mambo Italiano", "Tenderly", "Half as Much", "Hey There", "This Ole House", and " Sway". She also had success as a jazz vocalist. Clooney's career languished in the 1960s, partly because of problems related to depression and drug addiction, but revived in 1977, when her '' White Christmas'' co-star Bing Crosby asked her to appear with him at a show marking his 50th anniversary in show business. She continued recording until her death in 2002. Early life Rosemary Clooney was born in Maysville, Kentucky, the daughter of Marie Frances (née Guilfoyle) and Andrew Joseph Clooney. She was one of five children. Her father was of Irish and German descent, and her mother was of English and Irish ancestry. She was raised Catholic. When Clooney was 15, her mother a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy Wilson (jazz Singer)
Nancy Sue Wilson (February 20, 1937 – December 13, 2018) was an American singer and actress whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid-1950s until her retirement in the early 2010s. She was especially notable for her single "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" and her version of the standard "Guess Who I Saw Today". Wilson recorded more than 70 albums and won three Grammy Awards for her work. During her performing career, Wilson was labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and soul; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer". The title she preferred, however, was "song stylist". She received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice". Early life Nancy Wilson was born on February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio, to Olden Wilson, an iron foundry worker, and Lillian Ryan. Wilson attended Burnside Heights Elementary School and developed her singing skills by participating in church choirs. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandler And Young
Sandler and Young were an American musical duo from the 1960s through the 1980s, composed of Belgian singer Tony Sandler and native New Yorker Ralph Young. First success Sandler and Young appeared with Polly Bergen in her show at the Las Vegas Desert Inn Hotel and Casino, doing eleven minutes between her costume changes. This engagement was a smashing success and was the first of many the three would make together. Sandler and Young's careers were further advanced by their performance at the Coconut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood, where a long list of celebrities and movie stars, through word of mouth, attended their show. Among the people in attendance was Alan W. Livingston, then-president of Capitol Records, who immediately signed them to a recording contract. Fame During the following ten years, they released several albums for Capitol, including ''Side by Side'', ''Pretty Things Come in Twos'', ''On the Move'', ''Honey Come Back'', ''Odds & Ends'', ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. ''Yank'' magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, ''Music Digest'' estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Jones (singer)
John Allan Jones (born January 14, 1938) is an American singer and actor. Jones is primarily a straight-pop singer (even when he recorded contemporary material) whose forays into jazz are mostly of the big-band/swing variety. He has won two Grammy Awards. Jones continues to perform concerts around the world and remains popular in Las Vegas, Nevada, Las Vegas. He is perhaps most widely known for his recordings of "Lollipops and Roses (song), Lollipops and Roses" (Grammy Awards of 1962, 1962 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male, Grammy Award, Best Pop Male Performance), "Wives and Lovers" (Grammy Awards of 1964, 1964 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male, Grammy Award, Best Pop Male Performance), "The Race Is On (song), The Race Is On", "The Impossible Dream (song), The Impossible Dream", "Call Me Irresponsible", and "Love Boat (song), The Love Boat Theme". He also sang the opening theme tune for the 1968 film ''Anzio (film), Anzio'' ("This World Is Yours"). M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
