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Happy Holiday (song)
"Happy Holiday" (sometimes performed as "Happy Holidays") is a popular song composed by Irving Berlin in 1942 and published the following year. History "Happy Holiday" was introduced by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds (dubbed by Martha Mears) in the 1942 film ''Holiday Inn'' in a scene when the Inn opens for the first time. While it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song, in the film it is performed on New Year's Eve, and expresses a wish for the listener to enjoy "happy holidays" throughout the entire year. It contains certain melodic material first used in Berlin's earlier song " Easter Parade". Jo Stafford was the first to release it on a Christmas album, on her album of the same name in 1955. The Kay Thompson song "The Holiday Season" is sometimes paired with "Happy Holiday" as a medley. This was first popularized by Andy Williams (whom Thompson herself discovered and mentored). Other artists who have covered the "Happy Holiday"/"Holiday Season" medley include The Ma ... [...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] |
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is a Grammy award–winning vocal group founded in 1969 that has explored a cappella, vocalese, swing, standards, Brazilian jazz, rhythm and blues, and pop music. There have been two editions of the Manhattan Transfer, with Tim Hauser the only person to be part of both. The first group consisted of Hauser, Erin Dickins, Marty Nelson, Pat Rosalia, and Gene Pistilli. The second version of the group, formed in 1972, consisted of Hauser, Alan Paul, Janis Siegel, and Laurel Massé. In 1979, Massé left the group after being badly injured in a car accident and was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne. The group's long-time pianist, Yaron Gershovsky, accompanied the group on tour and served as music director. Trist Curless from the Los Angeles a cappella group m-pact became a permanent member in October 2014 following Hauser's death. Early years In 1969, Tim Hauser formed a vocal group in New York City called The Manhattan Transfer after the novel by John Dos Passos. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Old-Fashioned Christmas
''An Old-Fashioned Christmas'' is the second Christmas album and posthumous twelfth studio album by American music duo Carpenters, released on October 26, 1984, and after the death of singer and drummer Karen Carpenter. Background The album project had its genesis in several unused tracks from the Carpenters' previous Christmas album, 1978's '' Christmas Portrait''. Richard Carpenter took these tracks and recorded new material around them, and this album was the end result. The album includes the slower version of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town". Reissue A 1984 expanded CD reissue of ''Christmas Portrait'' included eight tracks from ''An Old-Fashioned Christmas''. In 1996 a two-CD set, ''Christmas Collection'', was issued containing both albums in their original running order. Track listing All lead vocals by Karen Carpenter, except where noted; all tracks produced by Richard Carpenter except "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" by Jack Daugherty, R. Carpenter, and K. Carpenter. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Carpenters
The Carpenters (officially known as Carpenters) were an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of siblings Karen Carpenter, Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (musician), Richard Carpenter (born 1946). They produced a distinct, soft, musical style, combining Karen's contralto vocals with Richard's harmonizing, arranging, and composition skills. During their 14-year career, the Carpenters recorded 10 albums along with numerous singles and several television specials. The siblings were born in New Haven, Connecticut, and moved to Downey, California, in 1963. Richard took piano lessons as a child, progressing to California State University, Long Beach, while Karen learned the drums. They first performed together as a duo in 1965 and formed the jazz-oriented Richard Carpenter Trio followed by the Middle of the road (music), middle-of-the-road group Spectrum. Signing as Carpenters to A&M Records in 1969, they achieved major success the following year with the hit si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. (June 1, 1921 – October 6, 1985) was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many world-famous vocalists at Capitol Records, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Keely Smith. He scored and arranged music for many films and television shows, earning an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards. He found commercial and critical success with a new generation in the 1980s, in a trio of Platinum albums with Linda Ronstadt. Early years Riddle was born in Oradell, New Jersey, the only child to survive to birth, and after, of Marie Albertine Riddle (a native of Mulhouse, France, whose father was Spanish) and Nelson Smock Riddle, who was of English-Irish and Dutch descent. His mother had suffered six miscarriages and one stillbirth in her lifetime. It was his mother's secon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Strings
The Living Strings were a studio orchestra founded in 1959 by RCA Victor for a series of easy listening recordings issued on the RCA Camden budget label. There were also related groups called the Living Voices, Living Brass, Living Guitars, Living Marimbas, Living Jazz, Living Trio, Living Percussion, and Living Organ. RCA Victor record producer Ethel Gabriel created the "Living Strings" series of albums, which were easy-listening instrumental string versions of popular tunes, the type of music that came to be known pejoratively as elevator music. There was no actual orchestra known as the Living Strings. The orchestra for most of the recordings was made up of musicians from various British orchestras assembled for the purpose of making the records. (Johnny Douglas was a frequent conductor and arranger.) In addition to the standard Hollywood, Nashville or New York sessions, some LPs were recorded in other countries (Mexico, England, Germany etc). The first Living Strings release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Faith
Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian-American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format. He became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Though his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the Swing Era, he refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s. Biography Faith was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was the oldest of eight children. His parents, Abraham Faith and Minnie, née Rottenberg, were Jewish. He played violin and piano as a child, and played in theatres and at Massey Hall. After his hands were badly burned in a fire, he turned to conducting, and his live orchestras used the new medium of radio broa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peggy Lee
Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music. Called the "Queen of American pop music," Lee recorded over 1,100 masters and composed over 270 songs. Early life Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, United States, on May 26, 1920, the seventh of the eight children of Selma Emele (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olaf Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her family were Lutherans. Her father was Swedish-American and her mother was Norwegian-American. After her mother died when Lee was four, her father married Minnie Schaumberg Wiese. Lee an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Andy Williams Christmas Album
''The Andy Williams Christmas Album'' is the first Christmas holiday album released by singer Andy Williams and his twelfth studio album overall. It was issued by Columbia Records in 1963, the first of eight Christmas albums released by Williams. Though it was also the album that introduced Williams's perennial holiday classic "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", Columbia instead released Williams's cover of " White Christmas" as the album's promotional single at the time.. A front-page story in ''Billboard'' magazine on November 23, 1963, made clear that the album was already destined to be a big hit: "Though the majority of retailers around the country that were contacted reported that Christmas product sales were just starting, they have already singled out the new 'Andy Williams Christmas Album' as the probably No. 1 LP for the next two months; at least of those albums thus far on the market. It is already registering heavy sales, as is his single 'White Christmas.'" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve And Eydie
Steve and Eydie is the name of an American pop vocal duet, consisting of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé. They originally began working together on ''Tonight Starring Steve Allen'' in 1954 and performed together until Gormé retired in 2009. Both have also had separate careers as solo singers. The performer name on their duet releases was denoted as "Steve and Eydie," without the last names. Steve's birth name was Sidney Leibowitz; Edith "Eydie" Gormé was from a multilingual Sephardic Jewish family whose surname was variously spelled Gorman and Gormezano. The two were married from 1957 until Gormé's death in 2013. They recorded on various labels including Coral and ABC-Paramount in the 1950s, United Artists, Columbia, and RCA in the 1960s, MGM in the 1970s, and others on to the present. Their last US chart record "Hallelujah", was shown as Parker and Penny. Their 1960 song "We Got Us" was not released as a hit single but was the title tune on an A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie Gleason
John Herbert Gleason (February 26, 1916June 24, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer, and conductor known affectionately as "The Great One." Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy, exemplified by his city-bus-driver character Ralph Kramden in the television series ''The Honeymooners''. He also developed ''The Jackie Gleason Show,'' which maintained high ratings from the mid 1950s through 1970. After originating in New York City, filming moved to Miami Beach, Florida, in 1964 after Gleason took up permanent residence there. Among his notable film roles were Minnesota Fats in 1961's ''The Hustler'' (co-starring with Paul Newman) and Buford T. Justice in the ''Smokey and the Bandit'' series from 1977 to 1983 (co-starring Burt Reynolds). Gleason enjoyed a prominent secondary music career during the 1950s and 1960s, producing a series of best-selling "mood music" albums. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Christmas Sing With Bing (1955–1962)
''A Christmas Sing with Bing'' was a series of transcribed radio hours hosted by Bing Crosby and broadcast on Christmas Eve for eight years from 1955 to 1962. The first edition of the program was released as an LP by Decca Records in 1956. Insurance Company of North America was the broadcast sponsor. Background Following the demise of the traditional weekly Bing Crosby variety show in the spring of 1954, to be replaced by a nightly 15-minute disc-jockey format show, radio listeners missed out on a full-fledged, half-hour Christmas program hosted by Crosby for the first time in twenty years. In 1955, this situation was remedied when Crosby, the undisputed voice of Christmas at the time, embarked on one of his most ambitious radio projects ever; a transcribed one-hour Christmas spectacular featuring guest artists that spanned the entire globe. It was called "A Christmas Sing with Bing" and the success of the initial broadcast resulted in the show running each year until 1962. Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
