FROM THE VAULTS

Martha Raye (August 27, 1916 – October 19, 1994) was an American comic actress and singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She also acted in plays, including Broadway. She was honoured in 1969 with an Academy Award as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops.

Martha Raye was in Butte, Montana on August 27, 1916. She was an Academy Award-winning American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television.

Raye's life as a singer and comedy performer began very early in her childhood. She was born at St James Hospital, as Margy Reed, where her Irish immigrant parents were performing at a local vaudeville theatre. Two days after Martha was born, her mother was back on stage, and Martha first appeared in their act when she was 3 years old, performing with her brother, Bud.

She made her first film appearance in 1934 in a band short titled A Nite in the Nite Club. In 1936, she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures, and made her first picture for Paramount. Her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range with Bing Crosby.

Martha Raye was known for the size of her mouth, which appeared large in proportion to the rest of her face, thus earning her the nickname ‘The Big Mouth.’ Her mouth would come to relegate her motion picture work to largely supporting comic parts, and was often made up in such a way that it appeared even larger than it already was.

Martha Raye had a lifelong fear of flying, but because of her

profession was required to make numerous flights, which she could muster only after drinking herself into a near alcoholic stupor. Her drinking and conduct during these periods ended up with a number of airlines refusing her service, particularly on her many trips into the Miami, Florida area, which was her favourite vacation spot.

During World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, she travelled extensively to entertain the American troops. Raye became an honorary Green Beret. Visited U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam without fanfare, she was affectionately known by Green Berets as “Colonel Maggie.”

Raye was an early television star, she had her own program, The Martha Raye Show from 1954 to 1956 in which she was the lead and her awkward boyfriend was portrayed by retired boxer Rocky Graziano. Later, Raye served as the television spokesperson for

Polident denture cleanser during the 1970's and 1980's. Raye's catch-phrase used in the vast majority of these ads was, “So take it from a big mouth, new Polident green gets tough stains clean.”

She was married seven times, with most of her marriages lasting less than two years and her first marriage lasting only three months. She was married to Nick Condos from March 9, 1944 to June 17, 1953 which resulted in the birth of her only child, Melodye Raye Condos on July 26, 1944; and to Mark Harris from September 25, 1991 until her death in 1994.

In November of 1993, after a long and drawn-out series of illnesses, Martha was presented with the Presidential Medal of

Freedom by President Clinton. The ceremony took place in their Bel Air home. Although several people close to Martha had worked since 1987 to see that this well-deserved recognition was bestowed upon Martha before her passing, Martha accepted her medal from a wheelchair.

Raye was in the following feature films, beginning with Rhythm on the Range in 1936, The Big Broadcast of 1937, Hideaway Girl, Mountain Music, Artists & Models, Double or Nothing, The Big Broadcast of 1938, College Swing, Tropic Holiday, Give Me a Sailor, $1000 a Touchdown, The Boys from Syracuse, Four Jills in a Jeep, Pin Up Girl, the documentary No Substitute for Victory, Pufnstuf and The Concorde: Airport '79 in 1979. Raye also starred in A Nite in a Nite Club in 1934 and Cinema Circus in 1937..

As for TV shows, Raye acted in Four Star Revue (host from 1951 to 1953) The Martha Raye Show from 1954 to 1956, The Judy Garland Show, The Bugaloos, Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol, The Gossip Columnist, Pippin: His Life and Times , Alice (a cast member from 1982 to 1984) and Alice in Wonderland in 1985.

Raye's final years were spent dealing with ongoing health problems. She suffered from Alzheimer's and had lost both legs in 1993 due to circulatory problems. She died of pneumonia at 78 on October 19, 1994 in Los Angeles.

In appreciation of her work with the USO during World War II and subsequent wars she was buried with full military honours in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Info mainly montanakids.com)

Hello music lovers, It seems Prostopleer has now been removed. I tried to use the site a few days ago but to no avail. Now all I get is an R.I.P.message. Yet I can still play the pleer MP3 player. I don't know how long this will last for. I am still getting over the Divshare demise.

The Zippyshare mp3 player only is active for 30 days unless someone plays it!

Again I must stress due to copy write please buy the recordings if you can. I only post for educational purposes and not for any financial gain. Be careful out there. Regards, Bob.

John Perkins (top right in above photo) (born August 28, 1931) was best known as the lead singer of The Crew Cuts. The Crew-Cuts were a Canadian vocal quartet, that made a number of popular records that charted in the United States and worldwide. They named themselves after the then popular crew cut haircut, one of

the first connections made between pop music and hairstyle. They were most famous for their recording of a cover version of The Chords hit record, "Sh-Boom."

Other members of the Crew-Cuts were: Rudi Maugeri (January 21, 1931 - May 7, 2004) (baritone), Ray Perkins (born November 24, 1932) (bass) (John Perkins' brother) and Pat Barrett (born September 15, 1933) (1st or high tenor)

They all had been members of the St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto, which also spawned another famous quartet, The Four Lads. Maugeri, John Perkins, and two others (Bernard Toorish and Connie Codarini) who later were among the Four Lads first formed

a group called The Jordonaires (not to be confused with a similarly named group, The Jordanaires, that was known for singing backup vocals on Elvis Presley's hits) and also The Otnorots ("Toronto" spelled backwards being "Otnorot"), but they split from the group to finish high school. When the Four Lads returned to Toronto for a homecoming concert, John Perkins and Maugeri ran into each other and decided that they could themselves have a musical future. They joined with Barrett and Ray Perkins in March 1952. The group was originally called The Four Tones (not to be confused with The Four Tunes, a group on the borderline between pop music and rhythm and blues).

A Toronto disk jockey, Barry Nesbitt, put them on his weekly teen show, whose audience gave the group a new name, The Canadaires. All four of the members were at the time working at jobs with the Ontario government, but quit their jobs to sing full-time. They worked clubs in the Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, NY

area, but saved up their money and drove to New York City, so they could appear on Arthur Godfrey's television and radio program, Talent Scouts, where they came in second to a comedian. While they did get a record with Thrillwood Records and recorded a song titled "Chip, Chip Sing A Song Little Sparrow", this led to no improvement in their fortune, however, and they continued playing minor night clubs.

In March 1953, they returned to Toronto and appeared as an opening act for Gisele MacKenzie at the Casino Theatre. She was impressed with them and commented favourably to her record label, but could not remember the group's name!

They were playing in a Sudbury, Ontario, night club in a sub-zero Canadian winter when they received notice that they had been

invited to appear as a guest on a Cleveland television program. They drove 600 miles at -40° temperatures to appear on the Gene Carroll show, where they remained for three appearances and also, while in Cleveland, met local disk jockey Bill Randle. On his show, on Cleveland AM radio station WERE, he coined the name that would from that point on belong to the group. In addition, Randle arranged for them to audition with Mercury Records, who liked them enough to sign the quartet to a contract.

The name Crew Cuts refers to their short hair as opposed to long hair, which implied classical music at the time. It was a decade later that long hair came to be associated with the counter-culture movement.

Although their first hit, "Crazy 'Bout You, Baby," was written by Maugeri and Barrett themselves, they quickly became specialists in cover recordings of originally-R&B songs. Their first cover, "Sh-Boom" (of which the R&B original was recorded by The Chords) hit #1 on the charts in 1954. A number of other hits followed

including "Earth Angel" which rose to the number 2 spot on the charts and had great success in England and in Australia.

Interestingly, many of the non-cover songs of theirs that became hits in Canada were unknown in the United States of America, while it was only their covers that had great success in the United States.

The group moved from Mercury to RCA Records in 1958 and eventually broke up in 1964.All the members would eventually move to the United States and in 1977 the members reunited in Nashville on the site of where they recorded some of their biggest hits. In the 1990's the Crew Cuts were inducted into the Juno Hall Of Fame and the original members once again reunited for the ceremony.

John Perkins

John Perkins is the Choir Director at St. Margaret Mary Church in Slidell, Louisiana; Rudi Maugeri worked as a radio station DJ host and programmer in New York and Los Angeles following the Crew Cuts split in 1964. After his 1979 retirement, he and his wife Marilyn opened a wellness centre in L.A. They moved to Las Vegas, where they opened a second branch, in 1990. Maugeri suffered from pancreatic cancer and died at his home on May 7, 2004, in Las Vegas. Pat Barrett lives in New Jersey where he continues to do some writing of music.

(Info mainly Wikipedia)

William Myles Nobles (August 29, 1924 – October 9, 2005),known as Billy Myles, was an American R&B songwriter and singer active in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for writing "Tonight, Tonight" recorded by The Mello-Kings, "(You Were Made for) All My Love" recorded by Jackie Wilson (1960), and "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" recorded by Freddie King (1960), then Eric Clapton (1970).

Billy Myles specialised in love ballads (sometimes in the doo-wop style) and 'Uptown Blues' songs, occasionally co-writing with vocalists such as Jackie Wilson and Brook Benton. Artists who

recorded his songs include Wilson, Benton, Little Willie John, Freddie King and Gladys Knight. He has over 1170 works registered with the collecting society BMI.

Billy Myles recorded singles for labels Ember, Dot and King, though his only chart hit was "The Joker (That's What They Call Me)", which charted in the U.S. and Canada (US Pop #25, R&B #13) in 1957. He was working as a staff songwriter for Al Silver's New York City-based Herald/Ember labels, Silver thought the song wasn't suitable for doo-wop act The Mello-Kings and issued Myles' own recording. The success of the single led to Myles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958 (alongside Buddy Holly), and the 1959 UK film Swing Beat with label mates The Mello-Kings and The Five Satins. Here's the B side to "The Joker"

One wonders just why it was that Billy Myles never became a huge recording star. His voice is pleasant enough, in the same manner as the lead singer for The Platters, but I suppose the record company he worked for, Ember Records, preferred that he keep writing the hit records instead of recording them. That would take too much away from his time with pen and paper.

Blues guitar maestro Freddie King recorded Myles "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" in 1960, and King aficionado Eric Clapton covered the track on Derek and the Dominoes' album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970). This album is highly regarded in Clapton's catalogue and classic rock in general, with Myles' song, like the title song "Layla", having a biographical resonance with Clapton's unrequited love for Patti Harrison.

Billy Myles lived in Greenville, North Carolina and managed his music publishing company Selbon Music Inc. ('Nobles' spelled backwards) until his death in October 2005. The music publishing is now managed by his son Steven Myles Nobles. (Info Wikipedia)

"Heres a video of Billy singing his one hit wonder "The Joker". Quality is poor but it seems it's the only one available at the moment.

Leny Eversong (1 September 1920* - 29 April 1984) was a Brazilian stress and singer powerful and potent voice and her large and blonde look.

Born in Santos (on the coast of São Paulo) as Hilda Campos Soares da Silva, she began her career as a child prodigy in piano and voice. At just 12 years old, she won a contest of junior talent in the Radio Club of Santos and was immediately hired as an artist of the

fixed cast of the station, despite being a girl. Since the beginning, her specialty was American music, mostly fox trots, which she would learn to sing through exhaustive record listening because she didn't speak English.

She chose the stage-name Leny Eversong in 1935 and started singing in English. She joined Radio Atlântica, a station in her native city Santos, the large metropolis in the state of São Paulo that later saw the birth of another artist, this time a footballer: Pêle. In 1936, she had a season in Rio, performing at the Rádio Tupi and at the luxurious Cassino da Urca and Copacabana Palace Hotel. In the next year she went to São Paulo, hired for the regular cast of the Night and Day nightclub.

For a singer in those days, joining a radio group meant the chance to appear in shows recorded in front of an audience, and seeing one’s name become a household word. For the most part, Leny Eversong’s career was divided between shows on the national radio networks, in cabarets and in the great casinos of the day.

Her first individual album came in 1942, in which she

recorded the fox trot Tangerine, accompanied by the Orquestra de Totó. Six years after that she performed in Buenos Aires (Argentina), where she was presented as a North American singer.

In the 50s, she resumed singing Brazilian music and made albums

singing in different languages. Her greatest hit was Jezebel"

(Shanklin), first recorded in 1952. By the end of that decade, she toured the United States, recording the album "Leny Eversong na América do Norte", accompanied by Neal Heafti's orchestra. Returning to Brazil she introduced some Brazilian music into her repertory, until she went to Paris (France) in 1958, where she performed at the Olympia. Two years later she started to go to the U.S., having eight annual seasons in that country until the 'late 60s.

Eversong's most celebrated feature was her potent voice, and her main particularity was her devotion to the American repertory, having recorded and performed very little Brazilian music.

Leny was very obese, and because of that, contracted diabetes, which helped to undermine her career from the early seventies, so

she retired from the public eye due to her failing health and especially after her husband was supposedly kidnapped and never returned. Later, it was discovered by chance that her husband had been killed by the military dictatorship.

Although a figure so interesting and unique in style, she died in São Paulo 1984, in total ostracism and poor, aged 64, due to complications from diabetes. Before passing away, she had both legs amputated.

(Info mainly edited from All Music & Sunnyside Records).
* (IMDB give birth year as 1916)

Gerald Stanley Wilson (September 4, 1918 – September 8, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer/arranger, and educator. He wrote arrangements for many other prominent artists including Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Nancy Wilson.

Wilson was from Shelby, Mississippi, where his father, a

blacksmith, played the clarinet and trombone, and his mother taught music. Wilson's sister was an excellent classical pianist and his elder brother also played jazz on the piano. Already adept at the piano and entranced by the bands that passed through Shelby on their way to and from New Orleans, his head turned by the music of Duke Ellington, the young Wilson opted for the trumpet.

He moved to Detroit when he was 16 and gained entry to the prestigious Cass Technical high school, where the tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray was one of his classmates. Wilson soon began working in local bands, gradually making his way through their ranks until, aged

20, he joined the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, then at its peak as one of the best-paid and most successful black bands in America. It was with Lunceford's encouragement that Wilson emerged as a soloist and began to compose. His Yard Dog Mazurka proved to be a hit and provided the template for Stan Kenton's huge success with Intermission Riff, which used Wilson's harmonic sequence, although he received no credit for it.

In 1942, Wilson moved to Los Angeles and stayed for good, working as a trumpeter with the crack orchestras of Benny Carter and Les Hite, before a stint with the US navy. Here again he fell on his feet as he joined the all-black Great Lakes naval band, staffed by musicians including the trumpeter Clark Terry and the saxophonist Willie Smith.

Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie & Gerald Wilson

Once back in LA, Wilson formed the first of his big bands, to tour with the ex-Ellington singer Herb Jeffries. When Jeffries pulled out at the last minute, Wilson took the band on the road and made good, playing the best houses and theatres on the black circuit, often with the top stars of the day, and recording for labels including Excelsior and Black and White. Tuned in to the possibilities of bebop, Wilson was always proud that his band recorded Groovin' High in 1945, before its composer Dizzy Gillespie's own big-band version. Surprisingly, he later walked away from this success, saying that he had got to the top too soon and needed to study more.

By 1948, Wilson was back in the fray, travelling with Count Basie as arranger and occasional player, also accepting short-term assignments to orchestrate pieces for Ellington, before joining Gill- espie in 1949 as trumpeter and writer. He then became an arranger-

for-hire, supplying charts to other big bands and providing musical settings for pop albums featuring Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London and Bobby Darin. He also assisted Ellington with the score for Otto Preminger's 1959 movie Anatomy of a Murder and was the musical director for the comedian Redd Foxx's popular ABC-TV variety show.

Of more moment perhaps to his jazz audience, Wilson began a fruitful association with the Pacific Jazz label in LA in the early 1960s, putting together all-star big bands and creating a series of

powerful albums that stand among his finest achievements. These deployed Wilson's innovatory and unique approach to harmony.

Wilson also composed extended works for concert ensembles and, inspired by his Mexican-American wife Josefina, wrote music dedicated to the Mexican bullfighters he had befriended. He toured with his occasional big band in both the US and Europe, appearing in London to conduct the BBC Big Band in 2005. Watching Gerald Wilson direct an orchestra was an experience in itself. He was balletic, his shock of white hair a trademark, darting this way and that, as he cued sections and controlled dynamics.

He continued to produce a stream of brilliant new compositions, hosted his own radio show and, from 1970, taught a jazz history course, latterly at the University of California, Los Angeles, where his classes often attracted 400 students. His final hurrah with the Mack Avenue label resulted in a series of richly orchestrated album suites dedicated to New York, Chicago, Detroit and Monterey. In 2011, his last recording was the Grammy nominated "Legacy."

Wilson died at his home in Los Angeles, California, on September 8, 2014, after a brief illness that followed a bout of pneumonia, which had hospitalized him. He was 96 years old.

(Info mainly edited from an obit by Peter Vacher @ the Guardian)

Melvin Huston "Mel" McDaniel (September 6, 1942 – March 31, 2011) was an American country music artist. His chart-making years were mainly the 1980s with his hits from that era including "Louisiana Saturday Night", "Big Ole Brew", "Stand Up", the Number One "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On", "I Call It Love", "Stand on It", and a remake of Chuck Berry's "Let It Roll (Let It Rock)".

McDaniel's type of country music has been referred to as "the quintessential happy song" in comparison to other country artists

who discuss broken hearts and lost loves. When asked why most of his songs are mostly positive, McDaniel told the Anchorage Daily News that "there's enough things in the world to keep you bummed out" and that his fans don't want to "hear me singing something that's gonna bum 'em out some more."

McDaniel was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, a small town in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. McDaniel, the son of a truck driving

father, grew up in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was inspired to play music after seeing Elvis Presley on television. His first interest in music was when he learned the trumpet in the fourth grade, but he soon learned the guitar. At age 14, he taught himself the guitar chords to "Frankie and Johnny" and performed at a high-school talent contest. He made his professional debut at age fifteen performing in a talent contest at Okmulgee High School. While in high school, he played in several local bands, and after graduation, began working as a musician in Tulsa clubs. While in Tulsa, he recorded several singles for local label

(J.J. Cale and wrote and produced his first single, “Lazy Me”. But he decided to leave Oklahoma.

After marrying his high school sweetheart, McDaniel began performing in Tulsa. From there, he had an unsuccessful trip to Nashville, followed by quite a bit of success in Anchorage, Alaska, performing in the oil fields. After two years there, he returned to Nashville and landed a job as a demo singer and songwriter with Combine Music. With the help of music publisher Bob Beckham, Mel signed to Capitol Records in 1976 and released his first single, “Have a Dream on Me”.

His career finally took off with “Louisiana Saturday Night” in 1981, and in early 1985 he scored his only No. 1 hit with "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On". Other Top 10 hits include "Right in the Palm of Your Hand" (later covered by Alan Jackson in 1999), "Take Me to the Country", "Big Ole Brew", "I Call It Love", and

"Real Good Feel Good Song".

McDaniel was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since January 11, 1986 and made frequent appearances on the show. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006, along with induction classmate Leon Russell.

On November 14, 1996, he had a near-fatal fall into an orchestra pit while he was performing at the Heymann Performing Arts Center in Lafayette, Louisiana. This ended his touring career and he underwent several surgeries thereafter. McDaniel never recovered from his injuries.

On June 16, 2009, McDaniel suffered a heart attack, putting him in a medically induced coma in a Nashville area hospital according to The Tennessean. McDaniel's wife, Peggy, requested the prayers of the singer's fans, saying his situation was "not good." McDaniel recovered from the heart attack, but on February 19, 2011, McDaniel was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at his home on the evening of March 31, 2011, as a result of the disease. He was 68 years old. (Info Wikipedia)

Al Caiola (born Alexander Emil Caiola, September 7, 1920, Jersey City, New Jersey) is a guitarist who plays jazz, country, rock, western, and pop music. He has been both a studio musician and stage performer. He has recorded over fifty albums and has worked with some of the biggest stars of the 20th Century, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Percy Faith, Buddy Holly, Mitch Miller,

and Tony Bennett.

At the age of twelve he was already a guitar prodigy and by his sixteenth birthday he was an established guitarist and performer throughout the Jersey City area. During World War II, Caiola joined the Marine Corps and became part of the Parris Island base band until he was assigned to active combat on the island of Iwo Jima as a stretcher bearer.

After the war he used the G.I. Bill to study music composition and theory at the New Jersey College of Music. Not long after graduating, Caiola moved to New York City, where he was hired as a staff musician by CBS Radio, working under Archie Bleyer. He stayed with the CBS Radio orchestra until 1956, participating in

many shows in the early days of television (Toast of the Town, Jackie Gleason Show, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts).

The first record under his own name was "Mambo Jambo"/"Bim Bam Bum" (RCA 5143) in 1953, followed by three other RCA singles. Al had four LP's released in the second half of the 1950s, two on Savoy, one on Atco and one on RCA. Being an extremely versatile guitarist who could handle any genre, Caiola easily adapted to the changes brought about by the advent of rock 'n' roll and was much in demand as a session guitarist. Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun was particularly fond of him and used him on sessions by (among others) Ruth Brown, Chuck Willis, LaVern Baker, The Coasters and Bobby Darin. But Al also played behind many non-Atlantic artists, like Paul Anka (it's Caiola doing the

arpeggios on "Diana"), Buddy Holly, Frankie Avalon, Fabian (great guitar solo on "Tiger"), Connie Francis and Del Shannon.

In 1960, Al Caiola began an 11-year affiliation with United Artists, during which period he had 32 singles and 34 albums released. At the suggestion of his producer / arranger, Don Costa, he began to play the melodies on the lower strings, creating a guttural sound similar to Duane Eddy. Al himself called it the "tuff guitar" and became identified with that sound. His first two singles for United Artists were his biggest (and only) hits.

The theme from the classic Western film "The Magnificent Seven" (later well known from the Marlboro commercial) reached # 35 on the Billboard charts and one position higher in the UK, where Al had to compete with a cover version by the John Barry Seven. This success spurred Caiola and Costa to record another Western-themed instrumental, the opening music to the TV series "Bonanza" (United Artists 302).

This was an even bigger hit, peaking at # 19 in April 1961. Caiola used a Gretsch on those two hits. In the mid-sixties he would sign with Epiphone Guitars, who created their own Caiola model guitar. Because United Artists was an arm of the United Artists motion picture studio, more often than not Caiola recorded albums that contained "tie-ins" to UA's film and television projects. "You're

obligated to do those things for the company."

After years of interpreting existing movie soundtracks, Al got to generate one of his own. With composer / conductor George Romanis he came up with the entire score (and soundtrack album) for the 1967 comedy motion picture "Eight On the Lam", starring Bob Hope and Jonathan Winters. In between his recordings for United Artists, Caiola also performed a series of "Living Guitar" albums for the RCA Camden label, as well as a collection of easy-listening albums for Time Records.

In 1971, Al bought out the rest of his UA contract and left the company, as he felt the need to explore his own new frontiers. He recorded some sides for the Avalanche label, performed with the Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra, scored and performed on hundreds of TV commercials and jingles and wrote the popular Al Caiola Presents series of guitar instruction books.

Beginning in the 1980s, Caiola cut back on his schedule and began to take a few touring jobs. In 1985, he was the lead guitarist in the band that accompanied Frank Sinatra on his tour of Europe, and he regularly appeared with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme in their nightclub and concert performances. He performed with Frank Sinatra, Jr., on Dec. 31, 2010 and is still active today! (Info mainly from Black cat Rockabilly)

They came together to celebrate the late, great Django Reinhardt. Frank Vignola invited another revered guitar-slinger, 94-year-old Al Caiola, to join him and Vinny Raniolo, Gary Mazzaroppi, Jason Annick and singer Aidra Mariel at the Sanctuary series in NJ. Video by Kevin Coughlin for MorristownGreen.com, Jan. 10, 2015.

Cathy Jean Giordano (born 8 September 1945, Brooklyn, New York) is the lead singer of Cathy Jean & The Roommates. (Sometimes spelled Roomates)

The Roommates were originally a duo formed by 15-year-olds Steve Susskind and Bob Minsky, of Russell Sage Junior High in Queens, New York. After placing second in a local talent show--behind another duo, Tom & Jerry, who later became better known as Simon & Garfunkel--they became a quartet, adding singers Jack Carlson and Felix Alvarez in 1960. The group released their first record, a cover of Kitty Wells' hit "Making Believe", on the Promo label. Their managers, Gene and Jody Malis, then set up their own label, Valmor.

For their first release they recorded teenager Cathy Jean Giordano singing "Please Love Me Forever", a song that had been a minor hit in 1958 for Tommy Edwards and would become a hit again in 1967 for Bobby Vinton. Before releasing the record, the Malises

overdubbed harmonies by the Roommates; Cathy Jean and the group had never met in person when the record was issued. Credited to Cathy Jean and the Roommates, and promoted by leading radio DJ "Murray the K", the record rose to #12 in the Billboard pop chart in early 1961.

The Roommates then had success with their own record, "Glory of Love", a song first recorded in 1936 by Benny Goodman and am R&B chart hit in 1951 for The Five Keys. The Roommates' version reached #49 on the chart. The group continued to back Cathy Jean on her later singles, toured with her and recorded an album, Cathy

Jean and the Roommates; however, none were successful and Cathy Jean soon retired from the music business. The Roommates later recorded for the Cameo and Philips labels, with little success, and the group split up in 1965.

In the late 1960s Cathy Jean came back to do a revival show. This turned into another stretch of performances that lasted until 1973. The "Roommates" at that time comprised Nick Cardell, Artie Loria, Tommy White and Carmine Graziano. They were a regular on the "Gus Gossert" Revival Show Series at the New York venue, the Academy Of Music. They also played the club circuit and moulded the show in that fashion when playing The Copacabana in NYC,

The Sas Susan on Long Island and dinner theatres.

Cathy took a hiatus midway through this tenure, and was replaced by JoAnne Greco, the daughter of singer Buddy Greco. They released a single that managed to just break into the charts and receive airplay as The Roommates. "A Place Called Love" b/w "Knowing You", was released on Ban Records in 1970 and was the group's final chart entry. The songs were credited to Loria and

Cardell as writers.

Steve Susskind later became a successful character actor. He died in an automobile accident on January 21, 2005, and Bob Minsky died on August 25, 2006. Art Loria died in October 2010 after a successful, post-Roommates, career performing and recording with such acts as the Belmonts, Larry Chance and the Earls and the Doo Wop All Stars.

Cathy Jean Giordano married and, as Cathy Jean Ruiz, hosted a Long Island radio show in the late 1980s. She recorded a comeback single, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me", in 1991.

Soon afterwards, she formed a new version of Cathy Jean and the Roommates, who continue to perform in and around New York as of 2012. Current members of the Roommates are Jerry Pilgrim, Shelly Wengrovsky, and Carlos Rampolla. (Info edited from Wikipedia)

Francis Craig (September 10, 1900 – November 19, 1966) was a song writer and leader of a Nashville dance band. His works include Dynamite and Near You.

Considering his background, education, and family business orientation, Craig seemed an unlikely composer of such a smash song. Born in Dickson, Tennessee, on September 10, 1900, he was the son of Robert Craig, a Methodist minister, and Fannie Frost

Craig, a talented pianist. Their family was raised in several Middle Tennessee towns, following the Reverend Craig’s postings.

Francis was a natural pianist, performing songs “by ear” at an early age. His jazz playing was anathema to his straight-laced parents. At Vanderbilt University in 1921, he formed his first orchestra. The band quickly gained popularity, playing dances throughout the mid-South. Craig met his wife, Elizabeth Gewin, while performing in Birmingham. They married in October 1924.

The Craigs returned to Nashville in 1925 for Francis to pursue a career in popular music, a choice looked upon with disfavour by his family. Based on a number of assured engagements, his orchestra was fully employed. It was favoured on college campuses,

especially at Vanderbilt, throughout the 1930s. His consistently reliable performance jobs though were at the Hermitage Hotel, radio station WSM, and the Belle Meade Country Club. Craig played lunch and dinner music at the Hermitage’s Grill Room for two decades. His orchestra performed on the 1925 opening program of WSM, a powerful and influential radio station owned by National Life and managed by his cousin, Edwin Craig. In addition to local radio appearances, the orchestra had a Sunday night NBC network program. Craig was ubiquitous at Belle Meade, providing music for club, fraternity, sorority, and debut dances.

L-R: Craig, Adrian McDowell & Beasley Smith

Except for a year spent in a sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis in 1930-31, Craig’s steady work continued through World War II. His orchestra’s music reflected the personality of its demure, sophisticated, polite leader. Unlike some of its upbeat Dixieland recordings made in the late 1920s, the orchestra’s music was now sweet, danceable, and noncontroversial. He did not seek national fame, preferring his comfortable, profitable life in Nashville. The era of dance band popularity waned after the war, and Craig’s Hermitage and NBC contracts ended in 1947.

Yet Craig’s career was not over. He was asked by record producer Jim Bullet to record a popular song for his company, Bullet Records. In addition to Craig’s theme song, “Red Rose,” the band recorded “Near You.” Craig had written that melody as a gift to his grandchildren, and New Yorker Kermit Goell wrote the lyrics. The recording featured Craig on the piano and blind singer and trumpet player Bob Lamm doing the vocals.

From the unlikely combination of a nationally unknown musician and an obscure, independent record company, “Near You” became a phenomenal hit. It gave Craig fame and showed that the recording business could succeed in Nashville. That capability added to the already present writing, publishing, and performing skills assured the city’s status as a music mecca.

Dinah Shore with Francis Craig

There are twenty records in Craig’s discography. His catalogue contains over thirty songs. Though “Beg Your Pardon” brought some success, none of his other works were as remotely popular as “Near You.” Craig’s orchestras always had outstanding performers. Many became stars. Vocalists included Irene Beasley, Phil Harris, Jimmy Melton, Kenny Sargent, Dinah Shore, Snooky Lanson, and Kitty Kallen. Among his noted musicians, some of whom formed their own bands, were Jimmy Gallagher, Clint Garvin, John Gordy, and Red McEwen.

The maestro’s run at the Hermitage Hotel may have been the longest ever for a hotel orchestra. “Near You” was an extraordinarily popular hit that was a catalyst in the development of Nashville’s music business. Francis Craig ceased performing in the early 1950s. After his period in the spotlight Craig returned to comparative obscurity, but remained active until he died November 1966, in Sewanee, Tennessee, aged 66.

(Info mainly edited from article by Robert Ikard @ The Tennessee Encyclopaedia of History & Culture)

Roosevelt "Baby Face" Willette (born September 11, 1933 - 1971)

was a hard bop and soul-jazz musician most known for playing Hammond organ. He made a brief but indelible mark on the sound of soul jazz in the early sixties. He recorded two albums for Blue Note in 1961, and two more for Argo, which capture a gospel-tinged sound which has influenced the contemporary generation of jazz and funk organists.

Roosevelt Willette was born on September 11, 1933, probably in

New Orleans. Willette's father was a minister at a church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and his mother was a missionary, so the boy was exposed to the sounds of the black church from an early age.

Willette learned to play piano from his uncle, Fred Freeman, and began to tour as an accompanist for gospel groups while in his teens. He then switched to rhythm-and-blues, and crisscrossed the United States, as well as Cuba and Canada, with groups led by King Kolax, Jay McNeely and others. He earned the nickname "Babyface" while touring because of his youth: sometimes had trouble getting into nightclubs where he was to perform.

Around 1958, Willette settled in Chicago, where he took up the organ as his primary instrument and began to focus on jazz. By

1960, he was in New York, where he met guitarist Grant Green and tenor saxophonist Lou Donaldson, both artists on the Blue Note label at that time. Soon he too was signed to Blue Note Records.

As was Blue Note's policy at the time, Willette first recorded for the label as a sideman, appearing on Green's Grant's First Stand and Donaldson's Here 'Tis. Willette made his first recording for the label as a leader, Face To Face, in 1961. The album boasts an enviable lineup of Willette on organ, Green on guitar, Fred Jackson on tenor sax, and Ben Dixon on drums. Willette composed most of the tunes on the album. While the songs are pedestrian, the interplay between the musicians is quite incredible and, although it's not commonly thought of as his best work, it is a great album.

Willette's next album, Stop and Listen, is generally considered to be his best recorded work, and features a stripped down sound with a trio of Willette, Green and Dixon.

Willette formed his own trio in 1963, and recorded his next two albums for the Chess Records subsidiary Argo. The first of these, Mo-Roc, was recorded in the same trio format as his last album for Blue Note and featured Willette, guitarist Ben White, and drummer Eugene Bass. Though not as well-known nor accomplished as Willette's Blue Note trio, the band swings and turns in a competent enough performance behind Willette, whose compositions for the album are forgettable but feature excellent playing.

Willette's next album for Argo, Behind The 8-Ball, was Willette's last for the label and his last as a leader. Featuring a trio with White on guitar and Jerold Donovan on drums, the album gives listeners a closer taste at Willette's roots than his more jazz-oriented albums. For the first time, Willette features more R&B covers than originals, and also shortens the length of the songs. His playing shows more of a soulful, churchy feel than his other albums and Willette shines brightly here, as the choice of songs seems to make him more comfortable.

After his two albums for Argo, failing health forced a return to Chicago, where his family resided. Willette faded from the jazz scene but played a steady gig at a southside lounge from 1966 until the year of his death. He died April 1, 1971.

He was survived by a son, Kevin D. Bailey. (www.jazz.com)

George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, including his most well known song "He Stopped Loving Her Today", as well as his distinctive voice and phrasing. For the last 20 years of his life, Jones was frequently referred to as the greatest living country singer.

The youngest of eight children, Jones was born in Saratoga, east Texas, in a region known as Big Thicket, a wooded oil-rich

backwater on the edge of the Louisiana bayous. His father, also George, was a truck driver and oil worker who took solace in his guitar and the bottle. His mother, Clara, found comfort in music, sobriety and fundamentalist religion.

The young George absorbed all his parents' influences. He sang at church, got his first guitar at nine and was busking on the streets of Beaumont by the age of 11. He married his first wife, Dorothy, when he was 19; they divorced within a year and he joined the marines soon after.

He was in thrall to Roy Acuff and Williams; the latter told Jones not to copy him but to find his own voice. Jones listened but like

Williams headed straight for the honky-tonk. Jones's raw emotions fought through knots in his stomach and twists in his heart. Like Jerry Lee Lewis, the clash between God and the devil, drink and the divine, was the touchstone for his talent.

Shaping his style, Jones became a master of melisma, a gospel technique that involved the stretching of a syllable across several musical notes that were decorated and feathered at their ends for maximum emotional impact. His voice started with an open-throated wail, then clamped down with a keening tug as he rose into a cry, then swooped down into his rich baritone. The voice pines, the tension is never released and the emotion remains undiluted.

Out of the marines, Jones had his first country hit in 1955 with Why Baby Why, released on the Starday label. While Elvis Presley and rock'n'roll emerged, Jones plunged deeper into hard country. He went on to record for Mercury, United Artists, Musicor and Epic and enjoyed a long string of hits including White Lightning

(1959), Tender Years (1961), She Thinks I Still Care (1962), Walk Through This World with Me (1967) and The Grand Tour (1974), all of which reached No 1 in the US country charts.

When Jones released I'll Share My World with You in 1969, his fans knew it was Wynette he was singing about. She appeared on the cover of the album of the same name. Jones, after a divorce from his second wife, Shirley, married Wynette in 1969. Jones and Wynette were Mr and Mrs Country Music and their life together became a country soap opera, with every bottle drunk and thrown, every twist and turn in the road documented in song. Their divorce was marked by another gut-wrenching single, Golden Ring, released in 1976 – the year after they divorced. They christened their daughter Tamala Georgette; she later became the country singer Georgette Jones.

After their divorce, Wynette and Jones continued to tour and record together. Jones survived alcohol and cocaine abuse in the 1970s to enjoy a renaissance the following decade with hits such as the Grammy award-winning He Stopped Loving Her Today (1980), Still Doin' Time (1981) and I Always Get Lucky with You (1983). He sang of loss and denial, encyclopedically detailing alcoholism on songs such as the 1981 single If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will). "With the blood from my body," he sang in that song, "I could start my own still." His intense, heartbreaking honky-tonk still rang true through the subsequent decades when country music became "new country" and went limp.

Known as both Possum and No Show Jones, he could disappear

before a show and be found two weeks later in a motel room with a bottle of whisky. His life stabilised after he married Nancy Sepulvado in 1983 and she became his manager. In 1999, Jones broke into the country album chart's Top 10 list with The Cold Hard Truth. That same year, it appeared that he had relapsed after getting into a serious car accident while intoxicated. He later claimed that the incident straightened him out for good.

More recently, Jones reunited with Merle Haggard for 2006's Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again. He became the subject of a tribute album, God's Country: George Jones and Friends, that same year. Vince Gill, Tanya Tucker and Pam Tillis were among the artists covering some of Jones's biggest hits, and Jones himself contributed a track to the recording. In 2008, he put out Burn Your

Playhouse Down, a collection of previously unreleased duets with Dolly Parton, Keith Richards and Marty Stuart, among others.

In his later years, Jones continued to maintain a rigorous tour schedule, playing numerous dates across the country. After winning induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, he received the National Medal of the Arts in 2002. A decade later, in 2012, he garnered one of the greatest honours of his career: a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

George Jones died on April 26, 2013, at the age of 81, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, after reportedly being hospitalized with irregular blood pressure and a fever.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Jones is regarded as a country music icon, one of the genre's all-time greatest stars. His clear, strong voice and his ability to convey so many emotions won over thousands of fans, as well as the envy of his peers. As fellow country star Waylon Jennings once said, "If we could sound the way we wanted, we'd all sound like George Jones."

(Info edited from the Guardian obit & Biography.com)

Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes (September 13, 1918 – March 28, 1980) was one of the most popular American male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, an actor, television host, and songwriter.

One of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s, Dick Haymes is often considered to have the best baritone voice of the twentieth century. Haymes worked with several bandleaders before

beginning a solo career that took him to Hollywood stardom. His brother, Bob, was a successful songwriter.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1918, Haymes was the son of British parents, who at the time were living on the cattle ranch they owned in Argentina. After they separated, he was reared by his mother in Paris before the Depression crippled their finances. He spent the rest of his formative years in the United States, where his mother performed as a singer.

Haymes made his own professional debut at the age of 15, singing with a hotel band in New Jersey while on summer vacation. He left school in 1933 to move to Hollywood, and worked as a stuntman or extra on several films during the mid-'30s. After writing a few songs in 1939, he approached Harry James with hopes the bandleader would buy

them; though James wasn't very impressed with his songwriting skills, he hired Haymes one year later, to replace Frank Sinatra as his leading male singer.

During 1941-42, Dick Haymes recorded a few hits with James, including "A Sinner Kissed an Angel" and "The Devil Sat Down and Cried." (His biggest hit with James, "I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)," hit number one in 1944, three years after its recording.) Haymes also sang with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey before signing to Decca in 1943. One of his first singles, "You'll Never Know," hit number one in July 1943. Another, "It Can't Be Wrong," was also a substantial hit at the same time.

He moved from extra to starring roles in Hollywood, most notably appearing in 1945's State Fair, and scored a Top Five hit with the Oscar-winning "It Might as Well Be Spring" from the film. Though he never again scored another number one hit, Haymes spent much of the mid-'40s near the top of the charts with the songs "Put Your

Arms Around Me, Honey,""Laura,""Till the End of Time" and "That's for Me." He also hosted a radio show with Helen Forrest, and starred in several more films after the success of State Fair.

Dick with Helen Forrest 1944

He paired repeatedly with the Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) on a dozen or so Decca collaborations, including the Billboard hit "Teresa,""Great Day,""My Sin," and a 1952 rendering of the dramatic ballad "Here in My Heart," backed by the sisters and Nelson Riddle's lush strings. His duets with Patty Andrews were also well received, both on Decca vinyl and on radio's Club Fifteen with the sisters, which he hosted in 1949 and 1950. He also joined Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters for 1947 session that produced the Billboard hit "There's No Business Like Show Business," as well as "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)." His popular renditions of tender ballads such as "Little White Lies" and "Maybe It's Because" were recorded with celebrated arranger Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra and chorus.

Dick with Rita Hayworth

Though the hits continued until the end of the decade, both Haymes' professional and personal life began to decline. He divorced his wife, actress Joanne Dru, began drinking heavily, and mishandled his finances. Many of his film appearances were panned and he was eventually dropped from his movie and recording contracts. A whirlwind romance and two-year marriage to Rita Hayworth hardly settled things down; when added to immigration and tax troubles, it made for a very obvious low point in the singer's life.

He began a professional comeback in 1955, thanks to a contract with Capitol Records, the foremost label for adult pop. Haymes

recorded two LPs for Capitol, Rain or Shine and Moondreams, but continued to be plagued by alcoholism. After moving to Ireland in the early '60s, Haymes finally kicked his drinking habit and returned to recording with 1969's Now and Then, which alternated Haymes classics with more contemporary material. He moved back to America in the '70s, performing numerous club dates and recording a live album at Cocoanut Grove. He last recorded in 1978, and lost his long bout with lung cancer two years later. He died in Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, Los Angeles. He was 61 years old.

(info edited from Wikipedia, mainly from AMG)

Archibald (Born Leon T. Gross) (14 September 1916 - 8 January 1973, New Orleans, Louisiana)

Singer and pianist, Archibald was one of the last in the long line of New Orleans' original barrelhouse pianists. These piano players were usually semi-professional musicians who often played merely for drinks, or whatever tip was thrown on the piano. Some of them (Champion Jack Dupree, Professor Longhair, Archibald) were recorded, but hundreds more never were.

Virtually all existing sources say that he was born on September 14, 1912. They are probably all copying John Broven ("Walking To New Orleans, 1974). The Social Security Death Index, the Census (1920, 1930) and the U.S. WW2 Enlistment Records all give his year of birth as 1916.

Archibald (Leon Gross) learned to play piano at an early age and soon played at local parties and fraternity houses under the name Archie Boy. His main influences included Burnell Santiago, Tuts Washington and Eileen Dufeau. After serving in India during World War II, Archibald returned to his native New Orleans in 1945, where he continued to play the clubs and bars in the French Quarter.

Talent scout Al Young signed him to Lew Chudd's Imperial label in 1950, as part of the same wave that also brought Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino onto the company's roster. On March 23, 1950 Archibald had his first recording session, at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio, supervised by Dave Bartholomew. The first single that resulted from this session (Imperial 5068) was "Stack-A-Lee", a two-sided workout on the old folk song, which is best known in the version of Lloyd Price (# 1 pop in February 1959, under the title "Stagger Lee").

"Stack-A-Lee" sold well enough to reach # 10 on Billboard's R&B charts in October 1950 and Archibald's future looked promising. A tour of the West Coast was prepared, but this was cancelled when he fell sick with ulcer trouble. Although he had four further singles on Imperial and Colony, Archibald never again had the chance to tour and was not recorded after 1952. "Stack-A-Lee" was to remain his only hit.

His career was hampered by illness and a dispute with the Musicians Union. Johnny Vincent wanted to record him for his Ace label in the late 1950s, but this did not materialize. Vincent said Archibald's voice was gone; Archibald himself said Vincent did not offer enough money. His powerful New Orleans boogie piano style has undoubtedly influenced many New Orleans pianists, including Fats Domino, James Booker, Huey 'Piano' Smith, Allen Toussaint and Dr. John, but his style never came to grips with the rock 'n' roll age.

He remained an attraction in his home town for the rest of his life, with long residencies at clubs like the Balloy, the Poodle Patio and the Court of Two Sisters. At the age of 56, after a life-time of hard drinking, Archibald suffered a heart attack and passed away in 1973.

Archibald at home 1970

So sadly, his music must remain a relic of the past, a magnificent pianist whose boogieing New Orleans style never came to grips with the rock & roll age. One album might have made all the difference. (Info mainly from black cat rockabilly)

Ralph Simon Sharon (September 17, 1923 – March 31, 2015) was an Anglo-American jazz pianist and arranger.

Ralph Sharon was a Londoner, born in Bethnal Green on September 17, 1923. His father was English and his mother American. She had been a professional pianist, accompanying silent films. On leaving school, Sharon worked in a factory before joining a series of professional dance bands, including those of Ted Heath and Frank Weir. He led his own recording and broadcasting sextet before emigrating to the US in 1953. He took American citizenship in 1958.

Here's "Friend's Blues" from above 1958 EP

It was his devotion to jazz which prompted the move and, for the first few years, he was entirely immersed in the New York jazz world. Sharon had never even heard of Tony Bennett when the

singer invited him to audition as his accompanist in 1957. He recalled: “I thought, 'This guy sounds pretty good.’ At the end, he said, 'How’d you like to come with me?’ I said, 'Come with you where?’ He said, 'Everywhere!’ ”

In 1961, Sharon was responsible for introducing Bennett to I Left My Heart in San Francisco, the song which made him an undisputed star. He had been given the sheet music some time before, but had put it in a drawer and forgotten it. He came across it while looking for a shirt.

They tried it out in a hotel bar one night and the bartender called out: “If you guys record that song, I’ll buy the first copy.” If it

hadn’t been for Ralph, Bennett observed: “I wouldn’t have that song, which has made me welcome all over the world.” It’s success was so unexpected that it was originally a B-side of a single.

They parted amicably in 1966, when Sharon decided to move to Los Angeles, where he again found himself accompanying singers, among them Nancy Wilson and Rosemary Clooney. This was not a good period for Tony Bennett. He was involved in constant tussles with Columbia records over his choice of material.

By the end of the decade he was without a recording contract and increasingly out of the public eye. Eventually, with his son Danny as his manager, Bennett’s fortunes recovered and he and Sharon were reunited in 1979.

The next two decades saw one of the most remarkable comebacks

in the history of popular music. By sticking to what had now become recognised as the classic style of American song, with a strong jazz influence, Tony Bennett attracted a new audience among all age groups. Albums such as The Art Of Excellence (1986), a collection of songs accompanied solely by Sharon’s piano, and MTV Unplugged (1994), which won that year’s Grammy of the Year award, stood out in a long line of successful recordings.

“I got Tony into jazz – he’d say that himself,” Sharon told an interviewer in 1988. “He found a whole new audience and a whole new way to phrase and present himself. Now, he couldn’t be without it.”

Ralph Sharon retired from touring in 2002 and settled in Boulder, Colorado. Retirement did not, however, keep him away from the piano or from the bandstand. The already lively local jazz scene received him with open arms and he was soon leading his own trio, commuting regularly between Boulder and Denver.

In addition, he continued recording on his own account for some years. Between 1995 and 2007, for instance, he made 10 albums devoted to work of the great American songwriters. He was still performing until three months before his death.

He died from natural causes in his home in Boulder, Colorado, March 31, 2015. He was 91.

(Info mainly from the Telegraph obit)

James Frederick "Jimmie" Rodgers (born September 18, 1933 in Camas, Washington, United States) is an American popular music singer. Rodgers had a brief run of mainstream popularity in the late 1950s with a string of crossover singles that ranked highly on the Billboard Pop Singles, Hot Country and Western Sides and Hot Rhythm and Blues Sides charts; in the 1960s, He is not related to

the legendary country singer of the same name.
Rodgers was taught music by his mother, learned to play the piano and guitar, and joined a band called "The Melodies" started by violinist Phil Clark, while he served in the United States Air Force in Korea.

Like a number of other entertainers of the era, he was one of the contestants on Arthur Godfrey's talent show on the radio. When Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore left RCA Victor for Morris Levy's company, Roulette Records, they became aware of Rodgers' talent and signed him up.

Jimmie Rodgers' first big hit came in the Summer of 1957 when he covered a song that had been done by Bob Merrill in 1954 titled Honeycomb. It was a smash hit making Jimmie a bonafide star. The tune was Rodgers' biggest hit, staying on the top of the charts for four weeks. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.

In 1958, he appeared on NBC's The Gisele MacKenzie Show. Also in 1958 he sang the opening theme song of the movie The Long,
Hot Summer, starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Orson Welles. He then had his own short-lived televised variety show on NBC.

In the next year he followed it with several more top ten hits:

Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (which had been a 1951 hit for the Weavers), Oh-Oh, I'm Falling In Love Again, Secretly, and Are You Really Mine. Rodgers continued to put hits in the top forty on the Roulette label into 1960. In 1959 he hosted his own network variety show on NBC. From 1962 to 1966 he recorded on Dot and then moved to the A&M label. Rodgers also appeared in some movies, including Back Door To Hell and The Little Shepherd From Kingdom Come.

In 1966, a long dry spell ended for Rodgers when he re-entered the

Top 40 with "It's Over" (later to be recorded by Eddy Arnold, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell and Sonny James). In 1967, he had his final charting Top 100 single, "Child of Clay".

In 1967, however, right after signing with A&M, Jimmie's life and career changed forever. In December of 1967, he was stopped by an off-duty police officer on the freeway after leaving a party. The details are sketchy and the incident remains a mystery, but Jimmie somehow suffered a severe skull fracture as a result of the encounter and claims the police brutally attacked him. The police

report maintains that Rodgers was intoxicated and hurt himself when he stumbled and fell. Jimmie later sued the City of Los Angeles and settled out of court. His life, however, would never be the same. In his 2010 biography "Me, the Mob, and the Music," singer Tommy James wrote that Morris Levy, the Mafia-connected head of Roulette Records, had arranged the attack. All of Rodgers' most successful singles had been released by Roulette.

Recovery from his injuries caused an approximately year-long

period in which Rodgers ceased to perform. He eventually returned, though not reaching the Top 100 singles chart again. He did, however, make an appearance on the album chart as late as 1969, and his records hit the Billboard Country and Easy Listening charts until 1979.

Jimmie attempted a comeback of sorts, appearing regularly on "The Joey Bishop Show" in 1969, but after three brain surgeries he still suffered from convulsions and had trouble with balance. A portion of his face also sagged and he did not like appearing on camera for that reason. Forced into retirement in later years, he devoted himself to religion and performed only on occasion in the concert venue.

Rodgers appeared in a 1999 video, Rock & Roll Graffiti by

American Public Television, along with about 20 other performers. He stated that he had suffered from spastic dysphonia for a number of years, and could hardly sing. Despite his disability, he later formed a music publishing company, dabbled in real estate, remodeled houses and took up skydiving. He also sang at his own theatre for a time in Branson, Missouri.

Rodgers returned to Camas, Washington in 2011 and 2012, performing to sell-out crowds. After the 2012 concert, he returned home for open heart surgery, following a heart attack three weeks earlier.

Rodgers left Branson for semi-retirement some years ago, and his last gig, according to his website, was in Sandusky, Ohio, in August of 2014.. Today Jimmie resides in Southern California with his wife Mary (with whom he has a daughter, Katrine) and lots of Boston Terriers. Jimmie continues to write music, poems and is extensively involved in writing and scoring animated films.

(Info edited from IMDB and mainly Wikipedia )

Horace Eldred "Danny" Dill (September 19, 1924 – October 23, 2008) was an American country music singer and songwriter. He enjoyed one of the most remarkable second acts in country music history -- after splitting with wife and longtime Grand Ole Opry duet partner Annie Lou Stockard, he abandoned his career as a performer in favor of composing and crafted some of the most

indelible songs in the American roots music canon, most notably "Long Black Veil" and "Detroit City."

Born Horace Eldred Dill in Huntingdon, TN, on September 19, 1925, he launched his performing career as a teen, singing and playing guitar on a series of radio stations in Jackson, Blytheville, Knoxville and Memphis, TN. In 1944 Dill signed on with famed country comedian Whitey Ford -- the so-called "Duke of Paducah" was also responsible for suggesting his new hire change his name to "Danny."

In addition to talents including Salty Holmes, Barbara Jeffers, Jack Kenndal, and Ralph Caputo, the Ford road show included 18-year-

old Annie Lou Stockard, whose sweet, innocent voice harmonized perfectly with Dill's own crystalline vocals -- off-stage, they began dating and soon married.

When Ford headlined Nashville station WSM's celebrated Grand Ole Opry radio showcase in 1946, Annie Lou and Danny proved such a hit that the couple remained with the program for more than a decade. For a time, the duo also headlined their own WSM program, broadcast live each weekday morning at 5:30 a.m.

In addition to their work with Ford and on the Opry, Annie Lou and Danny were featured on Hank Thompson's 1948 program Smoky Mountain Hayride, and served as regulars on Eddy Arnold's CBS series Hometown Reunion. The couple also toured in support of Ernest Tubb, and while Annie Lou soon curtailed her travel commitments to raise their daughter, Danny continued with Tubb on his own, even joining the Nashville legend for a 1953 trek across Korea. That same year, Annie Lou and Danny reunited with Ford for a new road show, dubbed The Duke of Paducah and the Nashville Gang.

Dill launched his songwriting career with the 1954 Carl Smith release "If You Saw Her Through My Eyes," but he continued focusing his attention on performing until 1957, when he and Annie Lou left the Opry. Although the couple later resurfaced in vehicles including television's The George Morgan Show, their exit from the Opry ranks negatively impacted their stature as performers -- their

marriage was also on the rocks, and eventually they divorced. Dill briefly continued on as a solo act, in 1960 recording the LP Folk Songs from the Wild West for MGM. A follow-up, Folk Songs from the Country, appeared on Liberty in 1963, but neither record generated any interest at retail.

After leaving the Opry, Dill began to channel his creative energies into composing, and in 1959 he teamed with Marijohn Wilkin to author "Long Black Veil." Intended to evoke "an instant folk song," the ballad drew inspiration from several contemporary news stories,

Danny Dill and Mel Tillis,1963

including the unsolved murder of a Catholic priest in New Jersey, but its grim lyrics and funereal atmosphere indeed recalled the rustic ballads of a long-gone America.

First recorded by honky tonk legend Lefty Frizzell, "Long Black Veil" is now recognized among the truly classic songs of the postwar era, recorded by artists spanning from the Band to Johnny Cash to the Dave Matthews Band. Also in 1959 Dill penned the Jim Reeves hit "Partners," solidifying his growing reputation as a master of the story-song formula, and in 1962 he collaborated with Mel Tillis on Bobby Bare's Grammy-winning smash "Detroit City," a plaintive portrait of the alienation suffered by rural Southerners relocating north in search of work.

In all, Dill authored more than 100 songs during his decades-plus affiliation with Music City-based Cedarwood Publishing Company, and in 1975 he was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Dill served as a writer/consultant for Buckhorn Music until retirement. After years out of the spotlight, he resurfaced in 2006 with a self-released solo album, Quality Is Always in Style. Dill died in a Nashville hospital on October 23, 2008 -- he was 84 years old. (Info mainly All Music)

Frank Denny De Vol, also known simply as De Vol (September 20, 1911 - October 27, 1999) was an American arranger, composer and actor.

De Vol was born in Moundsville, West Virginia and raised in Canton, Ohio, where his father was bandleader for the local vaudeville theater and his mother, Minnie Emma Humphreys De Vol, had worked in a sewing shop. DeVol joined his father's band

when he was 14, and was a full-time professional musician before he was twenty. He attended Miami University. After a variety of gigs, he was hired by Horace Heidt to play and arrange, but when guitarist Alvino Rey left that band, DeVol went with him. By the early 1940s, De Vol was leading his own band on Mutural Network station KHJ in Los Angeles. He soon became musical director for the network, working with Rudi Vallee, Dinah Shore, Jack Carson, and others, and was appearing himself in some of the on-air skits.

From the 1940s, De Vol wrote arrangements for the studio recordings of many top singers, including Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Dinah Shore, Doris Day and Vic Damone. His single most famous arrangement is probably the haunting string and piano accompaniment to Cole's Nature Boy, which was a US Number One in 1948. That same year, he released a version of "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" (Capitol Records 15420), that he arranged and sang lead vocals on.In the 1950s De Vol's orchestra played frequently at the Hollywood Palladium under the concert name "Music of the Century".

Here's "Unchained Melody" from above 1959 album.

De Vol & Helen O'Connell c.1951

The success of Nature Boy, recorded on the Capitol Records label, led to an executive position for De Vol across at the rival Columbia Records. There, he recorded a series of orchestral mood music albums under the studio name "Music By De Vol" (which he also used for some of his film and TV work). The album Bacchanale Suite (1960) is a late, but acclaimed, example of De Vol's mood music. Each track is by English composer Albert Harris and is named after a god or goddess of Greek mythology.

De Vol worked in radio until the early 1950s, when director Robert Aldrich hired him to score a low-budget movie, "World for

Ransom." Other studio jobs followed, and by the early 1960s, most of his time was spent writing and conducting music for series such as "My Three Sons" and "The Brady Bunch" and movies like "Pillow Talk,""Good Neighbor Sam,""Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," and "Krakatoa: East of Java." He won five Oscar nominations for his scores and five Emmys for his television themes and scores. He was in steady demand as an arranger for vocalists such as Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Vic Damone, June Christy, and Peggy Lee. And in his spare moments, he did

occasional acting bits, appearing in movies such as "The Parent Trap" before his "Fernwood/America 2 Nite" stint.

De Vol was also a recording artist with Capitol, Columbia, and finally, ABC, and released over a dozen albums of string-laden easy listening music. In 1966–1967, he arranged the soundtrack for the 1967 Columbia Pictures comedy film, The Happening starring Anthony Quinn and co-produced The Supremes #1 American pop hit, "The Happening" alongside Motown producers Holland-Dozier-Holland. In all, De Vol composed music for over 50 motion pictures.

In 1989, after the death of his first wife Grayce, De Vol married the

big band-era singer Helen O'Connell in 1991, and together the couple performed on cruise ships for several years until O'Connell's death in 1993. Also during the 90's when well into his eighties, De Vol was active in the Big Band Academy of America. He also spoke at various seminars and social groups about his inspired and humourous experiences.

De Vol died of congestive heart failure on 27 October 1999 at a nursing home in Lafayette, California. He is interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.(Info edited from Wikipedia & Spaceage Pop)

Theron Eugene "Ted" Daffan (September 21, 1912 – October 6, 1996) was an American country musician noted for composing the seminal "Truck Driver's Blues" and two much covered country anthems of unrequited love, "Born to Lose" and "I'm a Fool to Care".

Ted was born in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana. When he was a child, his family moved to Houston where he grew up and attended

school. He had a keen interest in electronics and opened up his own radio repair shop after graduating where he also worked on electrical musical instruments, experimenting with amplifiers and teaching himself to play various types of guitars. By 1933 he was part of a Hawaiian musical group called The Blue Islanders which performed on a local radio station, and later joined the highly influential Blue Ridge Playboys. He also performed with several other Houston-area bands, including the Bar-X Cowboys and Shelly Lee Alley's Alley Cats.

One day after hearing him perform, the musician Milton Brown told him he had some talent and should close his shop and focus more on his musical career. Daffan wrote "Truck Drivers' Blues" after he stopped at a roadside diner and noticed that every time a

trucker parked his rig and strolled into the cafe, the first thing he did, even before ordering a cup of coffee, was push a coin in the jukebox. He decided to write a song to capture some of the truck drivers' nickels and make himself rich and famous. Recorded by western swing artist Cliff Bruner (with Moon Mullican on lead vocal) in 1939, the song sold more than 100,000 copies, the best-selling record of that year.

In 1940, Ted started his own band, Ted Daffan and the Texans, and based on the popularity of Truck Drivin' Blues, was signed to Columbia Records. He continued to write and perform what would become classics of the honky tonk style, but it was his 1942 hit, Born to Lose, that would cement his name in song writing history.

This song would go on to hit gold, then platinum, and be recorded by over a hundred artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Elton John and Ella Fitzgerald. Other songs followed: I'm a Fool to Care, No Letter Today and Worried Mind being the most popular and critically acclaimed.

In 1944 he moved to California and worked as a bandleader before

returning to Texas in 1946. Deciding to move into the business side of the industry, he created his own label, Daffan Records, in 1955 and handled artists like Floyd Tillman and Dickie McBride.

In 1958 he moved to Nashville and set up his own music publishing company with Hank Snow, before returning to Houston in 1961 and setting up a publishing company there as well. After several years, Ted retired from the music business entirely and lived a quiet life with his wife Bobbie.

His legacy earned him many accolades: before his death from cancer in Houston on October 6, 1996, he had been inducted into the Academy of Country Music, the Texas Swing Music, the Western Swing Society, the Texas Steel Guitar Association, the State of Louisiana, and the Nashville Songwriters Association Halls of Fame.

(Info edited mainly from article from the Texas State Historical Association.)

Norma Ann Winstone MBE (born 23 september 1941, in Bow East London) is a British jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning over forty years she is best known for her Wordless improvisations.

Norma Winstone was born in London and first attracted attention in the late sixties when she shared the bill at Ronnie Scott's club with

Roland Kirk. Although she began her career singing jazz standards, she became involved in the avant garde movement, exploring the use of the voice in an experimental way and evolving her own wordless approach to improvisation.

She joined groups led by Mike Westbrook, Michael Garrick and sang with John Surman, Kenny Wheeler, Michael Gibbs and John Taylor, and worked extensively with many of the major European names and visiting Americans. In 1971 she was voted top singer in the Melody Maker Jazz Poll and subsequently recorded her own album Edge of Time for Decca, which although long deleted has now been re-released as a CD on the Disconforme label.

With Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler she has performed and recorded three albums for ECM as a member of the trio Azimuth between 1977 and 1980. In addition she made an album with the American pianist Jimmy Rowles (Well Kept Secret, 1993).

In recent years she has become known as a very fine lyricist, writing words to compositions by Ralph Towner, and Brazilian composers Egberto Gismonti and Ivan Lins (who has recorded her English lyrics to his song ‘Vieste‘). She has a special affinity with the music of Steve Swallow, and has written lyrics to many of his compositions, most notably ‘Ladies in Mercedes‘, which has become a standard.

In July 2001, she won the title of Best Vocalist in the BBC Jazz Awards hosted by Humphrey Lyttleton at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. She continues in the forefront of British jazz and was nominated again in the 2007 and 2008 BBC Jazz Awards for best vocalist.

Here’s “A Wish” from above 2003 album.

Norma Winstone was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 2007 for her services to Music. In 2009 she was awarded the Skoda Jazz Ahead Award in Bremen for her contribution to European Jazz.

Her current group is a trio featuring Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German saxophonist/ bass clarinetist Klaus Gesing. Norma also works with the Nikki Iles’ group “The Printmakers” comprising some of the UK’s finest musicians. They released a long-awaited album “Westerly” this year and perform mainly in the UK.

More accolades came In 2015: Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Vocalist and also the Gold Badge of Merit from British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

(Info various and normawinstone.com)

Here’s Norma Winstone singing Sea Lady (written by Kenny Wheeler) Bruno Angelini, piano and Michel Benita, bass.

Martha Raye born 27 August 1916

Prostopleer R.I.P?

John Perkins born 28 August 1931

Billy Myles born 29 August 1924

Leny Eversong born 1 September 1920

Gerald Wilson born 4 September 1918

Mel McDaniel born 6 September 1942

Al Caiola born 7 September 1920

Cathy Jean Giordano born 8 September 1945

Francis Craig born 10 September 1900

"Baby Face" Willette born 11 Setember 1933

George Jones born 12 September 1931

Dick Haymes born 13 September 1918

Archibald ( Leon T. Gross) born 14 September 1912

Ralph Sharon born 17 September 1923

Jimmie Rodgers born 18 September 1933

Danny Dill born 19 September 1924

Frank De Vol born 20 September 1911

Ted Daffan born 21 September 1912

Norma Winstone born 23 September 1941