Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer sometimes referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz, Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, intonation, a "horn-like" improvisational ability in her scat singing. After a tumultuous adolescence, Fitzgerald found stability in musical success with the Chick Webb Orchestra, performing across the country but most associated with the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. After taking over the band when Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start her solo career, her manager was Moe Gale, co-founder of the Savoy, until she turned the rest of her career over to Norman Granz, who founded Verve Records to produce new records by Fitzgerald. With Verve she recorded some of her more noted works her interpretations of the Great American Songbook. While Fitzgerald appeared in movies and as a guest on popular television shows in the second half of the twentieth century, her musical collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, The Ink Spots were some of her most notable acts outside of her solo career.
These partnerships produced some of her best-known songs such as "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Cheek to Cheek", "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall", "It Don't Mean a Thing". In 1993, she ended her nearly 60-year career with her last public performance. Three years she died at the age of 79 after years of declining health, her accolades included fourteen Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Fitzgerald was born on April 1917, in Newport News, Virginia, she was the daughter of Temperance "Tempie" Henry. Her parents lived together for at least two and a half years after she was born. In the early 1920s, Fitzgerald's mother and her new partner, a Portuguese immigrant named Joseph Da Silva, moved to Yonkers, in Westchester County, New York, her half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923. By 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to a poor Italian area, she began her formal education at the age of six and was an outstanding student, moving through a variety of schools before attending Benjamin Franklin Junior High School in 1929.
Starting in third grade, Fitzgerald admired Earl Snakehips Tucker. She performed for her peers on the way at lunchtime, she and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she attended worship services, Bible study, Sunday school. The church provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in music. Fitzgerald listened to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, The Boswell Sisters, she idolized the Boswell Sisters' lead singer Connee Boswell saying, "My mother brought home one of her records, I fell in love with it... I tried so hard to sound just like her."In 1932, when Fitzgerald was fifteen, her mother died from injuries received in a car accident. Her stepfather took care of her until April 1933; this swift change in her circumstances, reinforced by what Fitzgerald biographer Stuart Nicholson describes as rumors of "ill treatment" by her stepfather, leaves him to speculate that Da Silva might have abused her. Fitzgerald began skipping school, her grades suffered.
She worked as a lookout with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner. She never talked publicly about this time in her life; when the authorities caught up with her, she was placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale in the Bronx. When the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls, a state reformatory school in Hudson, New York. While she seems to have survived during 1933 and 1934 in part from singing on the streets of Harlem, Fitzgerald made her most important debut at age 17 on November 21, 1934, in one of the earliest Amateur Nights at the Apollo Theater, she had intended to go on stage and dance, but she was intimidated by a local dance duo called the Edwards Sisters and opted to sing instead. Performing in the style of Connee Boswell, she sang "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection" and won first prize, she won the chance to perform at the Apollo for a week but because of her disheveled appearance, the theater never gave her that part of her prize.
In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. She was introduced to drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, who had asked his signed singer Charlie Linton to help find him a female singer. Although Webb was "reluctant to sign her...because she was gawky and unkempt, a'diamond in the rough,'" he offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University. Met with approval by both audiences and her fellow musicians, Fitzgerald was asked to join Webb's orchestra and gained acclaim as part of the group's performances at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs, including "Love and Kisses" and " You'll Have to Swing It", but it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her public acclaim. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" became a major hit on the radio and was one of the biggest-selling records of the decade. Webb died of spinal tuberculosis on June 16, 1939, his band was renamed Ella and Her Famous Orchestra with Fitzgerald taking on the role of bandleader.
She recorded nearly 150 songs with Webb's orchestra between 1935 and 1942. In The New York Times obituary o
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, author and philanthropist, known for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album debut in 1967 with Hello, I'm Dolly. With steady success during the remainder of the 1960s, her sales and chart peak came during the 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Parton's albums in the 1990s sold less well, but she achieved commercial success again in the new millennium and has released albums on various independent labels since 2000, including her own label, Dolly Records. Parton's music includes 25 Recording Industry Association of America -certified gold and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach No. 1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top-10 country albums, a record for any artist, she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years, she has garnered nine Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, ten Country Music Association Awards, seven Academy of Country Music Awards, three American Music Awards, is one of only seven female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award.
Parton has received 47 Grammy nominations. In 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, she has composed over 3,000 songs, including "I Will Always Love You", "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", "9 to 5". She is one of the few to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards; as an actress, she has starred in films such as 9 to 5 and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, for which she earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, as well as Rhinestone, Steel Magnolias, Straight Talk and Joyful Noise. Dolly Rebecca Parton was born January 19, 1946, in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee, a small community in Sevier County in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, she is the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Caroline and Robert Lee Parton Sr.. Mr. Parton worked in the mountains of east Tennessee, first as a sharecropper and tending his own small farm and acreage.
He worked temporary side jobs to make ends meet. He write. Despite his lack of formal education, Parton has said that he was one of the smartest people she has known. Avie Lee was homemaker for the large family, her 11 pregnancies in 20 years made her a mother of 12 by age 35. In poor health, she still managed to keep house and entertain her children with songs and tales of mountain folklore. Avie Lee's father, Jake Owens, was a Pentecostal preacher, so Parton and her siblings all attended church regularly. Parton has long credited her father for her business savvy, her mother's family for her musical abilities. While she was still young, Dolly Parton's family moved to a farm on nearby Locust Ridge. Most of her cherished memories of youth happened there, it is the place about which she wrote the song "My Tennessee Mountain Home" in the 1970s. Parton bought back the Locust Ridge property in the 1980s. Two of her siblings are no longer living. Dolly Parton's middle name comes from her maternal great-great-grandmother Rebecca Whitted.
She has described her family as "dirt poor." Parton's father paid the doctor. She outlined her family's poverty in her early songs "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days", they lived in a rustic, one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, just north of the Greenbrier Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains, a predominantly Pentecostal area. Music played an important role in her early life, she was brought up in the Church of the church her grandfather, Jake Robert Owens, pastored. Her earliest public performances were beginning at age six. At seven, she started playing a homemade guitar; when she was eight, her uncle bought her first real guitar. Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in the East Tennessee area. By ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. At 13, she was recording on a small Louisiana label, Goldband Records, appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, where she first met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her to follow her own instincts regarding her career.
After graduating from Sevier County High School in 1964, Parton moved to Nashville the next day. Her initial success came as a songwriter, having signed with Combine Publishing shortly after her arrival, her songs were recorded by many other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr. She signed with Monument Records in 1965, at age 19, she released a string of singles, but the only one that charted, "Happy, Happy Birthday Baby", did not crack the Billboard Hot 100. Although she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, thinking her unique voice with its strong vibrato was not suited to the genre
Eddy Arnold
Richard Edward "Eddy" Arnold was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s, scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones, he sold more than 85 million records. A member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Arnold ranked 22nd on Country Music Television's 2003 list of "The 40 Greatest Men of Country Music." Arnold was born on May 1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tennessee. His father, a sharecropper, played the fiddle. Arnold's father died when he was just 11, forcing him to leave school and begin helping on the family farm; this led to him gaining his nickname—the Tennessee Plowboy. Arnold attended Pinson High School in Pinson, where he played guitar for school functions and events, he quit before graduation to help with the farm work, but continued performing arriving on a mule with his guitar hung on his back. Arnold worked part-time as an assistant at a mortuary.
In 1934, at age 16, Arnold made his debut on WTJS-AM in Tennessee. He began performing at local nightclubs and was hired permanently by WTJS in 1937. In 1938, he was hired by WMPS-AM in Memphis, where he was one of its most popular performers, he soon left WMPS for KWK-AM in St. Louis, followed by a spot at WHAS-AM in Louisville, Kentucky, he performed for WSM on the Grand Ole Opry during 1943 as a solo artist. In 1944, Arnold signed a contract with RCA Victor, with manager Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage Elvis Presley. Arnold's first single was little noticed, but the next, "Each Minute Seems a Million Years", scored number five on the country charts in 1945, its success began a decade of unprecedented chart performance. In 1946, Arnold scored his first major success with "That's How Much I Love You". In 1948, he had five successful songs on the charts simultaneously; that year, he had nine songs in the top 10. With Parker's management, Arnold continued to dominate, with 13 of the 20 best-scoring country music songs of 1947–1948.
He became the host of Mutual Radio's Purina-sponsored segment of the Opry and of Mutual's Checkerboard Jamboree, a midday program shared with Ernest Tubb, broadcast from a Nashville theater. Recorded radio programs increased Arnold's popularity, as did the CBS Radio series Hometown Reunion with the Duke of Paducah. Arnold quit the Opry during 1948, his Hometown Reunion broadcast in competition with the Opry on Saturday nights. In 1949 and 1950, he performed in Hoedown. Arnold began hosting The Eddy Arnold Show; the summer program was broadcast successively by all three television networks, replacing the Perry Como and Dinah Shore programs. He performed as a guest and a guest host on the ABC-TV show Ozark Jubilee from 1955–60. Arnold featured in the syndicated Eddy Arnold Time from 1955 to 1957. From 1960 to 1961, he hosted NBC-TV's Today on the Farm. With the rise of rock and roll in the mid 1950s, Arnold's record sales began to decline, though fellow RCA Victor country recording artist Jim Reeves found a greater audience with popular-sounding string-laced arrangements.
Arnold annoyed many in the country music establishment by recording with Hugo Winterhalter and his Orchestra at the RCA Victor studios in New York. Winterhalter's pop-oriented arrangements of "The Cattle Call" and "The Richest Man", helped to expand Arnold's appeal beyond its country music base; this style, pioneered by Reeves and Arnold, became known as the "Nashville Sound". During 1953, Arnold and Tom Parker had a dispute, Arnold dismissed him. From 1954 to 1963, Arnold's performances were managed by Joe Csida. Arnold embarked on a second career. In the summer of 1965, he had his first number-one country song in 10 years, "What's He Doing in My World" and struck gold again six months with the song that became his most well-known, "Make the World Go Away", accompanied by pianist Floyd Cramer on piano and featuring the Anita Kerr Singers; as a result, Arnold's rendition became an international success. "Make The World Go Away" became his only top ten pop hit. Bill Walker's orchestra arrangements provided the lush background for 16 continuous successes sung by Arnold in the late 1960s.
Arnold performed with symphony orchestras in New York City, Las Vegas, Hollywood. He performed in Carnegie Hall for two concerts, in the Coconut Grove in Las Vegas. In 1966, Arnold was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the youngest performer to receive the honor; the following year, Arnold was voted the first-ever awarded Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year. Two years he released an autobiography named It's A Long Way From Chester County. Having been with RCA Victor since 1944, Arnold left the label in 1973 for MGM Records, where he recorded four albums, which included several top-40 successes, he returned to RCA in 1976. In the same years, he was initiated to the Masonic Lodge of East Nashville No. 560. During the 1980s, Arnold declared himself semiretired. In 1984, the Academy of Country Music awarded Arnold its Pioneer Award, his next album, You Don't Miss A Thing, was not released until 1991. Arnold performed road tours for several more years. By 1992, he had sold nearly 85 million records, had a total of 145 weeks of number-one songs, mor
Nashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the mid 1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music, most popular in the 1940s and 1950s with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos". It was an attempt "to revive country sales, devastated by the rise of rock'n' roll." The Nashville sound was pioneered by staff at RCA Victor, Columbia Records and Decca Records in Nashville, Tennessee. RCA Victor manager and producer Chet Atkins, producers Steve Sholes, Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, recording engineer Bill Porter invented the form by replacing elements of the popular honky tonk style with "smooth" elements from 1950s pop music, using "slick" production, pop music structures; the producers relied on a small group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability and creative input made them vital to the hit-making process. The Anita Kerr Quartet was the main vocal backing group in the early 1960s.
In 1960, Time magazine reported that Nashville had "nosed out Hollywood as the nation's second biggest record-producing center."The term "Nashville Sound" was first mentioned in an article about Jim Reeves in 1958 in the Music Reporter and again in 1960 in a TIME magazine article about Reeves. Other observers have identified several recordings. Country historian Rich Kienzle says that "Gone", a Ferlin Husky hit recorded in November 1956, "may well have pointed the way to the Nashville sound." Writer Colin Escott proclaims Jim Reeves' "Four Walls", recorded February 1957, to be the "first'Nashville sound' record", Chet Atkins, the RCA Victor producer and guitarist most credited with being the sound's primary artistic creator, pointed to his production of Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" late that same year. In an essay published in Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles, David Cantwell argues that Elvis Presley's rock and roll recording of "Don't Be Cruel" in July 1956 was the record that sparked the beginning of the era now called the Nashville sound.
Cantwell, doesn't factor in earlier Nashville recordings using vocal choruses, or the fact that Presley's recordings were not marketed as country. Regarding the Nashville sound, the record producer Owen Bradley stated, "Now we've cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music, but it can't stop there. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh."-Owen Bradley Quonset Hut Studio, RCA Studio B and RCA Studio A, located directly center of Music Row, were considered pivotal as well as essential locations to the development of the Nashville Sound musical techniques. RCA Studio A was designed and built to incorporate these techniques and was designed by RCA's sound engineer John E. Volkmann. In the early 1960s, the Nashville sound began to be challenged by the rival Bakersfield sound on the country side and by the British Invasion on the pop side. Nashville's pop song structure became more pronounced and it morphed into what was called Countrypolitan—a smoother sound typified through the use of lush string arrangements with a real orchestra and background vocals provided by a choir.
Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets and it sold well throughout the 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified the countrypolitan sound included Wynette, Glen Campbell, Lynn Anderson, George Jones,Charlie Rich, Charley Pride, the latter being a rare example of a top-selling African-American country performer; the Bakersfield sound, outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts. Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins would put his hand into his pocket, shake his loose change, say "That's what it is. It's the sound of money". By the late 1970s and 1980s, many pop music singers picked up the countrypolitan style and created what is known as country pop, the fusion of country music and pop music. Classic examples of Nashville sound recordings: "Four Walls" by Jim Reeves "Gone" by Ferlin Husky "A Fallen Star" by Jimmy C.
Newman "The Three Bells" by The Browns "Please Help Me, I'm Falling by Hank Locklin "He'll Have to Go" by Jim Reeves "Last Date" by Floyd Cramer "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee "I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline "Hello Fool" by Ralph Emery "A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Me Mister In-Between", "Funny Way of Laughin'" by Burl Ives "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis This record was a mainstream pop chart hit. "Here Comes My Baby" by Dottie West "Make the World Go Away" by Eddy Arnold "Misty Blue" by Wilma Burgess "Danny Boy" by Ray Price " Rose Garden" by Lynn Anderson "Help Me Make It Through the Night" by Sammi Smith "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" by Charley Pride "Eleven Roses" by Hank Williams, Jr. "Behind Closed Doors" by Charlie Rich "Good News" by Jody Miller "The Most Beautiful Girl" by Charlie Rich "Paper Roses" by Marie Osmond "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones "Slow Ha
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, Inc. is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label in the United States in 1942 by Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva, Glenn E. Wallichs. Capitol was acquired by British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary in 1955. EMI was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012 and was merged with the company a year making Capitol and the Capitol Music Group both a part of UMG; the label's circular headquarter building in Hollywood is a recognized landmark of California. Capitol's roster includes Katy Perry, Sir Paul McCartney, Mary J. Blige, the Beach Boys, the Beastie Boys, Neil Diamond, Brian Wilson, Avenged Sevenfold, 5 Seconds of Summer, Don Henley, Sam Smith, Migos, NF, Emeli Sandé, Troye Sivan, Calum Scott, Tori Kelly, Jon Bellion, Niall Horan. Songwriter Johnny Mercer founded Capitol Records in 1942 with financial help from songwriter and film producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs, owner of Wallichs Music City.
Mercer raised the idea of starting a record company while golfing with Harold Arlen and Bobby Sherwood and with Wallichs at Wallichs's record store. On February 2, 1942, Mercer and Wallichs met DeSylva at a restaurant in Hollywood to talk about investment by Paramount Pictures. On March 27, 1942, the three men incorporated as Liberty Records. In May 1942, the application was amended to change the company's name to Capitol Records. On April 6, 1942, Mercer supervised Capitol's first recording session where Martha Tilton recorded the song "Moon Dreams". On May 5, Bobby Sherwood and his orchestra recorded two tracks in the studio. On May 21, Freddie Slack and his orchestra recorded three tracks in the studio. On June 4, 1942, Capitol opened its first office in a second-floor room south of Sunset Boulevard. On that same day, Wallichs presented the company's first free record to Los Angeles disc jockey Peter Potter. On June 5, 1942, Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra recorded four songs at the studio. On June 12, the orchestra recorded five more songs in the studio, including "Trav'lin' Light" with Billie Holiday, On June 11, Tex Ritter recorded " Jingle Jangle Jingle" and "Goodbye My Little Cherokee" for his first Capitol recording session, the songs formed Capitol's 110th produced record.
The earliest recording artists included co-owner Mercer, Johnnie Johnston, Morse, Jo Stafford, the Pied Pipers, Tex Ritter, Paul Weston and Margaret Whiting Capitol's first gold single was Morse's "Cow Cow Boogie" in 1942. Capitol's first album was Capitol Presents Songs by Johnny Mercer, a three disc set with recordings by Mercer and the Pied Pipers, all with Weston's Orchestra; the label's other 1940s musicians included Les Baxter, Les Brown, Jimmy Bryant, Billy Butterfield, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr. Dinning Sisters, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Mary Ford, Benny Goodman, Skitch Henderson, Betty Hutton, Stan Kenton, Peggy Lee, Billy May, Les Paul, Alvino Rey, Andy Russell, Smilin' Jack Smith, Kay Starr, Speedy West, Cootie Williams. Musicians on the Capitol Americana label included Lead Belly, Cliffie Stone, Hank Thompson, Merle Travis, Wesley Tuttle, Jimmy Wakely, Tex Williams. Capitol was the first major west coast label to compete with labels on the east coast such as Columbia, RCA Victor.
In addition to its Los Angeles recording studio, Capitol owned a second studio in New York City and sent mobile recording equipment to New Orleans and other cities. In 1946, writer-producer Alan W. Livingston created Bozo the Clown for the company's children's record library. Examples of notable Capitol albums for children during that era are Sparky's Magic Piano and Rusty in Orchestraville. Capitol developed a noted jazz catalog that included the Capitol Jazz Men and issued the Miles Davis's album Birth of the Cool Capitol released a few classical albums in the 1940s, some of which contained a embossed, leather-like cover; these recordings appeared on 78 rpm format released on the 33 format in 1949. Among the recordings: Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos' Choros No. 10, with contributions from a Los Angeles choral group and the Janssen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Werner Janssen. In 1949, Capitol opened a branch office in Canada and purchased KHJ Studios on Melrose Avenue adjacent to Paramount in Hollywood.
By the mid-1950s, Capitol had become a huge company. The label's roster included the Andrews Sisters, Ray Anthony, Shirley Bassey, June Christy, Tommy Duncan, Tennessee Ernie Ford, the Four Freshmen, the Four Knights, the Four Preps, Jane Froman, Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, Andy Griffith, Dick Haymes, Harry James, the Kingston Trio, the Louvin Brothers, Dean Martin, Al Martino, Skeets McDonald, Louis Prima, Nelson Riddle, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith. Capitol began recording roll acts such as the Jodimars and Gene Vincent. There were comedy records by Stan Freberg, Johnny Standley, Mickey Katz. Children listened to Capitol's Bozo the Clown albums. Although various people played Bozo the Clown on television, Capitol used the voice of Pinto Colvig, the voice of Goofy in Walt Disney cartoons. Don Wilson released children's records. In June 1952, Billboard magazine contained a chronicle of the label's first ten years in business. In 1955, the British record company EMI ended its 55-year mutual distribution
