Barbershop quartet
A barbershop quartet is a group of four singers who sing music in the barbershop genre of singing, which uses four-part harmony without accompaniment by any instruments such as piano, a style called a cappella. It consists of a lead, the vocal part which carries the tune/melody; the baritone can sing either below the lead singer. Quartets can be male or female, but are not mixed male and female. A female barbershop quartet may be referred to as a Sweet Adelines quartet, the vocal parts have the same labels, since the roles perform similar functions in the quartet though the vocal ranges are different. Most barbershop quartets are male. Barbershop singing originated in the late 1800s and early 1900s of America, a hybrid of both black and white expressive cultural forms at the time; the African-American influence is sometimes overlooked, although these quartets had a formative role in the development of this style of singing. Popularity of the style faded in the 1920s and was revived in the mid-20th century with help by the Society for Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, founded in 1938.
Some researchers view the style as an invented tradition based on the early musical features and the society's application of the barbershop chord with its contests and rules. As a general rule, barbershop quartets use a TTBB arrangement, with the second tenor on lead vocal; the tenor harmonizes above the lead, making the part the highest in the quartet. So as not to overpower the lead singer, who carries the tune, the part is sung in falsetto, of a softer quality than singing in the modal register, though some quartets do make use of tenors with a softer full voice quality. Notable examples of barbershop quartets which made use of the full-voiced tenor include The Buffalo Bills and Boston Common; the range of a tenor in barbershop music does not closely correspond to that of a tenor's range in Classical repertoire being more in the range of the classical countertenor range. Lead sings the main melody. Baritone completes the chord with a medium voice slightly below the lead. Bass always sings and harmonizes the lowest notes setting the root of the chord for root position chords, or singing the lowest note of the chord for inverted chords.
The TV sitcom I Love Lucy used the cast in a barbershop quartet in the 1952 episode, "Lucy's Show-Biz Swan Song. Frasier featured a barbershop quartet in the episode, "Frasier's Curse." An episode of The Simpsons, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", parodied the journey of The Beatles as though they were each members of a barbershop quartet named "The Be Sharps". The episode starred a quartet who sing on Main Street in Disneyland in California. In every episode of Nick Jr.'s television program Blue's Clues, a barbershop quartet can be heard saying "Mailtime", after which Steve or Joe sings the mail time song before the mail arrives at their house. The Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Contest Champions The Buffalo Bills were such a hit in the 1957 Meredith Willson Broadway musical The Music Man that they were cast in the 1962 film adaptation starring Robert Preston as Harold Hill and Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo; the internet webcomic Homestuck features a barbershop cover of the Eddie Morton song, "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew".
The cover was sung by a fan of the series and was put into the comic on the page, "DD: Ascend more casually." Cuphead, known for its 1900s cartoon style, contains two songs sung by a barbershop quartet: "Don't Deal with the Devil" and "A Quick Break" In a 2019 GEICO television commercial, a barbershop quartet sings while playing a four-on-four basketball game. Gospel quartet Barbershop chorus Barbershop Harmony Society List of Barbershop Harmony Society quartet champions Media related to Barbershop quartets at Wikimedia Commons
Ukulele
The ukulele is a member of the guitar family of instruments. It employs four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings; some strings may be paired in courses, giving the instrument a total of eight strings. The ukulele originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian adaptation of the Portuguese machete, a small guitar-like instrument, introduced to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and the Azores, it gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century and from there spread internationally. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with construction. Ukuleles come in four sizes: soprano, concert and baritone; the ukulele is associated with music from Hawaii where the name translates as "jumping flea" because of the movement of the player's fingers. Legend attributes it to the nickname of the Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākaua's officers, because of his small size, fidgety manner, playing expertise. One of the earliest appearances of the word ukulele in print is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations published in 1907.
The catalog describes two ukuleles from Hawaii: one, similar in size to a modern soprano ukulele, one, similar to a tenor. Developed in the 1880s, the ukulele is based on several small guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin, the machete, the cavaquinho, the timple, the rajão, introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and Cape Verde. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, Augusto Dias, are credited as the first ukulele makers. Two weeks after they disembarked from the SS Ravenscrag in late August 1879, the Hawaiian Gazette reported that "Madeira Islanders arrived here, have been delighting the people with nightly street concerts."One of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings. Kamaka Ukulele or just Kamaka is a family-owned Hawaii-based maker of ukuleles, founded in 1916, credited with producing some of the world's finest ukuleles, created the first pineapple ukulele.
In the 1960s, educator J. Chalmers Doane changed school music programs across Canada, using the ukulele as an inexpensive and practical teaching instrument to foster musical literacy in the classroom. 50,000 schoolchildren and adults learned ukulele through the Doane program at its peak. Today, a revised program created by James Hill and J. Chalmers Doane continues to be a staple of music education in Canada; the ukulele came to Japan in 1929 after Hawaiian-born Yukihiko Haida returned to the country upon his father's death and introduced the instrument. Haida and his brother Katsuhiko formed the Moana Glee Club, enjoying rapid success in an environment of growing enthusiasm for Western popular music Hawaiian and jazz. During World War II, authorities banned most Western music, but fans and players kept it alive in secret, it resumed popularity after the war. In 1959, Haida founded the Nihon Ukulele Association. Today, Japan is considered a second home for Hawaiian musicians and ukulele virtuosos.
The singer and comedian George Formby was the UK's most famous ukulele player, though he played a banjolele, a hybrid instrument consisting of an extended ukulele neck with a banjo resonator body. Demand surged in the new century because of its relative portability. Another famous British artist was Tony Award winner Tessie O'Shea, who appeared in numerous movies and stage shows, was twice on The Ed Sullivan Show, including the night The Beatles debuted in 1964; the ukulele's popularity in Britain continues to grow with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain touring globally, the George Formby Society holding regular conventions, the establishment of dedicated ukulele groups and festivals across the UK, Paul McCartney's 2002 tribute tour to George Harrison The ukulele was popularized for a stateside audience during the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, held from spring to fall of 1915 in San Francisco. The Hawaiian Pavilion featured a guitar and ukulele ensemble, George E. K. Awai and his Royal Hawaiian Quartet, along with ukulele maker and player Jonah Kumalae.
The popularity of the ensemble with visitors launched a fad for Hawaiian-themed songs among Tin Pan Alley songwriters. The ensemble introduced both the lap steel guitar and the ukulele into U. S. mainland popular music, where it was taken up by vaudeville performers such as Roy Smeck and Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards. On April 15, 1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, Smeck appeared, playing the ukulele, in Stringed Harmony, a short film made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. On August 6, 1926, Smeck appeared playing the ukulele in a short film His Pastimes, made in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process, shown with the feature film Don Juan starring John Barrymore; the ukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age. Like guitar, basic ukulele skills can be learned easily, this portable inexpensive instrument was popular with amateur players throughout the 1920s, as evidenced by the introduction of uke chord tablature into the published sheet music for popular songs of the time, (a role that would be supplanted by the guitar in the early ye
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. The first multimedia star, Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, motion picture grosses from 1931 to 1954, his early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Dean Martin. Yank magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, Music Digest estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music. Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O'Malley in the 1944 motion picture Going My Way and was nominated for his reprise of the role in The Bells of St. Mary's opposite Ingrid Bergman the next year, becoming the first of six actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character.
In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures and audio recording, he was known for his collaborations with longtime friend Bob Hope, starring in the Road to... films from 1940 to 1962. Crosby influenced the development of the postwar recording industry. After seeing a demonstration of a German broadcast quality reel-to-reel tape recorder brought to America by John T. Mullin, he invested $50,000 in a California electronics company called Ampex to build copies, he convinced ABC to allow him to tape his shows. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. Through the medium of recording, he constructed his radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship used in motion picture production, a practice that became an industry standard. In addition to his work with early audio tape recording, he helped to finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.
Crosby was born on May 3, 1903 in Tacoma, Washington, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street. In 1906, his family moved to Spokane and in 1913, his father built a house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue; the house sits on the campus of Gonzaga University. It functions today as a museum housing over 200 artifacts from his life and career, including his Oscar, he was the fourth of seven children: brothers Laurence Earl, Everett Nathaniel, Edward John, George Robert. His parents were Harry Lowe Crosby, a bookkeeper, Catherine Helen "Kate", his mother was a second generation Irish-American. His father was of English descent. Through another line on his father's side, Crosby is descended from Mayflower passenger William Brewster. On November 8, 1937, after Lux Radio Theatre's adaptation of She Loves Me Not, Joan Blondell asked Crosby how he got his nickname: Crosby: "Well, I'll tell you, back in the knee-britches day, when I was a wee little tyke, a mere broth of a lad, as we say in Spokane, I used to totter around the streets, with a gun on each hip, my favorite after school pastime was a game known as "Cops and Robbers", I didn't care which side I was on, when a cop or robber came into view, I would haul out my trusty six-shooters, made of wood, loudly exclaim bing! bing!, as my luckless victim fell clutching his side, I would shout bing! bing!, I would let him have it again, as his friends came to his rescue, shooting as they came, I would shout bing! bing! bing! bing! bing! bing! bing! bing!"Blondell: "I'm surprised they didn't call you "Killer" Crosby!
Now tell me another story, Grandpa! Crosby: "No, so help me, it's the truth, ask Mister De Mille."De Mille: "I'll vouch for it, Bing."That story was pure whimsy for dramatic effect and the truth is that a neighbor - Valentine Hobart - named him "Bingo from Bingville" after a comic feature in the local paper called "The Bingville Bugle" which the young Harry liked. In time, Bingo got shortened to Bing. In 1917, Crosby took a summer job as property boy at Spokane's "Auditorium," where he witnessed some of the finest acts of the day, including Al Jolson, who held him spellbound with ad libbing and parodies of Hawaiian songs, he described Jolson's delivery as "electric."Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University. He did not earn a degree; as a freshman, he played on the university's baseball team. The university granted him an honorary doctorate in 1937. Today, Gonzaga University houses a large collection of photographs and other material related to Crosby.
In 1923, Crosby was invited to join a new band composed of high school students a few years younger than himself. Al Rinker, Miles Rinker, James Heaton, Claire Pritchard and Robert Pritchard, along with drummer Crosby, formed the Musicaladers, who performed at dances both for high school students and club-goers; the group disbanded after two years. Crosby and Al Rinker obtained work at the Clemmer Theatre in Spokane. Crosby was a member of a vocal trio called'The Three Harmo
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1950s. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music, popular and includes many diverse styles. "Pop" and "rock" were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they became differentiated from each other. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, borrows elements from other styles such as urban, rock and country. Identifying factors include short to medium-length songs written in a basic format, as well as common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, hooks. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music, distinguishable from popular and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music.
The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s, most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country and hillbilly music. According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience since the late 1950s, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc." Grove Music Online states that " in the early 1960s,'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music, while in the US its coverage overlapped with that of'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term “pop music” was used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward and, in musical terms, it is conservative".
It is, "provided from on high rather than being made from below... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Music scholar Timothy Warner said it has an emphasis on recording and technology, rather than live performance; the main medium of pop music is the song between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, a chorus that contrasts melodically and harmonically with the verse; the beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on simple themes – love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, spoken passages from rap. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar and bass groups or singers
Okeh Records
Okeh Records is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH", formed from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann, but changed to "OKeh". Since 1926, Okeh has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, now itself a subsidiary of Sony Music. Today, Okeh is an imprint of a specialty label of Columbia. Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann, a German-American manager for the U. S. branch of Odeon Records, owned by Carl Lindstrom. In 1916, Heinemann incorporated the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, set up a recording studio and pressing plant in New York City, started the label in 1918; the first discs were vertical cut, but the more common lateral-cut method was used. The label's parent company was renamed the General Phonograph Corporation, the name on its record labels was changed to OKeh; the common 10-inch discs retailed for 75 cents each, the 12-inch discs for $1.25.
The company's musical director was Fred Hager, credited under the pseudonym Milo Rega. Okeh issued popular songs, dance numbers, vaudeville skits similar to other labels, but Heinemann wanted to provide music for audiences neglected by the larger record companies. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Polish and Yiddish for immigrant communities in the United States; some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, while others were recorded by Okeh in New York. Okeh's early releases included music by the New Orleans Jazz Band. In 1920, Perry Bradford encouraged Fred Hager, the director of artists and repertoire, to record blues singer Mamie Smith; the records were popular, the label issued a series of race records directed by Clarence Williams in New York City and Richard M. Jones in Chicago. From 1921–1932, this series included music by Williams, Lonnie Johnson, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong. Recording for the label were Bix Beiderbecke, Bennie Moten, Frankie Trumbauer, Eddie Lang.
As part of the Carl Lindström Company, Okeh's recordings were distributed by other labels owned by Lindstrom, including Parlophone in the UK. In 1926, Okeh was sold to Columbia Records. Ownership changed to the American Record Corporation in 1934, the race records series from the 1920s ended. CBS bought the company in 1938. OkeH was a label for rhythm and blues during the 1950s, but jazz albums continued to be released, as in the work of Wild Bill Davis and Red Saunders. General Phonograph Corporation used Mamie Smith's popular song "Crazy Blues" to cultivate a new market. Portraits of Smith and lists of her records were printed in advertisements in newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, the Atlanta Independent, New York Colored News, others popular with African-Americans. Okeh had further prominence in the demographic, as African-American musicians Sara Martin, Eva Taylor, Shelton Brooks, Esther Bigeou, Handy's Orchestra recorded for the label. Okeh issued the 8000 series for race records; the success of this series led Okeh to start recording music where it was being performed, known as remote recording or location recording.
Starting in 1923, Okeh sent mobile recording equipment to tour the country and record performers not heard in New York or Chicago. Regular trips were made once or twice a year to New Orleans, San Antonio, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit. Okeh releases grew infrequent after 1932, although the label continued into 1935. In 1940, after Columbia lost the rights to the Vocalion name by dropping the Brunswick label, the Okeh name was revived to replace it; the script logo design still in use today was introduced on a demonstration record announcing that event. The label was again discontinued in 1946 and revived yet again in 1951. In 1953, Okeh became an exclusive R&B label when its parent Columbia Records transferred Okeh's pop music artists to the newly formed Epic Records. In 1963, Carl Davis boosted Okeh's fortunes for a couple of years. Epic Records took over management of Okeh in 1965. Among the artists during Okeh's pop phase of the 50s and 60s were Johnnie Ray and Little Joe & the Thrillers. With soul music becoming popular in the 1960s, Okeh signed Major Lance, who gave the label two big successes with "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um".
Fifties rocker Larry Williams found a musical home for a period of time in the 60s, recording and producing funky soul with a band that included Johnny "Guitar" Watson. He was paired with Little Richard, persuaded to return to secular music, he produced two Little Richard albums for Okeh Records in 1966 and 1967, which returned Little Richard to the Billboard album chart for the first time in ten years and produced the hit single "Poor Dog". He acted as the music director for Little Richard's live performances at the Okeh Club in Los Angeles. Bookings for Little Richard during this period skyrocketed. Williams recorded and released material of his own and with Watson, with some moderate chart success; this period produced some of Williams's best and most original work. Much of the success of Okeh in the 1960s was dependent on producer Carl Davis and songwriter Curtis Mayfield. After they left the label, Okeh slipped in sales and was retired by Columbia in 1970. In 1993, Sony Music reactivated the Okeh label as a new-age blues label.
Okeh's first new signings included G. Love & Special Sauce, Keb' Mo, Popa Chubby, Little Axe. Throughout the first year, in celeb
William S. Paley
William Samuel Paley was the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States. Paley was born in Chicago, the son of Goldie and Samuel Paley, his family was Jewish, his father was an immigrant from Ukraine who ran a cigar company. As the company became successful, Paley became a millionaire, moved his family to Philadelphia in the early 1920s. William Paley matriculated at Western Military Academy in Alton and received his college degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in expectation that he would take an active role running the family cigar business. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Paley joined the Theta Chapter of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity. In 1927, Samuel Paley, Leon Levy, some business partners bought a struggling Philadelphia-based radio network of 16 stations called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. Samuel Paley's intention was to use his acquisition as an advertising medium for promoting the family's cigar business, which included the La Palina brand.
Within a year, under William's leadership, cigar sales had more than doubled, and, in 1928, the Paley family secured majority ownership of the network from their partners. Within a decade, William S. Paley had expanded the network to 114 affiliate stations. Paley grasped the earnings potential of radio and recognized that good programming was the key to selling advertising time and, in turn, bringing in profits to the network and to affiliate owners. Before Paley, most businessmen viewed stations as stand-alone local outlets or, in other words, as the broadcast equivalent of local newspapers. Individual stations bought programming from the network and, were considered the network's clients. Paley changed broadcasting's business model not only by developing successful and lucrative broadcast programming but by viewing the advertisers as the most significant element of the broadcasting equation. Paley provided network programming to affiliate stations at a nominal cost, thereby ensuring the widest possible distribution for both the programming and the advertising.
The advertisers became the network's primary clients and, because of the wider distribution brought by the growing network, Paley was able to charge more for the ad time. Affiliates were required to carry programming offered by the network for part of the broadcast day, receiving a portion of the network's fees from advertising revenue. At other times in the broadcast day, affiliates were free to offer local programming and sell advertising time locally. Paley's recognition of how to harness the potential reach of broadcasting was the key to his growing CBS from a tiny chain of stations into what was one of the world's dominant communication empires. During his prime, Paley was described as having an uncanny sense for popular taste and exploiting that insight to build the CBS network; as war clouds darkened over Europe in the late 1930s, Paley recognized Americans' desire for news coverage of the coming war and built the CBS news division into a dominant force just as he had built the network's entertainment division.
During World War II, Paley served as director of radio operations of the Psychological Warfare branch in the Office of War Information at Allied Force Headquarters in London, where he held the rank of colonel. While based in England during the war, Paley came to know and befriend Edward R. Murrow, CBS's head of European news who expanded the news division's foreign coverage with a team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys. In 1946, Paley promoted Frank Stanton to president of CBS. CBS rode the post-World War II boom to surpass NBC, which had dominated radio. CBS has owned the Columbia Record Company and its associated CBS Laboratories since 1939. In 1948, Columbia Records introduced the 33-1/3-rpm long-playing vinyl disc to compete with RCA Victor's 45-rpm vinyl disc. CBS Laboratories and Peter Goldmark developed a method for color television. After lobbying by RCA President David Sarnoff and Paley in Washington, D. C. the Federal Communications Commission approved the CBS system, but reversed the decision based on the CBS system's incompatibility with black and white receivers.
The new, compatible RCA color system was selected as the standard, CBS sold the patents to its system to foreign broadcasters as PAL SECAM. CBS broadcast few color programs during this period, they did, however and license some RCA equipment and technology, taking the RCA markings off of the equipment, relying on Philips-Norelco for color equipment beginning in 1964, when color television sets became widespread. PAL or Phase Alternating Line, an analogue TV-encoding system, is today a television-broadcasting standard used in large parts of the world. "Bill Paley erected two towers of power: one for entertainment and one for news," 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt claimed in his autobiography, Tell Me a Story. "And he decreed that there would be no bridge between them.... In short, Paley was the guy who put Frank Sinatra and Edward R. Murrow on the radio and 60 Minutes on television." Paley was not fond of one of the network's biggest stars. Arthur Godfrey had been working locally in DC and New York City hosting morning shows.
Paley did not consider him worthy of CBS. When Paley went into the Army and took up his assignment in London, Frank Stanton assumed his duties, he decided to try Godfrey on the network. By th
Rudy Vallée
Hubert Prior "Rudy" Vallée was an American singer, actor and radio host. He was one of the first modern pop stars of the teen idol type; the son of Charles Alphonse Vallée and Catherine Lynch, Rudy Vallée was born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont. His parents were born and raised in Vermont; the Vallées were Francophone Canadians from Quebec. Vallée grew up in Maine. In 1917, he enlisted for World War I but was discharged when United States Navy authorities discovered he was only 15 years old, he enlisted in Portland, Maine, on March 29, 1917, under the false birthdate of July 28, 1899. He was discharged at the Naval Training Station, Rhode Island, on May 17, 1917, with 41 days of active service. After playing drums in his high school band, Vallée played clarinet and saxophone in bands around New England as a teenager. From 1924 through 1925, he played with the Savoy Havana Band at the Savoy Hotel in London, where band members discouraged his attempts to become a vocalist, he returned to the United States attending the University of Maine.
He received a degree in philosophy from Yale University, where he played in the Yale Collegians with Peter Arno, who became a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine. After graduation, he formed Rudy Vallée and the Connecticut Yankees, having named himself after saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft. With this band, which included two violins, two saxophones, a piano, a banjo, drums, he started singing, he seemed more at home singing sweet ballads than jazz songs. But his singing, suave manner, boyish good looks attracted attention from young women. Vallée was given a recording contract, in 1928 he started performing on the radio, he became one of the first crooners. Singers needed strong voices to fill theaters in the days before microphones. Crooners had soft voices. Vallée's trombone-like vocal phrasing on "Deep Night" would inspire Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como to model their voices on jazz instruments. Vallée was one of the first celebrity pop stars. Flappers pursued him, his live appearances were sold out.
Among screaming female fans, his voice failed to project in venues without microphones and amplification, so he sang through a megaphone. A caricature of him singing this way was depicted in the Betty Boop cartoon Poor Cinderella. Another caricature is in Crosby and Vallee, which parodies him, Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo. In the words of a magazine writer in 1929, At the microphone he is a romantic figure. Faultlessly attired in evening dress, he pours into the radio's delicate ear a stream of mellifluous melody, he appears to be coaxing, pleading and at the same time adoring the invisible one to whom his song is attuned. Vallée had his share of detractors as well as fans. Radio Revue, a radio fan magazine, held a contest in which people wrote letters explaining his success; the winning letter, written by a man who disliked Vallee's music, said, "Rudy Vallee is reaping the harvest of a seed, sown this day and age: LOVE. The good-looking little son-of-a-gun and LOVES his audience and his art, he LOVES to please listeners—LOVES it more than he does his name in the big lights, his mug in the papers.
He loved all those unseen women as passionately as a voice can love, long before they began to purr and to caress him with two-cent stamps."Vallée made his first records in 1928 for Columbia's low-priced labels Harmony, Velvet Tone, Diva. He signed to RCA Victor in February 1929 and remained with the company through 1931, leaving after a heated dispute with executives over title selections, he recorded for the short-lived Hit of the Week label which sold records laminated onto cardboard. In August 1932, he signed with Columbia and stayed with the label through 1933, his records were issued on Victor's low-priced Bluebird label until November 1933, when he was back on the Victor label. He remained with Victor until signing with ARC in 1936. ARC issued his records on the Perfect, Melotone and Romeo labels until 1937, when he again returned to Victor. With his group the Connecticut Yankees, Vallée's best-known recordings include "The Stein Song" in 1929 and "Vieni, Vieni" in the latter 1930s, his last hit record was a reissue of "As Time Goes By", popularized in the 1942 film Casablanca.
Due to the mid-1940s recording ban, RCA Victor reissued the version he had recorded in 1931. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard to help direct the 11th district Coast Guard band as a Chief Petty Officer, he was led the 40 piece band to great success. In 1944 he was returned to radio. According to George P. Oslin, Vallée on July 28, 1933 was the recipient of the first singing telegram. A fan telegraphed birthday greeting, Oslin had the operator sing "Happy Birthday to You". In 1995, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. In 1929, Vallée began hosting The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, a popular radio show with guests such as Fay Wray and Richard Cromwell in dramatic skits. Vallée continued hosting radio shows such as the Royal Gelatin Hour, Vallee Varieties, The Rudy Vallee Show through the 1930s and 1940s; when Vallée took his contractual vacations from his national radio show in 1937, he insisted his sponsor hire Louis Armstrong as his substitute This was the first instance of an African-American hosting a national radio program.
Vallée