Conductor Mitch Miller dies at 99
NEWSDAY
NEW-YORK
Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to Sing Along With Mitch on television and records and produced hits for Tony Bennett, Patti Page and other performers, has died at age 99.
Miller died July 31 in Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness. Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the pre-rock ’n’ roll era, making hits with singers Bennett, Page, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis.
Sing Along With Mitch started as a series of records, then became a popular NBC show starting in early 1961.
Miller’s stiff-armed conducting style and signature goatee became famous.
The TV show ranked in the top 20 for the 1961-62 season, and soon children everywhere were parodying Miller’s stiff-armed conducting. “He is an odd-looking man,” New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in 1962.
“His sharp beard, twinkling eyes, wrinkled forehead and mechanical beat make him look like a little puppet as he peers hopefully into the camera. By now most of us are more familiar with his tonsils than with those of our families.”
An accomplished oboist, Miller played in a number of orchestras early in his career, including one put together in 1934 by George Gershwin. “Gershwin was an unassuming guy,” Miller told The New York Times in 1989.
“I never heard him raise his voice.” Miller began in the recording business with Mercury Records in the late ’40s, first on the classical side, later with popular music. He then went over to Columbia Records as head of its popular records division.
“Mitch Miller put me on the map by producing some of my very first million-selling records, and he was a great friend and a magnificent musician,” Bennett said in a statement.
Miller had a less rewarding collaboration with Sinatra, whose recording of the novelty song Mama Will Bark, featuring dog imitations, was considered the nadir of the singer’s career.
Daughter Margaret Miller Reuther said her father died of “just old age”. Miller was born in 1911, in Rochester, New York, son of a Russian Jewish immigrant wrought-iron worker and a seamstress.
He graduated from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.
Reuther said there will be a memorial service for her father in the fall.
Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to Sing Along With Mitch on television and records and produced hits for Tony Bennett, Patti Page and other performers, has died at age 99.
Miller died July 31 in Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness. Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the pre-rock ’n’ roll era, making hits with singers Bennett, Page, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis.
Sing Along With Mitch started as a series of records, then became a popular NBC show starting in early 1961.
Miller’s stiff-armed conducting style and signature goatee became famous.
The TV show ranked in the top 20 for the 1961-62 season, and soon children everywhere were parodying Miller’s stiff-armed conducting. “He is an odd-looking man,” New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in 1962.
“His sharp beard, twinkling eyes, wrinkled forehead and mechanical beat make him look like a little puppet as he peers hopefully into the camera. By now most of us are more familiar with his tonsils than with those of our families.”
An accomplished oboist, Miller played in a number of orchestras early in his career, including one put together in 1934 by George Gershwin. “Gershwin was an unassuming guy,” Miller told The New York Times in 1989.
“I never heard him raise his voice.” Miller began in the recording business with Mercury Records in the late ’40s, first on the classical side, later with popular music. He then went over to Columbia Records as head of its popular records division.
“Mitch Miller put me on the map by producing some of my very first million-selling records, and he was a great friend and a magnificent musician,” Bennett said in a statement.
Miller had a less rewarding collaboration with Sinatra, whose recording of the novelty song Mama Will Bark, featuring dog imitations, was considered the nadir of the singer’s career.
Daughter Margaret Miller Reuther said her father died of “just old age”. Miller was born in 1911, in Rochester, New York, son of a Russian Jewish immigrant wrought-iron worker and a seamstress.
He graduated from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.
Reuther said there will be a memorial service for her father in the fall.