{"id":2129,"date":"2010-08-02T14:58:31","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T21:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=2129"},"modified":"2010-08-02T15:15:47","modified_gmt":"2010-08-02T22:15:47","slug":"rip-mitch-miller-the-anti-louie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=2129","title":{"rendered":"RIP: Mitch Miller, the Anti-LOUIE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mitch<\/p>\n

Mitch Miller<\/strong>, the man who popularized sing-along performances before the invention of karaoke, has passed away at the age of 99 years old. He was was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive. He was considered one of the most influential figures in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s.<\/p>\n

My dad loved this guy’s music. I used to hear Mitch Miller music all the time when I was growing up. It used to drive me up the wall, actually.<\/p>\n

While Mitch Miller was very successful in the music industry, he just didn’t understand rock & roll music. He called it “musical illiteracy<\/em>.” In fact, when he was in charge of A&R at Columbia Records, he turned down a chance to sign Elvis Presley<\/strong> and Buddy Holly<\/strong>. It was something of a miracle that Columbia Records signed Paul Revere & the Raider<\/strong>s to the label. The biggest record label in the world was slow to the party, and Paul Revere & company were the first to break the glass ceiling, so to speak.<\/p>\n

In 1996, he told the Boston Globe<\/a>, “I can’t get interested in people who can only sing songs with three chords in them<\/em>.” <\/p>\n

I’m sure LOUIE LOUIE was on the top of the list of songs that he hated. It certainly wasn’t his idea of a “party song.”<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, Mitch.<\/p>\n

POST-NOTE<\/strong>: Truth be told, I do love the idea that Mitch Miller talked Frank Sinatra<\/strong> into recording the song “Mama Will Bark,” with TV actress-comedian Dagmar<\/strong>. It’s a classic number that must be heard to be believed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitch Miller, the man who popularized sing-along performances before the invention of karaoke, has passed away at the age of 99 years old. He was was an American musician, singer, conductor, record…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,15,30,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-louie-universe","category-music-business","category-obituaries","category-paul-revere-raiders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2141,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions\/2141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}