This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)

Mercury Records
Parent company	Universal Music Group
Founded	1945
Founder	Irving Green Berle Adams Arthur Talmadge
Status	Active
Distributor(s)	Mercury Music Group (UK) The Island Def Jam Music Group (US) Universal Music Australia (Australia)
Genre	Various
Country of origin	United States
Location	United States United Kingdom
Official Website	Official website of Mercury Records US Official website of Mercury Records UK

Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the The Island Def Jam Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal Music Australia. In the United States, Universal Music Group Nashville administers the Mercury Records Nashville label.

Beginnings[link]

Mercury Record Corporation was founded in the American city of Chicago in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams and Arthur Talmadge.^[1] They were a major force in jazz and blues, classical music, rock and roll, and country music recordings. Early in the label's history, Mercury opened two pressing plants, one in Chicago and the other in St. Louis, Missouri. With the use of automatic presses and providing 24-hour turnaround, they went into direct competition with major recording labels such as Columbia, Decca, and RCA Victor.

By hiring two promoters, Tiny Hill and Jimmy Hilliard, they penetrated the pop market with names such as Frankie Laine, Vic Damone, Tony Fontane and Patti Page.

Rather than rely on radio airplay, Mercury initially relied to jukeboxes to promote their music.^[2]

In 1946, Mercury hired midget Eddie Gaedel to portray the "Mercury man", complete with a winged hat similar to its logo, to promote Mercury recordings.^[3][4] Some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo.^[5][6]

In 1947 Jack Rael, a musician and publicist/manager, persuaded Mercury to let Patti Page (whom he managed) record a song that had been planned to be done by Vic Damone, "Confess". The budget was too small for them to hire a second singer to provide the "answer" parts to Page, so at Rael's suggestion she did both voices. Though "overdubbing" had been used occasionally on 78 discs in the 1930s, for Enrico Caruso and Elisabeth Schumann recordings among others, this became the first documented example of "overdubbing" using tape, and Patti Page, along with rival Capitol Records artists Les Paul & Mary Ford, became one of the artists best known for the use of this technique.

The company released an enormous number of recordings under the Mercury label as well as its subsidiaries (Blue Rock Records, Cumberland Records, EmArcy Records, Fontana Records, Limelight Records, Philips Records, Smash Records and Wing Records). In addition, they leased and purchased material by independent labels and redistributed them.

Under their own label, Mercury released a variety of recording styles from classical music to psychedelic rock. However, its subsidiaries focused on their own specialized categories of music.

Mercury's jazz division[link]

Mercury's jazz division had two distinct and important fathers. John Henry Hammond, Jr. brought his expertise and connections when Mercury bought Keynote Records in the late 1940s. And Mercury was the issuing company and distributor for Norman Granz's pre-Norgran/Verve recordings. Although both Hammond and Granz had departed Mercury by the mid-'50s, they established the company in the jazz world. Mercury, under its EmArcy label, released LPs by many important post-swing and bebop artists including Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Clark Terry, Dinah Washington, Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Ernestine Anderson, Sarah Vaughn, Maynard Ferguson, Jimmy Cleveland, Herb Geller and others. By the early 1960s, Mercury was releasing jazz under the flagship label and was an early leader in the new stereo sound releases. Highlights of the early and mid-'60s included albums by Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Charles (then called Charlie) Mingus, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Max Roach and others. In the early 1950s, Norman Granz started his own record company, Norgran, which later became Verve. In an ironic twist, both Mercury and Verve are now owned by Universal Music Group and Mercury's jazz library falls under the Verve division. Since the early 1990s, Verve has reissued many Mercury jazz titles on CD, often taking care to use original master tapes and including session material not included on the original LPs. In addition, Mosaic Records in Stamford CT has issued several box sets spotlighting the Mercury and Verve recordings of various artists including Max Roach, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Buddy Rich.

Mercury Living Presence series[link]

In 1951, under the direction of recording engineer C. Robert (Bob) Fine and recording director David Hall, Mercury Records initiated a recording technique using a single microphone to record symphony orchestras. Fine had for several years used a single microphone for various Mercury small-ensemble classical recordings produced by John Hammond and later Mitch Miller (indeed, Miller, using his full name of Mitchell Miller, made several recordings as a featured oboe player in the late '40s for Mercury). The first record in this new Mercury Olympian Series was Pictures at an Exhibition performed by Rafael Kubelík and the Chicago Symphony. The group that became the most famous using this technique was the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which, under the leadership of conductor Antal Doráti, made a series of classical albums that were well reviewed and sold briskly, including the first-ever complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. Dorati's 1954 one-mic monaural recording (Mercury MG 50054) and 1958 three-mic stereo rerecording (Mercury MG 50054) of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ^[7] included dramatic overdub recordings of 1812-era artillery and the giant bell tower at Yale University. Besides Mercury's mono and stereo versions of the 1812, only one other classical album rang up Gold Record sales in the 1950s in the U.S.^[8] The recording of the 1812 Overture is considered by many to be one of the best performances of that work and is still in reissue in 2011, nearly 60 years after its first release.

The New York Times music critic Howard Taubman described the Mercury sound on Pictures at an Exhibition as "being in the living presence of the orchestra"^[9] and Mercury eventually began releasing their classical recordings under the 'Living Presence' series' name. The recordings were produced by Mercury vice president Wilma Cozart, who later married Bob Fine. Cozart took over recording director duties in 1953 and also produced the CD reissues of more than half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog in the 1990s. By the late '50s, the Mercury Living Presence crew included session musical supervisors Harold Lawrence and Clair van Ausdall and associate engineer Robert Eberenz. When Cozart retired in 1964, Lawrence took over the Mercury classical division and continued producing Mercury Living Presence records into 1967.

Besides the recordings with the Chicago and Minneapolis orchestras, Mercury also recorded Howard Hanson with the Eastman Rochester Orchestra, Frederick Fennell with the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and Paul Paray with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Dorati made some recordings in the United Kingdom with the London Symphony Orchestra for Mercury during the 1960s.

In late 1955, Mercury began using 3 omni-directional microphones to make stereo recordings on 3-track tape. The technique was an expansion on the mono process—center was still paramount. Once the center, single microphone was set, the sides were set to provide the depth and width heard in the stereo recordings. The center mike still fed the mono LP releases, which accompanied stereo LPs into the 1960s. In 1961, Mercury enhanced the three-microphone stereo technique by using 35 mm magnetic film instead of half-inch tape for recording. The greater emulsion thickness, track width and speed (90 feet per min or 18 ips) of 35 mm magnetic film increased prevention of tape layer print-through and pre-echo and gained in addition extended frequency range and transient response. The Mercury 'Living Presence' stereo records were mastered directly from the 3-track tapes or films, with a 3-2 mix occurring in the mastering room. The same technique—and restored vintage equipment of the same type—was used during the CD reissues. Specifically, 3-track tapes were recorded on Ampex 300-3½" machines at 15 IPS. 35 mm magnetic film recordings were made on 3-track Westrex film recorders. The 3-2 mixdown was done on a modified Westrex mixer. For the original LPs, the mixer directly fed the custom cutting chain. At Fine Recording in NY, the Westrex cutter head on a Scully lathe was fed by modified McIntosh 200W tube amplifiers with very little feedback in the system. Older mono records were made with a Miller cutter head. For the CD reissues, the output of the Westrex mixer directly fed a DCS analog-to-digital converter and the CDs were mastered on Sony 1630 tapes. No digital enhancement or noise reduction was used.

The original LP releases of the classical recordings continued through 1968. The Mercury classical music catalogue (including the Living Presence catalogue) is currently managed by Decca Label Group through Philips Records, which reissued the recordings on LP and then CD. In turn, Mercury now manages the pop/rock catalog of Philips Records.

In 2003 Speakers Corner Records began issuing 180-gram audiophile-quality LP reissues. The LPs are mastered from 2-track tapes made at the time of the original LP mastering, thus one generation removed from the edited session master used to produce the original LP master and the CD master.

In 2012, Decca Classics, the current owner of the Mercury Living Presence label, issued a value-priced 51-CD box that included 50 of the 1990s CD titles (remastered by Wilma Cozart Fine) as well as a bonus CD containing an interview with Wilma Cozart Fine, and a deluxe booklet detailing the history of Mercury Living Presence. The CD was issued worldwide and was sold by Amazon and other major retailers. A limited-edition 6-LP box set was also issued. The CD set brings back into print dozens of titles that had not been available as manufactured CD's since the early 2000s.

Later history[link]

In 1961, Philips, a Dutch electronics company and owner of Philips Records, which lost its distribution deal with Columbia Records outside North America, signed an exchange agreement with Mercury.^[10] A year later, Philips' U.S. affiliate Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp. (a.k.a. Conelco), bought Mercury and its subsidiary labels. In 1963, Mercury switched British distribution from EMI to Philips.

In 1962, Mercury began marketing a line of phonographs made by Philips bearing the Mercury brand name.^[11]

In July 1967, Mercury Records became the first U.S. record company to release cassette music tapes (Musicassettes).^[12]

In 1969, Mercury changed its corporate name to Mercury Record Productions Inc. while its former parent Conelco became North American Philips Corp (N.A.P.C.) after Philips brought control of the company.

In the 1970s, the company began using the photo of Chicago's Marina City twin towers on the face of its records.

In 1972, Philips along with German Electronics giant Siemens merged their record operations with Deutsche Grammophon to become PolyGram. That year PolyGram brought Mercury from N.A.P.C. Mercury's corporate name was changed to Phonogram Inc. to match a related company in the UK that operated the Mercury label there.

In 1981, Mercury, along with other U.S. PolyGram-owned labels, which included Polydor, RSO, and Casablanca, consolidated under the new name PolyGram Records Inc. Around this time, Mercury moved its headquarters to New York City.

Under PolyGram, Mercury absorbed the artists and catalogue of Casablanca Records (also home to the 20th Century Records back catalogue), which consisted of heavy metalers Kiss and disco stars Donna Summer and Village People, and primarily became a rock/pop label with Kiss, Scorpions, Rush, John Cougar Mellencamp, Kurtis Blow, Tears for Fears, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Treat, Candy, and Def Leppard.

Mercury, by having Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Def Leppard, Kiss, and Scorpions on their roster, was a premiere label for glam metal. Most of these bands were on Vertigo Records in Europe (that label specialized in progressive rock and hard rock including sub-genres like glam metal).

In late 1998, PolyGram was bought by Seagram, which then absorbed the company into its Universal Music Group unit. Under the reorganization, Mercury Records was folded into the newly formed The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG). Mercury's pop roster was predominantly taken over by Island Records, while its hip hop artists found a new home at Def Jam Recordings, which in turn formed an imprint, Def Soul Records, that absorbed some of Mercury's R&B acts. Mercury's former country unit became Mercury Nashville Records. IDJMG revived the Mercury imprint in the US in 2007.

Major Mercury Records labels and operations worldwide[link]

Current[link]

Mercury Records was relaunched in 2007 as a label under the Island Def Jam Music Group, appointing record executive David Massey as the President and CEO of the new venture.

This division of Mercury handles US distribution of most pre-1998 Polydor Records pop/rock releases currently under UMG control. There are some exceptions, however. Some artists based outside the US did not have their releases on Polydor in North America, signing to various other labels instead. Some of these bands, such as The Who, did sign to a label that also is now part of the UMG family (or later absorbed by such a label), hence those labels control US rights to these works (in the case of the Who, they had been on US Decca Records and MCA Records in the past, their pre-breakup catalogue is now on Geffen Records in North America).

Mercury Nashville[link]

Mercury's Nashville unit dates back to 1957, when Mercury formed a joint venture with Starday Records specifically for releasing artists performing country music. Mercury bought out Starday's half in 1958.

In 1997, PolyGram, looking to cut costs in anticipation of a merger with a competitor, consolidated all of its Nashville operations under the Mercury name. Mercury Nashville took over management of all of PolyGram's country back catalog from sister labels such as Polydor (including releases once issued by MGM Records), A&M, and the small country back catalog of Motown Records (Motown released these albums under subsidiary labels). All country artists under contract to other PolyGram labels either moved to Mercury or were dropped altogether.

After PolyGram was absorbed into the Universal Music Group, Mercury's pop/rock unit was dissolved, but its country unit remained. Today it continues to be an active imprint under Universal Music Group Nashville, where it continues to manage the country back catalog that once belonged to PolyGram (MCA Nashville manages what Universal had already owned at the time of the PolyGram merger).

Mercury Records (UK)[link]

Mercury also continues to operate as an imprint in the UK under the Mercury Records Group of Universal Music UK.

In 2005 Jason ILey was appointed the new Managing Director of Mercury. He joined the company from Island Records where he was General Manager.^[13] In July 2005 ILey appointed Paul Adam to senior A&R director of the label – the two had previously worked together at Island Records.^[14]

In October 2006 U2 decided to leave Island Records (which had been their label since the start of their career twenty seven years previously) and moved to Mercury Records, reportedly to rejoin ILey who they had worked with previously at Island Records.^[15]

Recent signings on Mercury include Pixie Lott, Wonderland, Arcade Fire, Amy Macdonald, Noah and the Whale, Chase & Status and Jake Bugg.^[16] In 2011 the company announced that they had sold 10 million records by Rihanna in the UK.^[17]

In March 2011, the label announced it was stopping the production of CD and vinyl singles and would only release them physically as "rare exceptions".^[18]

Mercury Records (Australia)[link]

Launched in 2007 by Universal Music Australia exclusively as a full-service local (Australian) A&R operation. Mercury Records had been used for some Australian artists in the 80s and 90s, but was put into hibernation in 1999 in favour of the Universal label until 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Mercury Records (France)[link]

A division of Universal Music France engaged in international Universal Music Group repertoire distribution, as well as local French A&R operations.

Various other national Universal Music Group companies are known to actively use the Mercury Records trademark as an imprint for their local artist and repertoire operations, but no other Universal Music Group companies use the label as a key marketing differentiator, nor do they operate frontline divisions based on the Mercury label.

Former[link]

Mercury Music Entertainment (Japan)[link]

Launched in 1993 as a division of Nippon PolyGram (now Universal Music Japan), it was later relaunched in 2000 as a joint venture with Kitty Films under the name Kitty MME. It was merged into the Universal J label in 2002.

Its artist roster included Seiko Matsuda, Yūji Oda, ZIGGY, Kinniku Shōjo Tai and Takashi Sorimachi.

Artists[link]

• List of Mercury Records artists

See also[link]

• Universal Music Group Nashville
• List of record labels
• Chicago Record Labels

References[link]

External links[link]

Main sites[link]

• Mercury Records – US site
• Mercury Records – UK site
• Mercury Records – Australian site
• Mercury Records discography at Discogs
• Mercury Nashville – official site

Other sites[link]

• Microgroove.jp – a site devoted to the label's history
• Mercury US & UK A&R team contact list
• Wilma Cozart Fine and 50 Years Living Presence - Rudolf Bruil - Soundfountain
• Jay & The Techniques article in The Standard Report
• Interview with Wilma Cozart Fine by Bruce Duffie

v t e Philips Divisions and subsidiaries Current Philips Consumer Lifestyle Gaggia Saeco Philips Healthcare Philips AVENT Respironics Shenzhen Goldway Industrial Philips Lighting Philips Lumileds Lighting Company Corporate Technologies Former and defunct Liquavista Magnavox NXP Semiconductors Philips Analytical Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium PolyGram (Fontana Records Mercury Records Philips Classics Records Philips Records PolyGram Filmed Entertainment Vertigo Records) Joint ventures and shareholdings Current NXP Semiconductors (19.9%) Philips-Neusoft Medical Systems (51%) TCL Corporation (6.3%) Former and defunct ASML Holding Broadcast Television Systems Inc. LG Philips Display NEC Philips Unified Systems Philips Consumer Communications Brands, products and standards Current Ambilight Norelco Philips Cinema 21:9 TV Philips Entertaible Philips GoGear Philips Intimate Massagers Senseo ShoqBox Sonicare Streamium Trimension Video Content Protection System Defunct Philips Nino Philips Velo Philips :YES Philishave SpeechMagic Video 2000 People Cor Boonstra President and Chief Executive Officer Gerard Kleisterlee Co-founders Anton Philips and Gerard Philips Frits Philips Places High Tech Campus Eindhoven Philips Arena Philips Stadion Other Carousel HDMI Licensing Philips Sports Manager of the Year Phoebus cartel Category Commons

Caryl Whittier Chessman (May 27, 1921 – May 2, 1960) was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.

Crime and conviction[link]

Born in St. Joseph, Michigan, Caryl Chessman was a criminal with a long record who spent most of his adult life behind bars. He had been paroled a short time from prison in California when he was arrested near Los Angeles and charged with being the notorious "Red Light Bandit." The "Bandit" would follow people in their cars to secluded areas and flash a red light that tricked them into thinking he was a police officer. When they opened their windows or exited the vehicle, he would rob and, in the case of several young women, rape them. In July 1948, Chessman was convicted on 17 counts of robbery, kidnapping, and rape, and was condemned to death.

Part of the controversy surrounding the Chessman case stems from how the death penalty was applied. At the time, under California's version of the "Little Lindbergh Law", any crime that involved kidnapping with bodily harm could be considered a capital offense. Two of the counts against Chessman alleged that he dragged a 17-year-old girl named Mary Alice Meza a considerable distance from her car demanding oral sex from her and separately took Regina Johnson 22 feet from her car to his.^[1] Despite the short distance, Johnson was moved, the court considered it sufficient^[2] to qualify as kidnapping, thus making Chessman eligible for the death penalty.

On death row[link]

Acting as his own attorney, Chessman vigorously asserted his innocence from the outset, arguing throughout the trial and the appeals process that he was alternately the victim of mistaken identity, or a much larger conspiracy seeking to frame him for a crime he did not commit. He claimed at other times to know who the real culprit was, but refused to name him. He further alleged that statements he made during his initial police interrogation implicating him in the Red Light Bandit crimes were coerced through torture.

Chessman argued his case to the public through letters, essays and books. His memoirs became bestsellers and ignited a worldwide movement to spare his life, while focusing attention on the politics of the death penalty in the United States at a time when most Western countries had already abandoned it, or were in the process of doing so. The office of California Governor Pat Brown was flooded with appeals for clemency from noted authors and intellectuals from around the world, including Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Norman Mailer, Dwight MacDonald, and Robert Frost, and from such other public figures as former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Christian evangelist Billy Graham.^[3]

Over the course of the 12 years he spent on death row, Chessman filed dozens of appeals and successfully avoided eight execution deadlines, often by a few hours. He appealed his conviction primarily on the grounds that the original trial was improperly conducted and that subsequent appeals were seriously hampered by incomplete and incorrect transcripts of the original trial proceedings. The appeals were successful and the U.S. Supreme Court finally ordered the State of California to either conduct a full review of the transcripts or release Chessman.^[4] The review concluded that the transcripts were substantially accurate and Chessman was scheduled to die in February 1960.

The Chessman affair put Governor Brown, an opponent of the death penalty, in a difficult situation. Brown initially did not intervene in the case, but then issued a last-minute, 60-day stay of execution on February 19, 1960, just hours before Chessman's scheduled execution. Brown claimed he issued the stay out of concern that Chessman's execution could threaten the safety of President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a planned visit to South America, where the Chessman case had inflamed anti-American sentiment.^[5]

Execution[link]

Brown's stay of execution, along with Chessman's last appeals, ran out in April 1960 and Brown subsequently declined to grant Chessman executive clemency. Exhausting a last-minute attempt to file a writ of habeas corpus with the California Supreme Court, Chessman finally went to the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison on May 2, 1960.

As the execution began and the chamber was filling with gas, the telephone rang. The caller was a judge's secretary informing the warden of a new stay of execution. The warden responded, "It's too late; the execution has begun," meaning there was no way to open the door and remove Chessman without the fumes killing others.^[6] The secretary had initially misdialed the telephone number and this may have made the difference between there being time to stop the execution and not. The alleged new evidence, which prompted the stay attempt, appears in very few accounts.

The celebrated author Dominique Lapierre visited Chessman several times during his incarceration. Lapierre was then a young reporter working for a French newspaper. His account of Chessman appears in the book A Thousand Suns.

Author[link]

While on death row, Chessman wrote four books: Cell 2455, Death Row' (1954), Trial by Ordeal (1955), The Face of Justice (1957) and The Kid Was A Killer (1960). He sold the rights to his autobiography, Cell 2455, Death Row to Columbia Pictures, which was made into a film of the same name, directed by Fred F. Sears in 1955, with William Campbell as Chessman. Chessman's middle name, Whittier, was used as the surname of his alter ego protagonist in the film.

The manuscript of Chessman's novel The Kid Was a Killer was seized by San Quentin warden Harley O. Teets in 1954 on the grounds that it was “prison labor”. It was eventually returned to Chessman in late 1957 and published in 1960.^[7]

In popular culture[link]

Phil Och's liner notes to his 1965 folk/protest album I Ain't Marchin Anymore (EKL-287) include these words concerning the victim of the Iron Lady, a metaphoric reference to the electric chair, and the title of an anti-capital punishment selection from this key '60's vinyl protest: "A century from now, intelligent men will read in amazment about the murder of Caryl Chessman and wonder what excuse for a society flourished in these times."

In 1977, Alan Alda starred in a CBS television movie about Chessman's life, Kill Me If You Can (sometimes shown subsequently as The Caryl Chessman Story).

The song, "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman", which includes the chorus "let him live, let him live, let him live", was a minor hit single for Ronnie Hawkins two months before Chessman's execution.^[8]

Mexican professional wrestler Kevin Zamora uses the identity of "Chessman" after Caryl Chessman, wearing red facepaint that he claims represents the blood of Chessman's victims. One of his nicknames in the wrestling world is "El Asesino de la Luz Roja", Spanish for "The Red Light Killer".

In Brazil, Chessman inspired João Acácio Pereira da Costa, who became known as "O Bandido da Luz Vermelha" (Portuguese for "The Red Light Bandit"), due to the fact he used a flashlight with a red lens cover to commit his crimes, similarly to Chessman.

He is referenced in the Genesis song "Broadway Melody of 1974" from their 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The line goes "Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade. He knows in a scent you can bottle all you made."

He is also referenced in the Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota unedited song "Un tal Bridgitte Barlot". He is mentioned in several lines of the song.

He is also referenced in the Nicolas Peyrac song "So far away from L.A.". The line goes "Monsieur Caryl Chessman est mort, mais le doute subsiste encore, avait-il raison ou bien tort?"

Chessman is named in Neil Diamond's 1970 song "Done Too Soon" from the album Tap Root Manuscript. Although not everyone mentioned in the song died early in their life, several did, and the song is known for its message on mortality.

In Shane Stevens' novel By Reason of Insanity the serial killer character, Thomas Bishop, believes he is the son of Caryl Chessman.

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Caryl Chessman online
• Newsreel footage about Caryl Chessman
• Caryl Chessman at Find a Grave
• An in depth article on Chessman
• FBI files on Caryl Chessman
• Chessman on Crime Library
• Cell 2455 Death Row at the Internet Movie Database
• Kill Me If You Can at the Internet Movie Database

Eileen Barton (November 24, 1924 – June 27, 2006) was an American singer best known for her apostrophic 1950 hit song, "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake."

She was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her birthdate is often given as 1929, but a certified copy of her birth certificate shows that she was born in 1924. This was done commonly, to shave a few years from a performer's age. Death Records also indicate that she was borth in 1924" Death records confirm a 1924 birth here: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=/eng/search/ancestorsearchresults.asp

Eileen's parents, Benny and Elsie Barton, were vaudeville performers. She first appeared in her parents' act at age 2½, singing "Ain't Misbehavin'," on a dare to her parents from columnist (and later radio star) Goodman Ace.^[1] At 3½, she appeared at the Palace Theater, doing two shows a day as part of comedian Ted Healy's routine (Healy would go on to put together The Three Stooges).

She soon became a child star. By age six, she appeared on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a radio program sponsored by Horn & Hardart's Automat, a then-well-known restaurant chain, and by age 7 she was working with Milton Berle on his Community Sing radio program, using the name "Jolly Gillette" and playing the sponsor's "daughter" (the sponsor was Gillette Razors).^[1] She would ask to sing, he would tell her she couldn't, and she would remind him that her daddy was the sponsor, so he'd let her sing a current hit song.

At 8, she had a daily singing program of her own on radio station WMCA, Arnold's Dinner Club. She also acted on radio series such as Death Valley Days.

At age 11, she left show business briefly. At age 14 she went on the Broadway stage as an understudy to Nancy Walker in Best Foot Forward,^[1] followed by an appearance under her own name with Elaine Stritch in Angel in the Wings.

At age 15, she appeared as a guest singer on a Johnny Mercer variety series, leading to her being noticed by Frank Sinatra, who took her under his wing and put her in a regular spot on the CBS radio show that he hosted in the 1940s. She co-starred on Sinatra's show for one year, and was also part of Sinatra's act at the Paramount Theater^{[disambiguation needed ]} in 15 appearances there.^[1] She also appeared on her own and as a guest performer with such stars as Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Danny Kaye.

Soon she got her own radio programs, first one called Teen Timers, and later the 13-episode The Eileen Barton Show. She also did some early live television, including The Swift Show (NBC, 1948–1949).

Her first record, done for Capitol Records, was "Would You Believe Me?" (catalog number 402), with the orchestra of Lyle "Skitch" Henderson, in 1948.

In 1949 she cut the record of "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" (written by Bob Merrill, Albert Hoffman and Al Trace; Trace used the pseudonym Clem Watts) and introduced it on Don McNeill's radio program, The Breakfast Club. On the record, Trace's band musicians backed her, but were given billing as "The New Yorkers." It was first released by National Records, a New York–based company mostly specializing in rhythm & blues records, as catalog number 9103, and when National's owner, Al Green, decided it was too big a seller for National to handle, it was later distributed by Mercury Records, whose co-owner was Al Green's son, Irving Green. The record became one of the best-selling records on an independent label of all time, charting at #1 for 12 weeks, and altogether on the Billboard charts for over four months.

Eileen - in an interview in 2005 for the liner notes of her Jasmine Records CD release - indicated she never received a penny in royalties from either National or Mercury for her record's success, although by contract she was supposed to receive 5% of each sale.

After the success of this record, she became a night club and stage performer, appearing at all the important clubs in New York City and many others. She continued to record for both National and Mercury, making "Honey, Won't You Honeymoon with Me?" (catalog number 9109) and "May I Take Two Giant Steps?" (catalog number 9112) for National and "You Brought a New Kind of Love" (catalog number 5410) for Mercury.

Later she moved over to Coral Records, and charted with some cover versions of songs that were bigger hits for other artists, such as "Cry^{[disambiguation needed ]}", "Sway", and others. She also appeared in motion pictures and television, working the restaurant and night club circuit well into the 1970s.

Eileen Barton died at her West Hollywood home from ovarian cancer. She had no children and was not married at the time of her death. Barton was 81 years old at the time of her death.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eileen Barton at the Internet Movie Database
• Photo Gallery of Eileen Barton

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2011)

Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk and Norma Zimmer, 1961.
Born	(1903-03-11)March 11, 1903 Strasburg, North Dakota
Died	May 17, 1992(1992-05-17) (aged 89) Santa Monica, California
Occupation	Musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Fern Renner (m.1931-1992; his death)
Children	Shirley Welk, Donna Welk, Lawrence "Larry" Welk, Jr.
Website
Welk Musical Family

Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982. His style came to be known to his large number of radio, television, and live-performance fans (and critics) as "champagne music".

In 1996, Welk was ranked #43 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.^[1]

Early life[link]

Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota. He was sixth of the eight children of Ludwig and Christiana (Schwahn) Welk, ethnic Germans who emigrated to America in 1892 from Selz, Kutschurgan District, in the German-speaking area north of Odessa (now Odessa, Ukraine, but then in southwestern Russia).

The family lived on a homestead that today is a tourist attraction. They spent the cold North Dakota winter of their first year under an upturned wagon covered in sod.^{[citation needed]}

Welk decided on a career in music and persuaded his father to buy a mail-order accordion for $400 (equivalent to $4,641 as of 2012)^[2][3]. He promised his father that he would work on the farm until he was 21, in repayment for the accordion. Any money he made elsewhere during that time, doing farmwork or performing, would go to his family.

A common misconception is that Welk did not learn English until he was 21. In fact, he began learning English as soon as he started school. The part of North Dakota where he lived had been settled largely by Germans from Russia; even his teachers spoke English as a second language. Welk thus acquired his trademark accent, a combination of the Russian and German accents. He took elocution lessons in the 1950s and could speak almost accent-free, but he realized his public expected to hear him say: "A-one, an-a-two" and "Wunnerful, Wunnerful!" When he was asked about his ancestry, he would always reply "Alsace-Lorraine, Germany," from where his forebears had emigrated to Russia (and which, at the time of Welk's birth in 1903, had become part of the German Empire).

Early career[link]

On his 21st birthday, having fulfilled his promise to his father, Welk left the family farm to pursue a career in music, which he loved. During the 1920s, he performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands before starting his own orchestra. He led big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. These included the Hotsy Totsy Boys and later the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra.^[4] His band was also the station band for popular radio station WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota. In 1927, he graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[5]

Photo of Welk in Chicago, 1944.

Although many associate Welk's music with a style quite separate from jazz, he did record one notable song in a ragtime style in November 1928 for Indiana-based Gennett Records. "Spiked Beer" featured Welk and his Novelty Orchestra.

During the 1930s, Welk led a traveling big band that specialized in dance tunes and "sweet" music. Initially, the band traveled around the country by car. They were too poor to rent rooms, so they usually slept and changed clothes in their cars. The term "Champagne Music" was derived from an engagement at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, when a dancer referred to his band's sound as "light and bubbly as champagne." The hotel also lays claim to the original "bubble machine," a prop left over from a 1920s movie premiere. Welk described his band's sound, saying "We still play music with the champagne style, which means light and rhythmic. We place the stress on melody; the chords are played pretty much the way the composer wrote them. We play with a steady beat so that dancers can follow it."^[6]

Welk's big band performed across the country but particularly in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. In the early 1940s, the band began a 10-year stint at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, regularly drawing crowds of nearly 7,000. His orchestra also performed frequently at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City during the late 1940s. In 1944 and 1945, Welk led his orchestra in many motion picture "Soundies," considered to be the early pioneers of music videos.^{[citation needed]} Welk collaborated with Western artist Red Foley to record a version of Spade Cooley's "Shame on You" in 1945. The record (Decca 18698) was #4 to Cooley's #5 on Billboard's September 15 "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" listing.^[7] From 1949 through 1951, the band had its own national radio program on ABC, sponsored by "The Champagne of Bottle Beer" Miller High Life.

Recordings[link]

In addition to the above mentioned "Spiked Beer", Welk's territory band made occasional trips to Richmond, Indiana and to Grafton, Wisconsin to record a handful of sessions for the Gennett and Paramount companies. In November, 1928, he recorded 4 sides for Gennett spread over two days (1 side was rejected) and in 1931, he recorded 8 sides for Paramount (during two sessions) that were issued on the Broadway and Lyric labels. These records are quite rare and highly valued.

From 1938 to 1940, he recorded frequently in New York and Chicago for the Vocalion label. He signed with Decca in 1941, recorded for Mercury and Coral before moving to Dot in the early 1950s.

[edit] The Lawrence Welk Show

In 1951, Welk settled in Los Angeles. The same year, he began producing The Lawrence Welk Show on KTLA in Los Angeles, where it was broadcast from the Aragon Ballroom in Venice Beach. The show became a local hit and was picked up by ABC in June 1955.

During its first year on the air, the Welk hour instituted several regular features. To make Welk's "Champagne Music" tagline visual, the production crew engineered a "bubble machine" that spouted streams of large soap bubbles across the bandstand. Whenever the orchestra played a polka or waltz, Welk himself would dance with the band's female vocalist, the "Champagne Lady." His first Champagne Lady was Jayne Walton Rosen (real name: Dorothy Jayne Flanagan). Jayne left Welk's show after her marriage and later pregnancy. After Welk and his band went on television, she appeared as a guest on the show, where she sang Latin American songs and favorites that were popular when she was traveling with the Welk band. Novelty numbers would usually be sung by Rocky Rockwell. Welk also reserved one number for himself to solo on his accordion.

Since Welk's show targeted an audience of mature, middle-aged viewers, the band would rarely play tunes from the current charts except strictly as novelty numbers. On December 8, 1956, two examples on the same broadcast were "Nuttin' for Christmas," which became a vehicle for Rocky Rockwell dressed in a child's outfit, and Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel," which was sung by violinist Bob Lido, wearing fake Presley-style sideburns. This stood in comparison to the contemporary American Bandstand, which catered to a youth audience and played new music.

Welk never lost his affection for the jazz numbers he had played in the 1920s, and when a Dixieland tune was scheduled, he enthusiastically led the band.

Befitting the target audience, the type of music on The Lawrence Welk Show was almost always conservative, concentrating on popular music standards, polkas, and novelty songs, delivered in a smooth, calm, good-humored easy listening style and "family-oriented" manner. Although described by one critic as "the squarest music this side of Euclid,"^{[cite this quote]}, this strategy proved commercially successful and the show remained on the air for 31 years.

Much of the show's appeal was Welk himself. His unusual accent appealed to the audience. While Welk's English was passable, he never did grasp the English "idiom" completely and was thus famous for his "Welk-isms," such as "George, I want to see you when you have a minute, right now" and "Now for my accordion solo; Myron, will you join me?" His TV show was recorded as if it were a live performance, and it was sometimes quite free-wheeling. Another famous "Welk-ism" was his trademark count-off, "A one and a two . . . ," which was immortalized on his California automobile license plate that read "A1ANA2." This plate is visible on the front of a Model A Ford in one of the shows from 1980.

Musical satirist Stan Freberg and his frequent collaborator, arranger Billy May, recorded a scathing 1957 parody of the Welk TV show titled "Wun'erful! Wun'erful!" featuring Freberg, voice actor Daws Butler and members of Jud Conlon's Rhythmairs, mocking the show's corny nature, the band's more predictable arrangements and Welk's own mediocre accordion work. Studio musicians on the session included top Hollywood jazz players, many of whom scorned Welk's music and eagerly participated in the parody. After several "performances" and frequent asides from Freberg of "turn off the bubble machine," the machine spun out of control, sending the Aragon Ballroom floating out to sea. Welk was not pleased with Freberg's parody (a hit single that year) and denied he ever used the phrase "Wunnerful! Wunnerful!" though it later became the title of his autobiography.

He often took women from the audience for a turn around the dance floor. During one show, Welk brought a cameraman out to dance with one of the women and took over the camera himself.

Welk's musicians were always top quality, including accordionist Myron Floren, concert violinist Dick Kesner, guitarist Buddy Merrill, and New Orleans Dixieland clarinetist Pete Fountain. Though Welk was occasionally rumored to be very tight with a dollar, he paid his regular band members top scale - a very good living for a working musician. Long tenure was very common among the regulars. For example, Floren was the band's assistant conductor throughout the show's run. He was noted for spotlighting individual members of his band and show. His band was well disciplined and had excellent arrangements in all styles.^{[citation needed]} One notable showcase was his album with the noted jazz saxophonist Johnny Hodges.

Welk had a number of instrumental hits, including a cover of the song "Yellow Bird." His highest charting record was "Calcutta", which achieved hit status in 1961.^[8] Welk himself was indifferent to the tune, but his musical director, George Cates, said that if Welk did not wish to record the song, he (Cates) would. Welk replied, "Well, if it's good enough for you, George, I guess it's good enough for me."^{[cite this quote]} Despite the emergence of rock and roll, "Calcutta" reached number 1 on the U.S. pop charts in 1961; it was recorded in only one take.^{[citation needed]} The tune knocked the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" out of the #1 position, and it kept the Miracles' "Shop Around" from becoming the group's first #1 hit, holding their recording at #2. It sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.^[9] The album "Calcutta" also achieved number-one status. The albums "Last Date," "Yellow Bird," "Moon River," "Young World" and "Baby Elephant Walk and Theme from the Brothers Grimm," produced in the early 60s, were in Billboard's top ten; nine more albums produced between 1956 and 1963 were in the top twenty. His albums continued to chart through 1973.^[8]

Welk's insistence on wholesome entertainment led him to be a somewhat stern taskmaster at times. For example, he fired Alice Lon, at the time the show's "Champagne Lady," because he believed she was showing too much leg.^[10] Welk told the audience that he would not tolerate such "cheesecake" performances on his show; he later tried unsuccessfully to rehire the singer after fan mail indicated overwhelmingly that viewers disagreed with her dismissal. He then had a series of short-term "Champagne Ladies" before Norma Zimmer filled that spot on a permanent basis. Highly involved with his stars' personal lives, he often arbitrated their marriage disputes.^[10]

Despite its staid reputation, The Lawrence Welk Show nonetheless did keep up with the times and never limited itself strictly to big-band era music. During the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, the show incorporated material by the contemporary sources The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, The Everly Brothers and Paul Williams and so on, all redone in a format that was digestible to older viewers. Originally produced in black and white, in 1957 the show began being recorded on videotape, and it switched to color for the fall 1965 season. In time, it featured synthesized music and, toward the end of its run, early chroma key technology added a new dimension to the story settings sometimes used for the musical numbers. Welk referred to his blue-screen effect in one episode as "the magic of television."^{[citation needed]}

During its network run, The Lawrence Welk Show aired on ABC on Saturday nights at 9 p.m. (Eastern Time), moving up a half-hour to 8:30 p.m. in the fall of 1963. In fact, Welk headlined two weekly prime-time shows on ABC for three years. From 1956 to 1958, he hosted a show titled Top Tunes and New Talent, which aired on Monday nights. The series moved to Wednesdays in Fall 1958 and was renamed The Plymouth Show, which ended in May 1959. During that time, the Saturday show was also known as The Dodge Dancing Party. ABC dropped the show in 1971 on the grounds that its audience was mostly over the age of 45 and they couldn't advertise products targeted at youth on it. Welk thanked ABC and the sponsors at the end of the last network show. The Lawrence Welk Show continued on as a first-run syndicated show on 250 stations across the country until the final original show was produced in 1982.

Personal life[link]

Welk was married for 61 years, until his death, to Fern Renner (August 26, 1903 - February 13, 2002), with whom he had three children. One of his sons, Lawrence Welk Jr., married fellow Lawrence Welk Show performer Tanya Falan; they later divorced. Welk had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of them, grandson Lawrence Welk III, who usually goes by "Larry Welk," is a reporter and helicopter traffic pilot for KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. One of the great-grandchildren, Nate Fredricks, reportedly enjoys the same love for music as his great-grandfather did and plays guitar in a band.

Known as an excellent businessman, Welk had investments in real estate and music publishing. Welk was the general partner in a commercial real estate development located at 100 Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica, California. The 21-story tall white tower is the tallest building in Santa Monica and is located on the bluffs overlooking Santa Monica Bay. It was informally named "The Lawrence Welk Champagne Tower."

Welk enjoyed playing golf, which he first took up in the late 1950s, and was often a regular at many celebrity pro-ams such as the Bob Hope Desert Classic.

A devout, life-long Roman Catholic, Welk was a daily communicant, which is corroborated in numerous biographies, by his autobiography and by his family and his many staff, friends and associates throughout the years^[11]

Later years[link]

Welk's grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California

After retiring from his show and from the road in 1982, Welk continued to air reruns of his shows, which were repackaged first for syndication and, starting in 1986, for public television. He also starred in and produced a pair of Christmas specials in 1984 and 1985.

Welk died from pneumonia in Santa Monica, California, in 1992 at age 89 and was buried in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery.

Singles[link]

• "Moritat (A Theme from 'The Three Penny Opera')" (US #17, March 1956)
• "The Poor People of Paris" (US #17, April 1956)
• "On the Street Where You Live" (US #96, June 1956)
• "Weary Blues" (US #32, August 1956)
• "In the Alps" (US #63, August 1956)
• "Tonight You Belong to Me" featuring The Lennon Sisters (US #15, November 1956)
• "When the White Lilacs Bloom Again" (US #70, November 1956)
• "Liechtenstein Polka" (US #48, December 1957)
• "Last Date" (US #21, December 1960)
• "Calcutta" (US #1, February 1961)
• "Theme From My Three Sons" (US #55, April 1961)
• "Yellow Bird" (US #71, July 1961)
• "Riders in the Sky" (US #87, October 1961)
• "One A-Two A-Cha Cha Cha" (US #117, December 1961)
• "Runaway" (US #56, May 1962)
• "Baby Elephant Walk" (US #48, September 1962, AC #10, 1962)
• "Zero-Zero" (US #98, December 1962)
• "Scarlett O'Hara" (US #89, June 1963)
• "Breakwater" (US #100, June 1963)
• "Blue Velvet" (US #103, October 1963)
• "Fiesta" (US #106, October 1963)
• "Stockholm" (US #91, March 1964)
• "Apples and Bananas" (US #75, April 1965, AC #17, 1965)
• "The Beat Goes On" (US #104, April 1967)
• "Green Tambourine" (AC #27, March 1968)
• "Southtown U.S.A." (AC #37, February 1970)

Sources: Billboard Top Pop Singles 1955-2006, Billboard Top Adult Songs 1961-2006, Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 1959-2004

Honors[link]

In 1961, he was inducted as a charter member of the Rough Rider Award from his native North Dakota.

He served as the Grand Marshal for the Rose Bowl's Tournament of Roses parade in 1972.

In 1994, he was inducted into the International Polka Music Hall Of Fame.

He has a star for Recording on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6613½ Hollywood Blvd. He has a second star at 1601 Vine Street for Television.

In 2007, he became a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana.

Legacy[link]

Welk's band continues to appear in a dedicated theater in Branson, Missouri. In addition, the television show has been repackaged for broadcast on PBS stations, with updates from show performers appearing as wraparounds where commercial breaks were during the original shows. The repackaged shows are broadcast at roughly the same Saturday-night time slot as the original ABC shows, and special longer Welk show rebroadcasts are often shown during individual stations' fund-raising periods. These repackaged shows are produced by the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority.^[12]

A resort community developed by Welk and promoted heavily by him on the show is named for him. Formerly known as "Lawrence Welk Village," the Welk Resort and Champagne Village are just off Interstate 15 north of Escondido, California, about 38 miles north of downtown San Diego. Lawrence Welk Village was where Welk actually lived in a rather affluent "cottage." The resort is open to the public and contains two golf courses, dozens of upscale timeshares, and a theater that contains a museum of Welk's life. The Welk Resort Theatre performs live Broadway musicals year round.

His organization, The Welk Group, consists of: his resort communities in Branson and Escondido; Welk Syndication, which broadcasts the show on public television; and the Welk Music Group, which operates record labels Sugar Hill, Vanguard and Ranwood. From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the Welk Group was known as "Teleklew," in which tele stood for television and klew was Welk spelled backwards.

The "Live Lawrence Welk Show" makes annual concert tours across the United States and Canada, featuring stars from the television series, including Ralna English, Mary Lou Metzger, Jack Imel, Gail Farrell, Anacani and Big Tiny Little.

Welk's variety show has been parodied in a recurring 2000s sketch on Saturday Night Live, in which he is portrayed by Fred Armisen.

See also[link]

• The Lennon Sisters - mainstay singers for Welk from 1955 to 1968
• Aragon Ballroom (Ocean Park)

Books[link]

All books written with Bernice McGeehan and published by Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), except where indicated:

• Wunnerful, Wunnerful: The Autobiography of Lawrence Welk, 1971, ISBN 0-13-971515-0
• Ah-One, Ah-Two! Life with My Musical Family, 1974, ISBN 0-13-020990-2
• My America, Your America, 1976, ISBN 0-13-608414-1
• Lawrence Welk's Musical Family Album, 1977, ISBN 0-13-526624-6
• Welk with McGeehan, illustrated by Carol Bryan, Lawrence Welk's Bunny Rabbit Concert, Indianapolis: Youth Publications/Saturday Evening Post Co., 1977, ISBN 0-89387-501-5 (children's book)
• This I Believe, 1979, ISBN 0-13-919092-9
• You're Never Too Young, 1981, ISBN 0-13-977181-6

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lawrence Welk at the Internet Movie Database
• Lawrence Welk's recordings in the 1920s and 1930s, along with other info
• "Spiked Beer," from the aforementioned website
• Lawrence Welk's Best Kept Secret
• Welk Musical Family website
• WelkNotes fansite
• "Old Fans Still Bubble Along to Lawrence Welk" article (The New York Times)
• Welk Musical Family blog
• Lawrence Welk at Find a Grave
• Lawrence Welk Collection at North Dakota State University

Albert Ammons (September 23, 1907 – December 2, 1949)^[1] was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.

Life and career[link]

Born Albert C. Ammons in Chicago, Illinois, his parents were pianists, and he had learned to play by the age of ten. He also played percussion in the drum and bugle corps as a teenager and was soon performing with bands on the Chicago club scene. After World War I he became interested in the blues, learning by listening to Chicago pianists Hersal Thomas and the brothers Alonzo and Jimmy Yancey.^[2] In the early to mid 1920s Ammons worked as a cab driver for the Silver Taxicab Company. In 1924 he met a fellow taxi driver who also played piano, Meade Lux Lewis. Soon the two players began working as a team, performing at club parties. Ammons started his own band at the Club DeLisa in 1934 and remained at the club for the next two years.^[3]

During that time he played with a five piece unit that included Guy Kelly, Dalbert Bright, Jimmy Hoskins, and Israel Crosby. Ammons also recorded as Albert Ammons's Rhythm Kings for Decca Records in 1936. The Rhythm Kings' version of "Swanee River Boogie" sold a million copies. Ammons moved from Chicago to New York, where he teamed up with another pianist, Pete Johnson.^[3] The two performed regularly at the Café Society,^[3] occasionally joined by Meade Lux Lewis, and performed with other noted jazz artists such as Benny Goodman and Harry James.

In 1938 Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall with Johnson and Lewis, an event that helped launch the boogie-woogie craze.^[3] Record producer Alfred Lion who had attended John H. Hammond's From Spirituals to Swing concert on December 23, 1938, which had introduced Ammons and Lewis, two weeks later started Blue Note Records, recording nine Ammons solos including "The Blues" and "Boogie Woogie Stomp", eight by Lewis and a pair of duets in a one-day session in a rented studio.^[4]

In 1941, Ammon's boogie music was accompanied by drawn-on-film animation in the short film Boogie-Doodle by Norman McLaren.^[5] Ammons played himself in the movie Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), with Lena Horne and Pete Johnson.^[6] As a sideman with Sippie Wallace in the 1940s Ammons recorded a session with his son, the tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons.^[3] Although the boogie-woogie fad began to die down in 1945 Ammons had no difficulty securing work. He continued to tour as a solo artist and between 1946 and 1949 recorded his last sides for Mercury Records with bassist Israel Crosby.

Ammons's played at President Harry S. Truman's inauguration in 1949.^[7] He died on December 2, 1949 in Chicago^[1] and was interred at the Lincoln Cemetery, at Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island, Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois.

Legacy[link]

Ammons has had wide influence on countless pianists such as Dave Alexander, Dr. John, Hadda Brooks, Johnnie Johnson, Ray Bryant, Erroll Garner, Katie Webster, Axel Zwingenberger, and the German pianist Joerg Hegemann. The latter honoured Ammons, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ammons's birth in 2007, with his album A Tribute To Albert Ammons.

Album discography[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Boogie Woogie Stomp - Albert Ammons & His Music by Christopher I. Page, 1997; ISBN 978-1-885066-32-9

See also[link]

• List of blues musicians
• List of boogie woogie musicians
• List of jazz pianists
• List of Mercury Records artists

References[link]

External links[link]

• E-Notes: Albert Ammons
• BBC: Albert Ammons
• Find a Grave
• Jazz Police article on Albert Ammons Centennial Celebration
• Watch the 1941 short film Boogie-Doodle