Billy Vaughn 50 Golden Greats

 

Richard Smith Vaughn (April 12, 1919 – September 26, 1991), known as Billy Vaughn, was an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader and A&R man for Dot Records.

Vaughn was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, United States, where his father, Alvis Radford Vaughn, was a barber who loved music and inspired Billy to teach himself to play the mandolin at the age of three. He went on to learn a number of other instruments.

Vaughn charted a total of 42 singles on the Billboard charts, often based on the sound of two alto saxophones. He also charted thirty six albums on the Billboard 200, beginning with 1958's Sail Along Silv'ry Moon and ending with 1970's Winter World of Love. He also had nineteen Top 40 hits in (Germany), beginning with the chart-topping "Sail Along, Silv'ry Moon", also a gold record, which was a cover of a 1937 Bing Crosby hit. He had two more number ones in Germany: "La Paloma" and "Wheels" (all three were reportedly million sellers).

Billy Vaughn's recording of "Wheels" was No.1 for 14 weeks in Germany (Hit Bilanz) as well as No. 1 in India, New Zealand, and Italy (Billboard hits of the world, various issues 1961). Vaughn also charted in Australia, Latin America, and Japan. "Pearly Shells" was a major success in Japan. Vaughn's tours of that country began about the time "Pearly Shells" was a hit in 1965. Many songs which were not US hits or even singles releases there, were major hits in other countries. These included "Lili Marlene", "Zwei Gitarren am Meer", "Blueberry Hill" (Germany), and "Greenfields". Also successful were "Song of Peace", "It's a Lonesome Old Town" (Japan), "Michelle" (No 1 in Argentina and Malaysia), "Mexico" (No. 1 in the Philippines), and "Bonanza" (a major success in Brazil and Italy [Billboard Hits of the World, 1960s]) plus "Theme from the Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (various Latin American countries). The album La Paloma was a success throughout Latin America. 

He also had a number one album in Germany in the early 1980s with Moonlight Melodies, which consisted of 20 of Billy's biggest hits (original Dot recordings, original LP notes and credits). 

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Doris Day....Hits, Hollywood and Broadway

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.

Day's film career began during the latter part of the classical Hollywood era with the film Romance on the High Seas (1948), leading to a 20-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, and dramas. She played the title role in Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963), and also starred with Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Rod Taylor in various movies. After ending her film career in 1968, only briefly removed from the height of her popularity, she starred in the sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).

Day became one of the biggest film stars in the early 1960s, and as of 2012 was one of eight performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album My Heart which contained new material and became a UK Top 10 album. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 1960, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures in 1989. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; this was followed in 2011 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award.

HITS HOLLYWOOD BROADWAY

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Mel Torme..Swingin' On the Moon...classic album from 1960 on Verve

Mel Tormé was so outrageously talented that even the fans of his "velvet fog" timbre under-estimate him--undoubtedly the one singer who approaches Lady Ella in terms of his commanding musicianship, his voice and all that he could do with it. He had definitely reached his prime by 1960, and this Sinatra-type "concept album," an idea stolen from Frank, pre-dates by five years the album ("Moonlight Sinatra") Ole Blue devoted to moon songs. Either way you can't go wrong.

Melvin Howard Tormé (September 13, 1925 – June 5, 1999), nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, best known as a singer of jazz standards. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He composed the music for "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells.

Swingin' On the Moon

Louis Prima...Jump, Jive An' Wail: The Essential Louis Prima

Louis Prima (né Louis Leo Prima; 7 December 1910 – 24 August 1978) was an Italian-American singer, actor, songwriter, bandleader, and trumpeter. While rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music, and jump blues, Prima touched on various genres throughout his career: he formed a seven-piece New Orleans-style jazz band in the late 1920's, fronted a swing combo in the 1930's and a big band group in the 1940's, helped to popularize jump blues in the late 1940's and early to mid 1950's, and performed as a Vegas lounge act in the late 1950's and 1960's.

From the 1940's through the 1960's, his music further encompassed early R'n'B and rock'n'roll, boogie-woogie, and even Italian folk music, such as the tarantella. Prima made prominent use of Italian music and language in his songs, blending elements of his Italian identity with jazz and swing music. At a time when "ethnic" musicians were often discouraged from openly stressing their ethnicity, Prima's conspicuous embrace of his Italian ethnicity opened the doors for other Italian-American and "ethnic" American musicians to display their ethnic roots.

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Julie London...Eight Classic Albums..including original album covers

Julie London (September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000) was an American singer and film and television actress, whose career spanned five decades of television. She was noted for her smoky, sensual husky voice and languid demeanor. She released 32 albums of pop and jazz standards during the 1950's and 1960's, with her signature song being the classic "Cry Me a River", which she introduced in 1955. She had also appeared as a guest on several talk shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows.

London began singing (under the name Gayle Peck) in public in her teens before appearing in film. She was discovered by talent agent Sue Carol (wife of actor Alan Ladd), while working as an elevator operator. Her early film career did not include any singing roles.

London recorded 32 albums in a career that began in 1955 with a live performance at the 881 Club in Los Angeles. Billboard named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956, and 1957. She was the subject of a 1957 Life cover article in which she was quoted as saying, "It's only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of over-smoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate."

London's début recordings were for the Bethlehem Records label. While shopping for a record deal, she recorded four tracks that would later be included on the compilation album Bethlehem's Girlfriends in 1955. Bobby Troup backed London on the album. London recorded the standards "Don't Worry About Me", "Motherless Child", "A Foggy Day", and "You're Blasé".

London's most famous single, "Cry Me a River", was written by her high-school classmate Arthur Hamilton and produced by Troup. The recording became a million-seller after its release in December 1955, and also sold on reissue in April 1983 from the attention brought by a Mari Wilson cover. London performed the song in the film The Girl Can't Help It (1956), and her recording gained later attention in the films Passion of Mind (2000) and V for Vendetta (2006). The song "Yummy Yummy Yummy" was featured on the HBO television series Six Feet Under and appears on its soundtrack album. London's "Must Be Catchin'" was featured in the 2011 premiere episode of the ABC series Pan Am. Her last recording was "My Funny Valentine" for the soundtrack of the Burt Reynolds film Sharky's Machine (1981).

Julie Is Her Name / Lonely Girl

Calendar Girl / About the Blues

Make Love to Me / Julie

Julie Is Her Name Vol.2 / London By Night

download zip file with all eight album covers

Rhythm of the Day...Red Nichols and His Five Pennies

Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols (May 8, 1905 – June 28, 1965) was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.

Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is rumored to have appeared on over 4,000 recordings during the 1920's alone."

Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily got session and studio work. In 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording with a variety of bands, most of them known as "Red Nichols and His Five Pennies". Very few of these groups were actually quintets; the name was simply a pun on "Nickel", since there were "five pennies" in a nickel. "That was only a number we tied in with my name", Nichols once explained. "We'd generally have eight or nine [musicians], depending on who was around for the session and what I was trying to do."

Nichols recorded over 100 sides for the Brunswick label under that band name. He also recorded under a number of other names, among them, The Arkansas Travelers, The California Red Heads, The Louisiana Rhythm Kings, The Charleston Chasers, Red and Miff’s Stompers, and Miff Mole and His Little Molers. Some weeks, Nichols and his bands were making 10–12 records a week.

His recordings of the late 1920's are regarded as the most progressive jazz of the period in both concept and execution, with widely-ranging harmonies and a balanced ensemble.

                                          

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Jazz Noir - Various Artists...60 Menacing Masterpieces of Mystery, Murder and Mayhem

60 Menacing Masterpieces of Mystery, Murder and Mayhem

Few genres of cinema are as striking and iconic as Film Noir. A dangerous cocktail of crime, gangsters and femme fatales, the music that accompanied the pictures was just as devastatingly beautiful. Composers such as Henry Mancini, Alex North, Miles Davis, Elmer Bernstein, Chico Hamilton, Lalo Schifrin, Art Blakey, John Barry, Leith Stevens, John Lewis and Duke Ellington guide you through darkly lit bars and hazy streets on this 3 disc set.

Bringing together the many musical styles that have brought musical atmosphere to the world of movies, here you will find the works of many composers performed by many of the finest jazz and orchestral performers. Quite a lot of the numbers included could be familiar especially if you are a film goer but there are plenty you may not instantly recognise...the question is will you check them out on line and perhaps get the film because of the music?

                                                                      

preview Jazz Noir 1
preview Jazz Noir 2
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Italiano Americano - Popular Hits of the 1940s, 50s & 60s Brilliantly Remastered

This collection of popular Italian-American tunes from the 40's to 60's will have you dancing and singing along wherever you are. Featuring the most popular Italiano Americano artists and recognizable songs from their peak years. Fabulous remastering from the original records - 23 brilliantly entertaining tracks.

Just check out this amazing track list and see how many you know and remember..

Tony Renis - Quando Quando Quando
Connie Francis - Torero
Dean Martin - That's Amore
Renato Carosone - Tu Vuo Fa L'Americano
Peggy Lee - Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba
Louis Prima - Angelina
Frank Sinatra - Isle Of Capri
Nat King Cole - Non Dimenticar
Dean Martin - Sway
Doris Day - Que Sera Sera
Perry Como - Papa Love Mambo
Louis Prima - Buona Sera
Lou Monte - Lazy Mary
Bing Crosby - Mona Lisa
Mina - Renato
Frank Sinatra - Nevertheless
Tony Bennett/Count Basie - With Plenty Of Money And You
Dean Martin - Volare
Bobby Darin - Mack The Knife
Dean Martin - Bella Bella Bambina
Louis Prima - Just A Gigolo/Ain't Go Nobody
Dean Martin - Mambo Italiano
Fred Buscaglione - Love In Portofino

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Nelson Eddy...A Perfect Day...Original 1935-1947 Recordings

Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he co-starred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby-soxers as well as opera purists, and in his heyday was the highest paid singer in the world.

During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for film, recording, and radio), left his footprints in the wet cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater, earned three Gold records, and was invited to sing at the third inauguration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career.

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