Mitch Miller died earlier this week. Most people who knew the guy went right away to “Oh, the fella who did Sing Along With Mitch.” But I immediate think, “Oh, right. Mitch Miller: Enemy of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
Miller was first a classical musician and then an A&R man for Mercury and then Columbia Records. As such, he had a great deal of influence about signing recording artists and guiding their careers.
This WSJ obit captures the importance:
…it was as a producer—quite possibly the first “modern” producer in all of American pop—that Mitchell William Miller exerted his greatest influence. He not only played a key role in the careers of [Frank] Sinatra, Doris Day, Lee Wiley, Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Mr. [Tony] Bennett and dozens of others, but he virtually invented the job of the pop- music producer.
Miller was a crucial player in one of the major transitions in American culture, between the swing era and the coming of rock ‘n’ roll, during the decade following World War II. As singers replaced the big bands as the focal point of pop, the producers—formerly known as A&R (artists and repertoire) men—took over from the bandleaders as the industry’s decision makers and power brokers. By the start of the rock era, Miller had set an example that every music-world mover and shaker to come, from Phil Spector to Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy and even Simon Cowell, has emulated.
Miller is infamous in some circles for the schlocky nature of some songs he forced artists to record (e.g., see “Mama Will Bark“). For other people, he is remember for his antipathy towards rock, which can be captured by some of the following quotations from him.
- “Rock ‘n’ roll is musical baby food: it is the worship of mediocrity, brought about by a passion for conformity.”
- “It’s not music, it’s a disease.”
- “The reason kids like rock ‘n roll is their parents don’t.”
Oh, wait! One more from 1957 profile in Melody Maker, “The man who makes the stars.”
- “[Teenagers] seem to accept almost any form of [rock 'n' roll], even the lowest and most distasteful. It seems to encourage sloppy clothes. The kids take it all without discrimination. It’s one step from fascism.”
There’s the irony: Miller hated rock, but he helped kill off the big band era, replacing with the current form of pop music production.
(See here and here for more from enemies of rock ‘n’ roll. And don’t forget Steve Allen and Stan Freberg.)
One more aside; this discussion on NPR’s Talk of the Nation tries to make a connection between the program Sing Along With Mitch and current shows like American Idol and Glee.
I don’t think so. Check out this episode from 1964. Now look at this Billboard chart from 1964. You will not find any overlap. Sing Along With Mitch was a backwards-looking show, for people who longed for simpler times. Watch this bit, as Miller makes specific reference to the viewer having first heard “That Old Gang Of Mine” back in 1923 (Also, keep watching a little further for a surprise celebrity cameo).
Why sing trash like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” when you can just bust out a rousing performance of “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?”
3 Responses
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Lee Hartsfeld Says:
No one tops Frank Sinatra when it comes to opposing and hating rock and roll. Don’t forget Sinatra’s famous 1958 quote (in Western World magazine):
Rock ’n’ roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration, and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics, it manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the Earth. It is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.
In fact, on a CBS news show in 1956, Miller defended rock and roll against charges of immorality: “You can’t call any music immoral. If anything is wrong with rock and roll, it is that it makes a virtue out of monotony” (from Billboard, April 28, 1956). As much as I love early rock and roll, I can’t argue with Mitch’s description. Re fascism, I suspect Miller was referring to the conformistic culture of r&r, though the Fifties had nothing like the lockstep, market-driven rock culture to come.
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Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Says:
Also don’t forget Allan Sherman.
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Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Says:
So the embedded thing didn’t embed: