Juanita Hall

Juanita Hall (née Long, November 6, 1901 – February 29, 1968) was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary – a role that garnered her the Tony Award – and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang.
In 1950, she became the first African American to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Bloody Mary in South Pacific starring Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin. She also won a Donaldson Award for playing that role. She played the role for 1,925 performances on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre beginning on April 7, 1949. She also starred in the 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers in which she sang and danced Harold Arlen's Slide Boy Slide. In addition to her role in South Pacific, she was a regular performer in clubs in Greenwich Village, where she captivated audiences with her renditions of "Am I Blue?", "Lament Over Love", and Langston Hughes' "Cool Saturday Night".
In 1958, she recorded Juanita Hall Sings the Blues (at Beltone Studios in New York City), backed by a group of jazz musicians that included Claude Hopkins, Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey, Doc Cheatham, and George Duvivier. In 1958, she reprised Bloody Mary in the film version of South Pacific, for which her singing part was dubbed (because of legal matters involving copyright), at Richard Rodgers's request, by Muriel Smith, who had played the role in the London production. The same year, Hall starred in Flower Drum Song, another Broadway show by Rodgers and Hammerstein.She also toured in the road show version of Flower Drum Song, but she had to leave it in early 1962 because of illness.
 ( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

1. Hold That Train
2. You've Been A Good Old Wagon
3. After You've Gone
4. Nobody Wants You When Your Down And Out
5. I Don't Want it Second Hand
6. A Good Man is Hard To Find

1. Baby Wont You Please Come Home
2. Gulf Coast Blues
3. Second Fiddle
4. Downhearted Blues
5. Gimme A Pigfoot
6. Lovin' Sam from Alabam

  4. Downhearted Blues

Middle Of The Road

Middle of the Road is a Scottish pop group who have enjoyed success across Europe and Latin America since the 1970s. Before ABBA established themselves in the mid 70s, Middle of the Road were the sound of early europop with their distinctive harmonies and lead vocals from Sally Carr. Four of their singles sold over one million copies each, and received a gold disc: "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep". "Sacramento", "Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum" and "Soley Soley". By early 1972 the group had sold over five million records.
Original lead singer Sally Carr, drummer Ken Andrew, guitarist Ian McCredie and his bassist brother Eric McCredie, founded the band on 1 April 1970 in Glasgow, Scotland. They had already played together under the name Part Four since 1967 and later in Latin American style under the name Los Caracas. Under the name Los Caracas they won the UK TV talent show Opportunity Knocks. They moved to Italy in 1970 because they had not found success in the United Kingdom. There they met the Italian music producer Giacomo Tosti, who gave the band their distinctive sound and gave them their international break.
The band had their first and biggest hit record in the United Kingdom with debut UK single, "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" to reach #1 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1971 and keep it for four more weeks. In all, Middle of the Road had five hit singles in the UK during 1971-1972.
( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

1. Sacramento
2. Queen Bee
3. The Talk Of All USA
4. On This Land
5. Louise ( My Little Ship )

1. Soley Soley
2. Samson And Delilah
3. Medicine Woman
4. Try A Little Understanding
5. Then You'll Know What Love Is

  2. Samson And Delilah

Ray Anthony & His Orchestra

Raymond Antonini (born January 20, 1922), known as Ray Anthony, is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter, and actor. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Anthony was born to an Italian family in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania but moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied the trumpet. He played in Glenn Miller's band from 1940–1941 and appeared in the Glenn Miller movie Sun Valley Serenade before joining the U.S. Navy during World War Two. After the war he formed his own group. The Ray Anthony Orchestra became popular in the early 1950s with "The Bunny Hop", "Hokey Pokey", and the theme from Dragnet He had a No. 2 chart hit with a remake of the Glenn Miller tune "At Last" in 1952, the highest charting pop version of the song in the U.S.
In 1953, Anthony and his orchestra were featured when Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberly headlined a summer replacement program for Perry Como's CBS television show.Anthony was considered one of the most modern big band leaders...(Info Edited From Wikipedia)

1. Sometimes I'm Happy
2. Lets Dance
3. Sleepy Time Gal
4. Wolverine Blues

1. What is This Thing Called Love
2. A String of Pearls
3. Lackawanna Local
4. Blue Moon

  4. Blue Moon
  

The Chordettes

The Chordettes were an American female popular singing quartet, usually singing a cappella, and specializing in traditional popular music. They are best known for their hit songs "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop".
After performing locally in Sheboygan, they won on Arthur Godfrey's radio program Talent Scouts in 1949. They held feature status on Godfrey's daily program, and then they recorded several 10-inch EPs for Columbia Records.

In 1953, Godfrey's music director and orchestra leader, Archie Bleyer, founded Cadence Records. He signed a number of Godfrey regulars and former regulars, including the Chordettes, who had a number of hit records for Cadence.

Their biggest hit was "Mr. Sandman" in 1954. Archie Bleyer himself is on that record along with the group, Bleyer stripping the sound down the better not to clutter the girls' voices. They also hit No. 2 with 1958's "Lollipop".

The Chordettes appeared on American Bandstand on August 5, 1957, the first episode of that show to be broadcast nationally on the ABC Television Network. (Info Edited From Wikipedia).

1. Mr Sandman

2. Eddie My Love

3. Born To be With You

4. Soft Sands

5. Come Home To My Arms

6. Echo Of love

1. Just Between You And Me

2. Teen Age Goodnight

3. Hummingbird

4. Like A Baby

5. Lay Down Your Arms

6. Love Never Changes

  1. Just Between You And Me.

Marlene Ver Plank

This singer is great !...not heard of her before but she certainly is well known over the Pond ! USA !...hope to hear more of her later....so if anyone has any links to some of her work share them in the comments please !! TA !!


Marlene Paula VerPlanck (née Pampinella; November 11, 1933 – January 14, 2018) was an American jazz and pop vocalist whose body of work centered on big band jazz, the American songbook, and cabaret.....Her debut album, I Think of You with Every Breath I Take, was released in 1955 when she was 21..VerPlanck then went to work as a vocalist for Charlie Spivak's band, and later sang with the Tommy Dorsey band and with Tex Beneke′s band.
VerPlanck was a prolific studio vocalist for commercial jingles during the 1960s and 1970s, and by the 1960s became known as the "New York jingle queen." She recorded thousands of jingles, often for low pay.. Although she toiled largely in obscurity, her voice became widely known to millions of people during the 1960s and 1970s through the familiarity and popularity of her jingles.
VerPlanck also sang backup for Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Mel Torme, and she performed around the United States and internationally as a cabaret singer. Despite her long and successful career in jingles and as a studio backing vocalist, her second solo album, Marlene VerPlanck Loves Johnny Mercer, was not recorded until 1979, 24 years after her first album. Her solo career then began in earnest, and she released more than 20 albums, mostly on the Audiophile label, and toured extensively as a soloist. She specialized in the Great American Songbook, especially the works of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, and gained a reputation as one of the most accomplished interpreters of the genre.
In January 1983, VerPlanck took part in recording In the Digital Mood, an early all-digital recording of the music of Glenn Miller by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The album included two vocal tracks – "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", and VerPlanck was invited to sing the female vocals in a recreation of the singing group The Modernaires, which consisted of one female and four male vocalists, and to bring four male colleagues with her to sing the four male vocal parts. The album's producers expected her to bring unknown session and back-up singers with her, but she surprised and delighted the producers and the orchestra by arriving with Julius LaRosa, Mel Torme, Michael Mark, and Marty Nelson for the recording session on January 20, 1983.

VerPlanck last performed in December 2017 at a jazz club in New York City. She died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in Manhattan, New York City on January 14, 2018, aged 84 and was buried at Mt. Olivet cemetery in Bloomfield.

        ( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

1. Mr Lucky
2. Growing Old Gracefully
3. Brasiliero
4. Where Is Love
5. There Wont Be Trunpets

1. I Concentrate On You
2. Rainbow Hill
3. Baby Elephant Walk
4. Sunday
5. Show Me

  1. I Concentrate On You

Charles Magnante

Charles Magnante (December 7, 1905 – December 30, 1986) was an American piano-accordionist, arranger, composer, author and educator. His artistry helped raise the image of the accordion from an instrument considered suitable only for folk music to an instrument accepted in many music genres.


For much of the 1940s, he was, with Tony Mottola on guitar and George Wright on organ, a fixture of CBS radio, providing the network with its own version of the early Three Suns. Like Mottola, he remained a member of the CBS musical staff for many years while working a steady series of studio sessions on the side.Magnante was certainly one of Enoch Light's favorite accordionists, for he was the only one Light featured as a performer on two of his three labels. Magnante recorded three albums on Command. Magnante stayed to conventional material on all of these, preferring to showcase his skills as an interpreter rather than his proficiency on the instrument.
( Info Edited From Spaceagepop.com )

 2. La Paloma

Gilbert O'Sullivan

From 1971 a great singer and writer of down to earth lyrics...and great Tunes / Melody's..

1. Intro / January Git
2. Bye-Bye
3. Permissive Twit
4. Matrimony
5. Independent Air
6. Nothing Rhymed

1. Too Much Attention
2. Susan Van Heusan
3. If I Don't Get You Back Again
4. Thunder And Lightning
5. Houdini Said
6. Doing The Best I Can / Outro

3. Permissive Twit

Comment's ?????

Hi Folks !!...hope you are all enjoying the Music !....Be nice to have some comments..any will be ok even negative ones about the music would be great to open some discussion and get some feeling of the appreciation of  the bygone era's of music ...cheers....Brody...

Sara Montiel

Not much info about her singing career mostly about her films...If you like the sultry sound then you will like this one !!

María Antonia Abad Fernández  (10 March 1928 – 8 April 2013), known professionally as Sara Montiel, was a Spanish singer and actress.

Montiel was born in Campo de Criptana in the region of Castile–La Mancha in 1928. She worked in Europe, Latin America and United States. Her films The Last Torch Song and The Violet Seller netted the highest gross revenues ever recorded for films made in the Spanish-speaking movie industry during the 1950s/60s. Montiel's film Variety was banned in Beijing in 1973. She played the role of Antonia, the niece of Don Quixote, in the 1947 Spanish film version of Cervantes's novel.

 6. Fascination

The MJQ

Concorde is an album by the Modern Jazz Quartet, recorded in New York on July 2, 1955, and first released that year as an LP, Prestige 7005, with liner notes by Ira Gitler. The album was reissued in 2008 as part of the Rudy Van Gelder Remasters collection.

The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. For most of its history the Quartet consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass), and Connie Kay (drums). The group grew out of the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, which consisted of Lewis and Jackson along with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke. They recorded as the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951 and Brown left the group, being replaced on bass by Heath. During the early-to-mid-1950s they became the Modern Jazz Quartet, Lewis became the group's musical director, and they made several recordings with Prestige Records.This album is the first to feature drummer Connie Kay, who replaced Kenny Clarke in 1955. It is also the first Modern Jazz Quartet LP conceived from the beginning as a long playing record; previous MJQ recordings had been released as 78's, 10 inch 33's or reissues of these formats on a 12-inch LP. The liner notes acknowledge the additional playing time of the LP format by asking the listener to regard this album as a performance set "at one of America's leading jazz rooms".

1. Ralph's New Blues
2. All Of You
3. I'll Remember April

1. Gershwin Medley
    a. Soon
    b. For You For Me For Evermore
    c. Love Walked In
    d. Our Love Is Here To Stay
2. Softly As In a Morning Sunrise
3. Concorde

 2. All Of You

The Three Suns

The Three Suns was an American pop group, most popular during the 1940s and 1950s.
The group was formed in 1939 by brothers Al Nevins (guitar) and Morty Nevins (accordion) and their cousin, radio and vaudeville veteran Artie Dunn (vocals, electronic organ). They became a popular nightclub attraction; during a New York engagement in 1944, they were signed to appear in short musical films for the Soundies movie jukeboxes. They performed nine songs for the cameras.
In 1944, The Three Suns scored their first hit record, "Twilight Time"; their version was strictly instrumental and did not feature the lyrics written later by Buck Ram. "Twilight Time" sold over four million copies and was awarded a gold record.
During the 1950s the group continued to play "live" dates with the same personnel, but their recording sessions would often have studio musicians substituting for one or another, because keyboardist Artie Dunn did not read music and guitarist Al Nevins became more interested in the production end of the recording business. The group's popularity waned as rock and roll became popular, but the group reinvented itself by using its RCA Victor recording sessions as an audio laboratory, employing additional instruments and novel stereophonic effects. These new arrangements became popular among fans of lounge music and exotica. Al Nevins remained with RCA Victor as a producer and arranger until his death in 1965; Morty Nevins then hired studio musicians Fred Mendelssohn and Vinnie Bell and recorded a new stereo album for Musicor in 1966, using the Three Suns name. (Info Edited From Wikipedia)

A Swinging Thing (RCA Victor LPM/LSP-2963, 1964)

1. Sweet Georgia Brown
2. Mean To Me
3. African Waltz
4. Georgia On My Mind
5. Honeysuckle Rose
6. A Taste of Honey

1. Ain't Misbehavin'
2. Sleepy Time Gal
3. Nite Trix
4. Ja-Da
5. Painted Desert
6. Lazy River

2. Sleepy Time Gal