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Mitch Miller is now singing along with the choir invisible, having died at the age of 99. RIP.

Mr. Miller was the Midas of novelty music, storming the charts with records like Jimmy Boyd’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and providing singers with unusual instrumental backing: a harpsichord for Ms. Clooney, French horns for Guy Mitchell. One of his earliest hits, “Mule Train,” was recorded by the muscular-voiced Frankie Laine with three electric guitars, and Mr. Miller himself using a wood block to simulate the snapping of a whip.

Mr. Miller was a studio innovator. Along with the guitarist Les Paul and a few others, he helped pioneer overdubbing, the technique by which different tracks are laid over one another to produce a richer effect; he employed it memorably with Ms. Page, whose close-harmony “duets” with herself became her signature. He also achieved what he called a sonic “halo” on numerous recordings by the use of what came to be called an echo chamber — actually an effect an engineer produced by placing a speaker and a microphone in a tiled restroom.

Related.

Miller was an extremely talented musician and spent his early career making distinguished classical and jazz records. For a broader sense of his musical accomplishment, listen to his oboe playing on this piece by Sibelius and this recording by Charlie Parker.

Sibelius aside, Miller once induced the Chairman of the Board to record this.

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Thanks, Mme. Hermine, for that clip from "Sing Along with Mitch." I don't recall ever having seen the show. Given Miller's astonishing died beard and eyebrows, and his unique conducting style, I think I would have remembered it if I'd seen it.

As to sound, however, the MM Chorus was an omnipresent background to all sorts of events in the 50s and early 60s. Hard to avoid; hard to forget; hard not to bop along with in its addictive oom-pah/ oom-pah beat.

The Times's obituary pointed out a number of contributions that MM made to the soundscape of white, middleclass pop culture in America during that period. I didn't know that he role in bringing us Rosemary Cooney's inescapable "Come On-a My House. Or "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Or Jo Stafford's "Jambalaya." These were pop anthems, played on every car radio I knew of, at a time when it was still possible to create music that appealed to children, adolescents, mom and pop, and the grandparents, all at the same time. It's hard to believe that such a time ever existed.

P.S. It's even harder to believe that I can actually recall a good many of the lyrics of "Come On-a My House" and can still hear Clooney's cheerful voice singing them.:crying::unsure::tomato::)

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P.S. It's even harder to believe that I can actually recall a good many of the lyrics of "Come On-a My House" and can still hear Clooney's cheerful voice singing them. :unsure:

Oh, but I can definitely hear her singing these particular ones: 'Come on-a mY House, and I'm gonna give you peach and pear, and I love-a yer hair', because I never heard the song all the way through till I heard her at Blue Note in 1987. That was a GREAT evening. She was still in good voice then, and was just unforgettable, there's another part that goes 'come on ovah to my house, and I'm gonna give you Easter Egg.' It was hilarious, and she was the most professional thing I ever saw. I didn't know about Miller having anything to do with Rosie either, I've also got an LP from the 50s' called 'Blue Rose' which is all Ellington. Actually, hadn't known he would feature name entertainers, maybe he was still doing it in the 60s, but I only remember regs. Trask and Uggams.

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Patrick, here are the complete lyrics.

Come on-a my house my house, I'm gonna give you candy

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give a you

Apple a plum and apricot-a too eh

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house I'm gonna give a you

Figs and dates and grapes and cakes eh

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you candy

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you everything

Come on-a my house my house, I'm gonna give you Christmas tree

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you

Marriage ring and a pomegranate too ah

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house I'm gonna give a you

Peach and pear and I love your hair ah

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house a come on

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you Easta-egg

Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you

Everything - everything - everything

SPOKEN: Come on-a my house-a!

Can there possibly be a certain amount of double entendre going on? If so, it was largely lost on my Long Island suburb. Though I do recall a couple of my friends smirking at: "I'm gonna give you Everything."

Pop history can be so-o-o strange. To wit:

... an oddity based on an Armenian folk melody written by the playwright and novelist William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian, who later went on to create Alvin and Chipmunks.

And this ...

Mr. Miller's own musical career began with the oboe. The composer Virgil Thomson called him "an absolutely first-rate oboist -- one of the two or three great ones at that time in the world."
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Somebody was certainly a-trolling for some syllables to make-a the lines scan.

These were pop anthems, played on every car radio I knew of, at a time when it was still possible to create music that appealed to children, adolescents, mom and pop, and the grandparents, all at the same time.

White ones, anyway, as you noted. It must be said that some observers didn't care for Miller's music (you can imagine Sinatra's opinion) and for each person tappin' his toes there was probably someone puttin' cotton in his ears.

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It's funny and actually touching at the same time, if you keep in mind that Miller was on the stage of the big anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Washington in 1969, singing this alongside Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary.

The man had layers that went deeper than his version of, for example, "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Good for him.

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Mitch Miller? I remember him. :blushing: In 1977, on the Fourth of July, some friends and I in Chicago took in the King Tut exhibition, had lunch in the beer garden of a German restaurant, and then saw "Star Wars" in the Loop. We must have seen fireworks that evening, but I can't remember fireworks. What I do remember as the capper to that delightful day is sitting in Grant Park singing along with Mitch. Young as were were, we thought the whole thing was pretty corny, as I suppose in part it was and was supposed to be. Fortunately we were too young to be embarrassed, but not too young to be corny ourselves. I've enjoyed reading this thread and learning more about Mr. Miller.

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Now it comes back. Corny? Yes. But it was a boring show too, after awhile. I always thought it was fun for awhile, and then got annoyed that I didn't like anything but Diana and Leslie. And then there was truly cornball ending, the 'Be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's brother...' that was truly none too wonderful. I think it also does go back maybe even 3 years earlier than I was thinking, when I was watching it that is. Although I never knew about any of the Clooney, Stafford, etc., connections. Frankly, I can't even remember the way it sounded.

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His show was always on in my parents house when I was growing up. When it started, I was four and just watched the bouncing ball,but in the last few years, when I was learning to read, I didn't always recognize the words. I found the whole concept frustrating, because unless the song was on one of my Disney movie or Alvin and the Chipmunks albums, I had never heard any of them before.

I don't like karaoke, either :)

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Great to hear the recollections. kfw, I love for Grant Park story. To know that something is "corny" and still experience the fun of it: you are fortunate.

Helene: you were precocious. Unconsciously, you grasped the connection between Miller and Alvin and the Chipmunks. (See Post # 7). In those days, did we know that this would all evolve into a love for Stravinsky and Balanchine?

Looking again at Mme. Hermine's original video clip, I found myself thinking of the male glee club tradition that was still alive and when I was a child in the 50s. (no bouncing ball, however. Too high tech. You had to go to the cartoons at the movies for those.)

As the camera panned across the faces of the singers -- many of them too old to be allowed anywhere near a pop tv camera today -- I remembered that our own little NYC suburb had such an amateur troupe.

Are there "glee clubs" any more? I wonder. And what has happened to that kind of male blended-voice singing?

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His show was always on in my parents house when I was growing up. When it started, I was four and just watched the bouncing ball,but in the last few years, when I was learning to read, I didn't always recognize the words. I found the whole concept frustrating, because unless the song was on one of my Disney movie or Alvin and the Chipmunks albums, I had never heard any of them before.

I don't like karaoke, either :)

The concept seems a little surreal as well, what with the camera panning in and around the Neat Guys as they sing their wholesome tune.

I think the first Miller-related song I must have heard was the Stan Freberg parody of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," which I used to hear on Dr. Demento.

For reference, Miller's version here.

I'm not into karaoke, either. :)

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Are there "glee clubs" any more? I wonder. And what has happened to that kind of male blended-voice singing?

Is that what the Gay Men's Chorus(es?) are? I'm not sure I've ever heard them, except that I haven't live. I was supposed to see the Blind Boys of Alabama, but missed it due to unforeseen circumstances, but that might be 'male blended-voice singing', although I don't know it it's 'glee club'. I'm not familiar with the term 'glee club' except from high school days, and my h.s. glee club was mostly girls, as I remember, it may have been all girls. That was probably not representative, though, but I had nearly forgotten the term. Were there ever professional glee clubs?

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I'm not familiar with the term 'glee club' except from high school days, and my h.s. glee club was mostly girls, as I remember, it may have been all girls.
In the 50s, the glee clubs I was aware of were male, though there may have been female examples. Most famous, in the Northeast, were Yale's and Harvard's which at that time were all-male colleges.

They sang a cappella, but the effect was not unlike Miller's group, which worked with orchestrations. Glee clubs tended to be rigorously upbeat. I don't recall much in the way of rhythmic subtlety, in those days at last.

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Wow -- I was shocked to realize he hadn't died years ago!

One of the drawbacks, if you can call it that, of extreme longevity is that people tend to forget you're still around. :) I hope that Miller was in good shape for the last of those ninety-nine years. He saw many changes.

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Wow -- I was shocked to realize he hadn't died years ago!

One of the drawbacks, if you can call it that, of extreme longevity is that people tend to forget you're still around. :) I hope that Miller was in good shape for the last of those ninety-nine years. He saw many changes.

I had the same experience when Betty Hutton died three years ago.

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Today's NY Times has a clip a review of of the first episode of Sing Along With Mitch.

Here’s what Mr. Gould had to say on Jan. 28, after the debut of the show:

“His singers avoid notes either too high or too low; there are no soloists who would raise the dark thought that one person might have a better voice than another. Everything is average. By the standard tricks of electronic recording, the Miller ensemble is made to sound as if it were working in an empty warehouse and had to sing to keep warm. ... As the program’s presiding officer, Mr. Miller exuded the determined folksiness that brings a beaming smile to the faces of many including his accountant.”

Having seen Mme. Hermine's clip, I'd have to say that I agree.

http://www.nytimes.c...20miller&st=cse

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Gould condescends a bit. And there are many television series that wouldn't be remembered well by their pilots if that was all one had to go by to judge them, although it doesn't appear that Miller's format changed much. He did bring soloists on later, I think.

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