>By 1951 Miller was making Sinatra sing horrible undignified novelty songs, including a duet with a pinup girl named Dagmar that obliged the “Fischer-Dieskau of American popular song” to bark and howl like a dog.* (A couple of years later Sinatra re-invented himself as the personification of American masculinity and started recording at Capitol.) Anyway, suffice it to say, this was a low point in Sinatra’s life, and Sinatra blamed Miller and carried a grudge. Years later, Miller saw Sinatra in a Vegas lobby and walked over, hand extended in greeting. Sinatra only growled, “fuck you, keep walking.”
>>131914364it's quite bizarre that Miller was a vocal hater of rock-and-roll, but Sinatra blamed him for causing rock-and-roll
>>131914364>waits 24 hours just to post mitch miller slop
>it's another sinatra thread that will attract this otherwise silent group of sinatra superfans that have encyclopedic knowledge of his career and related figures in the music industryone of the strangest things about this board
>Miller's version of events was that Sinatra's contract with CBS allowed him to choose or decline songs as he saw fit. "The way it worked was that we'd have two kinds of songs. One side of the disc had a novelty number and the other side a 'great song' (meaning a ballad). Yet for some reason he keeps going back to 'Mama Will Bark.'"
>>131914364Sinatra had started to fall off as the 40s drew to a close when he kind of aged out of being a teen idol. Also the romantic balladeer style he made his name on had become so normalized in pop that he lost his uniqueness.
>>131914364>Bark for me, goy
>>131914785It's not that much of a stretch. Miller liked big, loud, punchy records and pretty much helped make that the norm in mainstream pop, even before rock and roll. When Sinatra heard r&r for the first time he probably thought of it as a natural outgrowth of the environment Miller had cultivated.
>>131914976He and Dinah Shore had been CBS's two marquee acts in the 40s but both were pushing 35 and it was a new decade so Miller, as any A&R guy would do, planned to assemble a group of new young singers for the 50s. Already having Rosemary Clooney, he added Tony Bennett, Guy Mitchell, and later Johnnie Ray and Mindy Carson. Also Miller added a few veterans--his old friend Frankie Laine from Mercury and Jo Stafford, who moved to CBS in '51.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-RpXZJIEwwtbqh here's an interview Frank gave in 49, a year before Mitch arrived at CBS and here he seems to sense the direction pop was headed, which was towards more chintzy novelty songs
>>131915027it was clear that the hypnotic crooning style had fallen out of favor and the market demanded more aggressive music. some of it was technology-driven with the event of tape recording allowing new sonic possibilities.
>>131915053>Already having Rosemary Clooney, he added Tony Bennetttheir opposition to Mitchtunes is well-known but early in their careers they didn't have the leverage to choose material. also Bennett has his share of critics who charge that he had no sense of dynamics because he didn't start out in a live band before becoming a recording artist, while even Perry Como could swing.
>>131914785Sinatra also bent the truth at the Smathers Hearings when he issued a statement saying his career was and would always be based around ASCAP songs, when since coming to Capitol he had in fact recorded BMI songs, including some he chose himself.
>>131914785most 50s A&R guys didn't like rock, but none of them were as vocal and open about it as him
>>131914364it was too bad he wasted so much time in the 60s remaking old songs instead of doing new material
>>131914925there was a Steve Hoffman Forum boomer who had met Miller and said he was a nice and very approachable fellow who would discuss nearly any part of his career other than Frank Sinatra, which remained a sore spot for him decades later
>>131914364Columbia's main studio in Manhattan back then was called The Cathedral because it was once an Albanian Orthodox Church.
>>131916439Surprised Miller didn't burst into flame when he entered it
>>131915053Most of this proves how shitty his taste was because the young upcomers he signed mostly disappeared from relevance after the 50s ended, Bennett being the only exception.
>>131917707You would certainly say Johnny Mathis was a success who had a viable long term career, although he was a late 50s signing and not part of that group of early 50s singers. That aside, Miller also lost the chance to get the Everly Brothers and Connie Francis because he was an idiot.
