Ray Charles was one of the most iconic and influential artists in the annals of pop as a singer, songwriter and pianist, and while he is considered one of the godfathers and great innovators of soul... more
Husband and wife duo Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, who performed and recorded through most of their career with their group The Clinch Mountain Clan, had their roots in the gospel, folk and hillbilly... more
Gisele MacKenzie was a Canadian singer and musician partly of French-Canadian heritage, who was a classically-trained violinist, pianist and dancer who became a singer with her own show on the... more
The doowop and pop vocal group which eventually became The Vibrations began life as The Jayhawks, having a 1956 hit with "Stranded In The Jungle", and recording under different names before becoming... more
Jazz drummer Buddy Rich is famous as one of the most extrovert and impressive instrumentalists of his day, known for his virtuoso technique, power and speed, and one of the most influential drummers... more
Hudson Whittaker, better known as Tampa Red, was a hugely prolific and influential blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, an innovative slide guitarist and the first black musician to play a... more
Cab Calloway was a jazz singer, bandleader, songwriter, dancer and actor who came to fame as a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he blended jazz and vaudeville to establish a... more
The Crests were a ground-breaking multiracial pop/doowop group formed in the mid-1950s when singer Johnny Mastrangelo joined forces with a doowop quartet comprising three African-Americans and one... more
Annie Laurie was an R&B, blues and sophisticated jazz and pop singer born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1924, who came to prominence in 1947 with her debut hit "Since I Fell For You", and over the next 15... more
Jan Garber was a violinist and bandleader with his musical roots in the hot jazz-based dance band music of the 1920s and whose orchestra evolved to become one of the many highly successful bands... more
Jonathan Winters was an American comedian, actor, broadcaster, TV presenter, artist and author who received eight Grammy nominations for Best Comedy Album during his career. He had a troubled... more
Dion DiMucci was one of many significant names of the rock 'n' roll era to emerge from the Italian diaspora of the USA's north-western states, his career encompassing doowop-influenced early hits... more
Accordionist, bandleader, composer and TV impresario Lawrence Welk was one of the most visible and popular personalities in easy-listening orchestral pop music through several decades spanning the... more
Despite the fact that his career was so tragically curtailed when he died in the fateful plane crash on 3rd February 1959, in which The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens also perished, Buddy Holly... more
Don Gibson was a country singer and songwriter, whose influence and impact was achieved not only through his own hit singles, but also those by other artists who recorded his songs. He came to... more
This release also follows through on another successful previous collection, namely the 3-CD set ACTRCD9032 Glenn Miller 'Live' at Glen Island Casino 1939. This 2-CD set also features a collection of... more
The Glenn Miller band featured some of the finest musicians, singers and arrangers of all time. Here they are doin' work on 18 classics from their hit-making heyday, including Stairway to the Stars;... more
The hugely successful US soul star Al Wilson has been largely ill served by the CD era despite enjoying a dozen or more R&B and Pop chart hits between 1968 and 1976. His recordings for the... more
Homer and Jethro were a country duo, real names Henry Haynes and Kenneth Burns, with their musical roots in hillbilly and bluegrass, who worked together on radio in the 1930s and reunited after... more
Composer and conductor Dimitri Tiomkin, born in Russia in 1894, but who emigrated to the USA after the First World War, is one of the most successful and celebrated composers of film music in the... more
The de Castro Sisters were a vocal trio whose mother was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl from Chicago who married a wealthy Cuban aristocrat, who owned sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic and had... more
We complete our popular and successful series devoted to the biggest chart records of each calendar year in the early chart era as we focus on 1948, the eighth full calendar year of the Billboard... more
We continue our popular and successful series devoted to the biggest chart records of each calendar year in the early chart era as we focus on 1949, the final year of the first decade of the... more
We continue our popular and successful series devoted to the biggest chart records of each calendar year in the early chart era as we focus on 1947, the seventh full calendar year of the Billboard... more
