[Vintage-Audio] Re Anita Kerr Question

Wed May 24 16:12:17 EDT 2006

Hi Robert (and All!),

Thank you very much for taking some of your time to sift through the layers 
of historical sediment and discover the glittering golden nuggets of musical 
lore that evoke warm and vivid memories and moments of sentiment in each of 
our lives in ways peculiar to each. Often times an empire, or in this case a 
musical dynasty, is built by people who's names we shall never know because 
one person had a dream, an idea, a desire that the waters of discouragement 
could not put out, the powers that prevail could not control and the trends 
of that time could not redirect. What happened at the RCA Studio B in all 
probability could never happen again, as it was an incredible collection of 
unique people, all with immense talents, producers with brilliant 
imaginations and clear visions of tomorrow, musicians that were all super 
stars in their own right, vocalists who were capable of singing anything and 
doing it well, engineers who had a natural gift for just knowing what 
ingrediants to mix and in what amounts and precisely when to add them and 
perhaps the most important component of all, everyone there simply blended 
together naturally and fluidly and created a sound and style that I do not 
believe can ever be equaled again.

As a professional Magician/Illusionist I can tell you that the person in the 
limelight is only as good as the people who work with them. Knowing I had a 
man handling my sound, that would fix what broke, get me through whatever 
electronic disasters might happen, left me free to focus all of my 
concentration on doing my program. My crew was totally devoted to me, as I 
was to them. This kind of devotion is rare and having all of it under the 
roof of RCA Studio B is almost beyond belief! That is, so much of it on 
every level! Musicians. Vocalists. Engineers. Producers. Writers. And they 
all just fit naturally together like they were born to it! Amazing.

Lee? Did you do the mix for the Anita Kerr albums in 1962 "From Nashville 
"Pop Hits"" and "The Vocal Stylings Of The Genius In Harmony", a tribute to 
Ray Charles?

I had never heard, did not know they existed, words to Floyd Cramer's 
instrumental hit of 1961? "Last Date". The Anita Kerr Singers did a great 
job with them, but that song will always be just an instrumental to me after 
hearing it wordless for forty-five years!

Duane Fischer, W8DBF
dfischer at usol.com
HHRP: Historic Halligan Radio Project
Meet The Man BEFORE He Became A Legend!
Rare Audio & Video Available Now! See Photos - Get Details - Order Yours
http://homepage.mac.com/jthayer13/W9WZE/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Nickels" <w9ran at oneradio.net>
To: "Vintage home and professional audio equipment from 1975 back" 
<vintage-audio at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Vintage-Audio] Re Anita Kerr Question

> W8DBF D.B. Fischer wrote:
>
>> The Anita Kerr Singers? The Anita Kerr Quartet? Different groups with 
>> Anita Kerr heading them up or the same group by another name?
>
> Hi Duane,
>
> I did a little digging for reasons known to you - and found that the 
> original Anita Kerr group was 5 voices, back in 1949 when she first went 
> to Nashville and sang backup for Ernest Tubb, Red Foley and Eddy Arnold 
> among others.   Then Jim Reeves hired her group for his WSM radio show and 
> that led to an appearance on Arthur Godfreys "Talent Scouts" (that's K4LIB 
> for us hams!) The group became synonymous with the "Countrypolitan sound" 
> that put Nashville on the musical map.
>
> According to http://www.spaceagepop.com/kerr.htm  the Kerr Singers and the 
> Jordanaires played on 1/3 of the records produced in Nashville and she not 
> only became good friends with Chet Atkins (aka W4CGP "Certified Guitar 
> Player") but also lived just across the street from him!
>
> And to answer your question, by then, Kerr's quartet had come to consist 
> of herself as soprano, Dottie Dillard (alto), Louis Nunn (baritone), and 
> Gil Wright (tenor).  But the quartet also recorded under other names - as 
> the Little Dippers they hit the top 40 with "Forever", and as "Anita and 
> the So and Sos" - "Joey Baby".   And they were part of the Living Voices 
> recordings on RCA's budget label, Camden.  She later reformed the Anita 
> Kerr Singers at Warner Brothers, adding more voices, and recorded with Rod 
> McEuen's very popular poetry albums as the "San Sebastian Strings".
>
> The one common factor Duane, is the very talented triple-threat Anita 
> Kerr - producer, arranger, and performer!
>
> 73, Bob W9RAN
>
>
>
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