[Vintage-Audio] Re Anita Kerr Singers Move

[wolfbob]

Duane,

Check out:
www.spaceagepop.com/kerr.htm

According to this diatribe, Kerr didnt form the Anita Kerr 
Singers until she left RCA and arrived in Hollywood. She 
stole the leads from Ray Coniff.

Bob


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Duane Fischer, W8DBF" <dfischer at usol.com>
To: <vintage-audio at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 4:24 PM
Subject: [Vintage-Audio] Re Anita Kerr Singers Move


>
>
> Hi All,
>
> What year did Anita Kerr leave the
> RCA Nashville Studio B team for California and a 
> 'perceived' better opportunity?
>
> The unique sound of her "Anita Kerr Singers" with the 
> super tight harmony can be heard on hundreds of albums by 
> all sorts of Artists, Country music and not. Often times 
> even the blind dude here, with his super trained ears, has 
> great difficulty in distinguishing the two females and the 
> two males in the quartet, as being more than one female 
> and one male. What a blend!
>
> Maybe I am mistaken here, but it seems that once she made 
> the switch to Warner Bros., Columbia Records, she sort of 
> faded into never neverland after a couple of years. Is 
> this correct?
>
> The unique sound of the "Anita Kerr Singers", (wasn't 
> there an Anita Kerr Quartet also?), fits beautifully into 
> any instrumental song. Either as background harmony or as 
> foreground singers for a verse here and there during the 
> song. However, the quartet audience, be it Southern 
> Gospel, Black Gospel or whatever, is small, music sales 
> wise. When Anita Kerr and her group were doing background 
> vocals for various musical Artists at RCA Nashville the 
> audience was multiplied by a factor of at least ten! When 
> at Warner Bros. is was a novelty, in a good sort of way, 
> and the public interest came from her past with RCA, 
> peaked at Columbia and then simply died. Hers was a 
> specialty sound and had to stay within a strong market in 
> order to survive.
>
> I do not want to call her a 'flash in the pan', or a one 
> hit wonder', as she was certainly not! However, I think 
> she saw Columbia as a big money and opportunity move and 
> simply failed to realize that the special quality of her 
> sound did not have the staying power on its own to sustain 
> listener popularity over the longrun.
>
> I have some of her latter work and the sound is, well, not 
> what the original Anita Kerr Singers generated. Frankly, 
> as much as I lover her work, I did not care for this at 
> all. I believe this work was only released on CD, do not 
> wish to name it here and prejudice anyone against possibly 
> purchasing it. You might love it.
>
> So when did she make the move, how long after she did make 
> it did her popularity start to fade and what became of 
> her? Then again, maybe she did not fade and I simply fell 
> into a fog somewhere along Musical Alley!
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Duane Fischer, W8DBF/WPE8CXO
> dfischer at usol.com
> HHI: Halligan's Hallicrafters International
> http://www.w9wze.net
> HHRP: Historic Halligan Radio Project
> hhrp.w9wze.net
>
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