Mitch Miller, R.I.P.

Mitch Miller is dead at 99. All the good people do not die young. All the talented do not go early. The Associated Press reports that Mr. Miller died Saturday in a New York hospital after a short illness.

He wasn't a rock-n-roller. He was pre-rock -n-roll. He was Tony Bennett, Patti Page, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis kind of music, the popular stuff with ballads, that required orchestras with strings. He was a record executive and sat on top of the world of the popular music in the 1950s and the early 1960s. He was an orchestra leader, with a popular TV show in the early 1960s, which I remember watching. The show was called 'Sing Along With Mitch.'

I remember singing along to the lyrics superimposed on the screen, and following the bouncing ball, as I sung, and imitating him conducting. I wasn't the only one in the family singing along.

He featured Leslie Uggams on his show. She was a young African- American singer of great talent. His advertisers and some of the local stations disapproved, pressured him to drop her. He refused to bow to pressure. He wanted to feature the best talent that he could find..

Mitch Miller, American musician, bandleader, music innovator, R.I.P.