I already mentioned the Collins Kids, Sid King, and other artists who were not New York-based (italics mine) who did not toe the Mitch Miller line. It's apparent that his A&R regime did not extend outside of the Big Apple because there were many country artists who were dabbling with rockabilly in the late '50s. Just about all of them recorded outside of NYC, either on the West Coast, at field sessions in Dallas, in Nashville, and elsewhere.
Cary Ginell
> Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 18:50:32 -0700
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mitch Miller RIP
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Miller's opposition to rock and roll is legendary,but I take exception to the
> notion that Columbia had none of note while Miller was popular music A&R
> director.Aside from Carl Perkins,and Link Wray,we have Sid King and The Five
> Strings (Who should have been as big as Buddy Holly or Gene Vincent.),The
> Collins Kids,The Treniers,and a few others who slipped onto Columbia and Epic
> back then
>
> One need not wonder what Mr.Sing Along thought of stuff like this:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF5DvDucf7w
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jCsq2aFe0
> Roger
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Daniel Shiman <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tue, August 3, 2010 1:17:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mitch Miller RIP
>
> With Miller's musicality and experience, he might have done the same thing at
> Columbia, but refused to acknowledge rock 'n' roll as a bonafide art form and
> something that could have made Columbia millions. Instead, they stagnated in the
> rock world. Only John Hammond gave Columbia any place in the rock world by
> signing Bob Dylan, then just a folk singer who happened to develop into a rock
> legend. As a partial result of Miller's influence, Columbia didn't have any
> bonafide rock 'n' roll talents until Janis Joplin in the late '60s.
>
> >
> > Cary Ginell
> >
>
> Columbia Records (and RCA and Decca, all the more so) was rapidly losing ground
> to its West Coast counterparts in the '60s in terms of rock.
>
>
> But to say there weren't any significantly talented rock acts on Columbia until
> Joplin's signing is overstatement. In those intervening years, Columbia
> released albums by the Byrds, Moby Grape, the United States of America, the
> Cyrkle, Simon & Garfunkel, Electric Flag, Sagittarius/Millenium and Leonard
> Cohen (alongside many other, more obscure artists with appeal to contemporary
> rock audiences).
>
> -Dan
>
>
>
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