THE ANITA KERR SINGERS
Anita Kerr nasceu em Memphis, Tennessee. Quando tinha 4 anos de idade, começou a tomar aulas de piano e já no 4º ano, Anita
começou a tocar no órgão da igreja durante as missas.
Aos 15 anos,Anita Kerr começou a trabalhar numa rádio e a tocar com diversas orquestras em Memphis, para onde levou seu próprio grupo. Mais tarde,Anita Kerr mudou- se para Paris em 1948, onde formou um quinteto vocal, apenas pelo prazer de cantar e ouvir seus próprios arranjos.
O diretor de um programa de rádio ouviu falar de Anita Kerr e do grupo e a contratou para conduzir e organizar um coral de
8 vozes.
A primeira gravação saiu como o nome de "The Anita Kerr Singers", e imediatamente começaram a ser requisitados para fazer backup para cantores, como Eddy Arnold, Burl Ives, Ernest Tubb, e outros artistas país. Em 1955 os "Anita Kerr Singers" foram gravar um programa de rádio nacional em WSM com Jim Reeves.
Depois de ter ganho um concurso e mostrar seu enorme talento, em 1956, passaram a se apresentar no famoso Arthur Godfrey Show, em Nova York. Durante este tempo, The Anita Kerr Singers cantaram com estrelas , como Brenda Lee, Perry Como, Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Vinton, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Jim Reeves, Floyd Cramer, e Al Hirt.
Em 1965, Anita Kerr mudou-se para Hollywood, em Los Angeles, Califórnia, dedicando-se a compor, orquestrar, e conduzir
orquestras Ao longo dos dois anos seguintes, Anita Kerr ganhou 3 prêmios Grammy para "We dig Mancini", (álbum que vai ser postado
aqui no CBVG bremente,) "Southland Favorites", e "Um homem e uma mulher."
Anita Kerr mudou-se para a Suíça, em 1970, onde assinou contrato como com a Phonogram Internacional para gravar álbuns e se apresentar na televisão na Holanda. Anita Kerr recebeu um prêmio pelos 'hits' de Burt Bacharach e Hal David.
Alguns comentaristas dizem que a música produzida por Anita parece um "prato branco de sopa" sem cor, sem sabor, sem marca registada. Eu concordo em parte, talvez pelo fato de que a sua especialidade é a regravação de "hits" já consagrados por outros intérpretes. Mas isso é comum a qualquer coral, cuja função é mais ou menos essa mesmo, a de tornar palatável qualquer composição de qualquer gênero.
Mas isso não diminiui em nada o imenso talento, a grande competência e a categoria da grande "maestrina", como veremos quando da postagem de discos "conceituais", numa próxima oportunidade.
Anita fundou e dirige o Mountain Recording Studio, em Montreux, Suíça, com o marido, Alex Grob. Hoje, Anita Kerr vive em Genebra, na Suíça.
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THE ANITA KERR SINGERS
Born Anita Jean Grilli, 31 October 1927, Memphis, Tennessee , Anita Kerr is easily the most remarkable and accomplished female
musician of the Space Age Pop era, yet she barely rates a mention in most pop music reference books. When she does, it's usually so
the writer can make a wisecrack about her 1965 Grammy Award.
See, in 1965, her quartet's album, We Dig Mancini!, beat out the Beatles' Help! for the award for "Best Vocal Group Performance," a fact that's used to damn the record industry for its ignorance and perfidy. While the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Temptations, the Beach Boys, and others were at the top of the pop charts, the Grammy electorate preferred to recognize a group of thirty year-olds with mortgages.
It's true that she played a significant role in the development of the "countrypolitan" style, which has taken its share of critical hits since the 1960s. But at the same time, she cooked up some of the tastiest and most imaginative treats to be found in 60s mainstream pop. Scattered through her albums you find such gems as the loopy vocal version of "The Pink Panther Theme" on We Dig Mancini or Larry Clinton's "Satan Takes a Holiday" on The Further Adventures of the Mexicali Singers, or the stunningly beautiful "Windows of the World" on The Anita Kerr Singer Reflect on the Hits of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
After successes in Nashville and Hollywood, she moved to Switzerland and began over a decade of work that alternated
between pop albums for the European market and devotional albums for Word, the U.S.'s largest Christian label. Clearly, this is a woman whose capacity for making and carrying through with her own professional and creative choices deserves considerably more recognition than she's received.
Born to Italian immigrant parents, Kerr got a head start in show business from her mother, an accomplished contralto, who had a weekly 15-minute radio show in Memphis. She began taking piano lessons by the age of 4 and was soon appearing on her mother's show. By her mid-teens, she was, in effect, the station's musical director.
She moved to Nashville 1949 and formed a five-person vocal group. Although it was purely for pleasure, the group and Kerr soon attracted the attention of some of the biggest names in country music.
By then, Kerr's quartet had come to consist of herself as soprano, Dottie Dillard (alto), Louis Nunley (baritone), and Gil Wright (tenor). Although the Quartet recorded on its own as well as as back-up, they also cut a number of tracks under other names.
As the Little Dippers, they reached the Top 40 briefly with the single, "Forever," in 1960, and as Anita & th'So-And-Sos, they
had another minor hit with "Joey Baby." Kerr also worked for RCA's budget label, Camden, and its lead executive, Ethel Gabriel,
on a series of Living Voices albums, arranging and producing her quartet, with four additional voices, on a choral follow-up to
Camden's break-through Living Strings albums.
As the Nashville Sound took off, the Quartet began to record more steadily on its own. They switched labels from Decca to RCA
and expanded their material from country to current pop fare like "The Girl from Ipanema." and their album of Mancini's tunes
Soon after the Mancini album, though, she disbanded the Quartet, quit RCA, and headed for Hollywood and new musical territory.
Her Warner Brothers records show her at her most experimental. Slightly Baroque blends Ward Swingle's phenomenally successful Swingle Singers interpretations of the works of Bach, Mozart, and other classical composers and the cool bossa nova vocals of Astrud Gilberto. Even though she'd left RCA as a lead performer, she continued to work for them on the Living Voices series, producing five more while in Hollywood.
Krr's last pop switch came in 1969, when she moved to Dot, a label dominated by Lawrence Welk and Billy Vaughn.
She embraced the soft sophistication exemplified by the work of Burt Bacharach--whose songs were featured on her third songwriter tribute album. These albums move back into safer territory, but not so far as to become audio tranquilizers, and a few cuts rank as the definitive interpretations, in my opinion -"Are You There with Another Girl," for example. The group won an Edison Award (the European equivalent to the Grammy) in 1970 for their acapella rendition of "A House is Not a Home" from the Bacharach album.
So we end up with the question: What to make of Anita Kerr? There can be no denying there are critics who wish she'd laid out on a few sessions and allowed the real, unpolished music to be heard. On the other hand, her string of successes in a variety of styles is no accident: this is one of the most talented and professionally accomplished women in the history of popular music. She is respected and admired by the toughest (and perhaps, most reliable) critics of all--her fellow performers. "I'd cross the desert to record with her again," Rod McKuen has written, and the Manhattan Transfer has mentioned her in the same breath as Ella Fitzgerald as one of their key influences.
What to make of Anita Kerr? I say the only proper thing to do is celebrate this remarkable musician: We Dig Anita Kerr!
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Comentários: Confesso que não sou grande apreciador de coletâneas.
Minha real intençao era postar "We dig Mancini" ou "Anita Kerr sings Burt Bacharach."
Alguns empecilhos que estou contornando, não me permitiram postá-los hoje.
Mas desejava prestar uma homenagem à grande Anita Kerr, a "landmark", um monstro sagrado na música vocal e coral.
Até aqui temos privilegiado conjuntos vocais de diversos e variados estilos, e achei que já era hora de priviligegiar
o sempre relaxante som de um coral..
Apesar de não ser o melhor disco de Anita Kerr e seus cantores, o repertório é luxuoso, misturando Mancini, Bacharach, Hoagy Carmichael, Beatles, etc. músicas muito bem arranjadas por Anita Kerr para o coral e orquestra.
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ANITA KERR SINGERS - THE VERY BEST OF
COMPONENTES (*)
Anita Kerr
Bob Tebowy
Gene Merlino
B.J. Baker
Bill Lee
Dottie Dillard
Louis Nunley
Gil Wright
(*) Como as gravações são de albuns diversos, é impossivel precisar exatamente os cantores.
Todavia os vocalistas mencionados sem dúvida, cantam, ainda que alternadamente, neste disco.
TRACKS - FAIXAS:
1. A swinging saffari
2. Fool on the hill
3. What's new pussicat
4. The world we knew
5. The look of love
6. It's not unnusual
7. Strangers in the night
8. A house is not a home
9. Don't make me over
10.Baby elephant walk
11.Happiness
12.I say a little prayer
13.Wonderland by night
14.Bye Bye theme from Peter Gunn
15.Obladi - oblada
16.Pink panther theme
17.Georgia on my mind
18.Walk on by
19.My love
20.What the world needs now is love
21.Love
22.Alfie
23.Spanish eyes
24.You've made me so very happy
25.Goodbye
26.Mr. Lucky
27.Do you know the way to San Jose
DOWNLOAD :
AQUI
