Kind Mooney
Art Mooney (born February 14, 1911 in Brooklyn , † 1993 in Florida ) was an American singer and big band leader in the field of swing and popular music .
Art Mooney had his own band in Detroit in the 1930s , which performed in the Vanity Ballroom Building and was popular in the Midwest . When he joined the US Army in the early 1940s, he disbanded the band and reactivated it in 1945, initially as a swing band with Neal Hefti as arranger. Mooney was then particularly successful as a singer of well-known titles during this time, when he gave the style of his orchestra an old-time character by means of the banjo player Mike Pingatore ; one of his greatest hits, which he recorded for the MGM label from 1946 , was "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" in 1948. The title was an early number from 1927 written by Mort Dixon and Harry MacGregor Woods . With Eubie Blake's "Memories of You" on the back, this '78 single was a number one hit in the US for a month .
Other successful titles were "Baby Face" and "Nuttin 'for Christmas" (1955) with Barry Gordon ; his track "Silver Dollar" was two weeks in 1951 at # 1 on the
Australian charts ; "Honey-Babe" was used in the feature film Battle Cry and in 1955 it made it into the top 10 in the USA.
Joe Gallivan , Bobby Levine , Gene Quill , Sonny Russo , among others, played in his band after 1945 . Band singers were Dean Martin , Fran Warren and Jane Morgan .
In the 1950s, Art Mooney played himself in David Miller's film The Opposite Sex . He also worked on the score for the James Dean films Beyond Eden , ... Because They Don't Know What They're Doing (1955) and Giants (1956) with. Mooney continued to record for MGM in the 50s, as well as several picture discs for Detroit label Vogue ; in the 1960s he moved to Decca Records , later to RCA Victor . Art Mooney then ran a restaurant in Massachusetts , performed in Las Vegas clubs, and toured sporadically in the 1970s. In the 1980s he directed the Guy Lombardo Orchestra. He died in 1993 at the age of 82.
Art Mooney was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .
Discographic notes
- Greatest Hits and More (Sepia)
literature
- Leo Walker: The Big Band Almanac. Ward Ritchie Press, Pasadena, 1978.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mooney, Art |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mooney, Arthur (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American singer and big band leader |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brooklyn , New York , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1993 |
| Place of death | Florida , USA |