Guy Mitchell

Guy Mitchell (real name Albert Georg Cernik ; born February 22, 1927 in Detroit , † July 1, 1999 in Las Vegas ) was an American pop singer and film actor . He achieved five number one titles in the charts in the United States and Great Britain in the 1950s .

Life

Born under the name Albert Georg Cernik, the son of Yugoslav immigrants came into contact with the entertainment industry at an early age. At the age of eleven, his family moved to Los Angeles, where Warner Brothers hired him as a child actor. Except for occasional appearances on the local radio station KFWB , his career at that time was unsuccessful and the family moved on to San Francisco . After leaving school, he worked for a saddler near the San Joaquin Valley and sang as often as he could with a country band. From 1944 he did two years of military service in the United States Navy , but no longer had to go to war .

Career

Back in civilian life, from 1946 to 1947 Cernik was a singer in the big band of Carmen Cavallaro , with whom he was also involved in some recordings for Decca Records in 1947 . Soon afterwards he moved to New York , published a few songs on the small King label under the pseudonym Al Grant and in 1950 won the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts competition, moderated by Arthur Godfrey . There he was discovered by Mitch Miller from Columbia Records , who hired the young man and gave him the stage name Guy Mitchell - allegedly on the grounds that "My name is Mitchell and you seem a nice guy, so we'll call you Guy Mitchell."

As early as 1951 he had his first big success (about 2 million singles sold) with My Heart Cries for You , which was the first of a series of hits with over a million copies sold. It was followed by other successes such as "The Roving Kind (1951), My Truly Truly Fair (1952), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1952), She Wears Red Feathers , Rock-a-Billy (both No. 1 in Great Britain) and his greatest success on both sides of the Atlantic , Singing the Blues (written by Melvin Endsley ), which was at the top of the US charts for eight weeks from late 1956 to early 1957, again brought Mitchell's No. 1 hit in Great Britain and even a Bravo - Annual charts was voted into the top 10 in 1957. He had his last million dollar hit in 1959, with the Heartaches by the Number written by Harlan Howard , which in the cover version of Peter Alexander under the title I count my worries every day was a great success in Germany too has been.

Although he was quite a typical representative of the "white entertainment mainstream" of the 1950s, many of his songs were characterized by a rocky , brisk rhythm (for example with Rock-a-Billy ) or they were swinging (for example, quite unexpectedly of the title, in Singing the Blues ). In 1952 and 1956 he toured England, where he was at least as popular as in the United States, and returned there a decade later and again several times from the 1970s. In the British charts he had four number 1 hits (in addition to the aforementioned Look at that Girl ), he reached number 2 there three times ( Feet Up , Pretty Little Black Eyed Susie and Cloud Lucky Seven ) and stood with four other titles in the top ten ( Chicka Boom , Cuff of My Shirt , A Dime and a Dollar and Knee Deep in the Blues ); between 1952 and 1960, his records were listed in the New Musical Express's Top Twenty for a total of 164 weeks .

From March 6, 1957 to January 13, 1958, Mitchell hosted "The Guy Mitchell Show," a weekly television show in which various music and sketch demonstrations were shown. During the 1950s he was also repeatedly seen in movies, mostly comedies or westerns , among others on the side of Rosemary Clooney . He made his film debut in 1953 in the 3D film "Those Redheads from Seattle" , in which he sang the Johnny Mercer song I Guess It Was You All the Time alongside Teresa Brewer . 1954 followed a role in the Western Red Garters .

Musically, his most successful period ended in 1962 when Columbia Records fired him because his style of music went out of fashion. The new generation of music consumers in the USA and Great Britain were interested in rhythm and blues , beat music , doo-wop and soul , but hardly any more in the music of someone in their mid-thirties, who for them often embodied the "sappy 50s". In the following years he still published songs with record companies such as Reprise Records and Starday , but it was not possible for him to tie in with the success of the 1950s. In addition, illness and alcoholism also dampened his career . Mitchell continued to perform in the UK and Australia for the next two decades, and he starred in the 1990 dramedy series Your Cheatin 'Heart .

Overall, Guy Mitchell, who from the mid-1960s concentrated entirely on C&W songs and once again achieved significant sales with his LP Traveling Shoes , released in 1967 , is said to have sold around 40 million records worldwide. One of the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame bears his name.

After his career, Guy Mitchell lived in Las Vegas with his wife Betty ; There he died at the age of 72 after an operation.

Discography

Albums (USA)

• 1952: Songs of the Open Spaces
• 1954: Red Garters
• 1958: A Guy in Love
• 1958: Guy's Greatest Hits
• 1959: Sincerely Yours (includes his early recordings on King Records)
• 1960: Sunshine Guitar
• 1967: Traveling Shoes
• 1968: Singin 'up a Storm

Albums (GB)

• 1954: Guy Mitchell Sings
• 1955: Voice of Your Choice
• 1958: A Guy in Love
• 1958: Showcase of Hits
• 1961: Sunshine Guitar
• 1966: The Best of Guy Mitchell
• 1968: Traveling Shoes

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		DE	UK	US
1952	Feet Up	-	UK2 (10 weeks) UK	-
1953	She Wears Red Feathers	-	UK1 (16 weeks) UK	-
	Pretty Little Black Eyed Susie	-	UK2 (11 weeks) UK	-
	Look at that girl	-	UK1 (14 weeks) UK	-
	Chicka boom	-	UK4 (15 weeks) UK	-
	Cloud Lucky Seven	-	UK2 (16 weeks) UK	-
1954	The Cuff Of My Shirt	-	UK9 (3 weeks) UK	-
	Sippin 'soda	-	UK11 (1 week) UK	-
	A Dime And A Dollar	-	UK8 (5 weeks) UK	-
1956	Ninety Nine Years (Dead Or Alive)	-	-	US23 (11 weeks) US
	Singing the blues	DE3 (20 weeks) DE	UK1 (22 weeks) UK	US1 (26 weeks) US
	Crazy With Love	-	-	US53 (14 weeks) US
1957	Knee Deep In The Blues	-	UK3 (12 weeks) UK	US16 (12 weeks) US
	Take me back baby	-	-	US47 (7 weeks) US
	Rock-A-Billy	-	UK1 (14 weeks) UK	US13 (17 weeks) US
	Sweet stuff	-	UK25 (4 weeks) UK	US83 (1 week) US
	Call Rosie On The Phone	-	UK17 (6 weeks) UK	-
1969	Heartaches By The Number	DE2 (24 weeks) DE	UK5 (16 weeks) UK	US1 (20 weeks) US
1960	The Same Old Me	-	-	US51 (6 weeks) US
	My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You	-	-	US45 (10 weeks) US

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More singles

• 1951: My Heart Cries for You
• 1951: My Truly Truly Fair
• 1951: Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle
• 1951: Sparrow in the Tree Top
• 1951: The Roving Kind
• 1951: Unless
• 1952: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 1960: Same Old Me

Filmography

• Those Redheads from Seattle (1953, Paramount)
• Red Garters (1954, Paramount)
• Mirth and Melody (1956, Universal)
• The Young Guns (1956, Allied Artists)
• Alias ​​Jesse James (1959, United Artists)
• The Wild Westerners (1962, Columbia)

literature

• Lee Stacy; Lol Henderson: "Guy Mitchell" by Terry Atkinson . In: Encyclopedia of music in the 20th century . 1st edition. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxfordshire) 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-92953-4 , pp. 419 .

Web links

• Guy Mitchell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Guy Mitchell Appreciation Society's informational site
• Guy Mitchell Trust website with short music quotes
• Page with newspaper articles on the occasion of Mitchell's death
• Biography
• Guy Mitchell at Rock'n'Roll-AG

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Lee Stacy; Lol Henderson: "Guy Mitchell" by Terry Atkinson . In: Encyclopedia of music in the 20th century . 1st edition. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxfordshire) 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-92953-4 , pp. 419 .
2. ↑ James Kaplan: Frank: The Voice . 1st edition. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-385-53364-5 , pp. 476 .
3. ↑ Guy Mitchell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
4. ↑ Vincent Terrace: Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010; Volume 1 . 2nd Edition. McFarland, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-6477-7 , pp. 424 .
5. ↑ Chart sources: DE UK US