Mitch Miller, 99; led TV sing-along

NEW YORK - Mitch Miller, 99, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to "sing along with Mitch" on television and records, has died.

His daughter, Margaret Miller Reuther, said Monday that Mr. Miller died Saturday at Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness.

Mr. Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the pre-rock era, making hits with singers Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, and Tony Bennett.

Sing Along With Mitch began as a series of records, then became a popular NBC show starting in early 1961. Mr. Miller's stiff-armed conducting style and signature goatee became famous.

As a producer and arranger, Mr. Miller had misses along with his hits, famously striking out on projects with Frank Sinatra and a young Aretha Franklin.

The TV show ranked in the top 20 for the 1961-62 season, and soon children everywhere were parodying Mr. Miller's conducting. An all-male chorus sang old standards, joined by a few female singers, most prominently Leslie Uggams. Viewers were invited to join in with lyrics superimposed on the screen and followed with a bouncing ball.

An accomplished oboist, Mr. Miller played in a number of orchestras early in his career, including one put together in 1934 by George Gershwin.

Mr. Miller began in the recording business with Mercury Records in the late '40s, first on the classical side, later with popular music. He then went over to Columbia Records as head of its popular-records division.

Among the stars whose hits he worked on were Clooney, Page, Bennett, Frankie Laine, and Jo Stafford. His decision to have Mathis switch from jazz to lushly romantic ballads launched the singer as a superstar.

He had a less rewarding collaboration with Sinatra, whose recording of the novelty song "Mama Will Bark," featuring a barking dog, was considered the nadir of the singer's career.

Mr. Miller and a chorus had a No. 1 hit in 1955 with "The Yellow Rose of Texas," and that led to his sing-along records a few years later.

The years of Mr. Miller's biggest successes were also the early years of rock, and many fans saw his old-fashioned arrangements of standards and folk favorites as an antidote to the noisy stuff the teens adored. As an executive at Columbia, Mr. Miller would be widely ridiculed for trying to turn a young Franklin into a showbiz diva in the tradition of Sophie Tucker.

In recent years, Mr. Miller returned to his classical roots, appearing frequently as a guest conductor with symphony orchestras.

In 2000, he won a special Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.

Reuther said her father died of "just old age."

Mr. Miller was born in 1911, in Rochester, N.Y., son of a Russian Jewish immigrant wrought-iron worker and a seamstress. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.

Reuther said there would be a memorial service for her father in the fall.