Howdy folks,

Today, my favorite music group ever (also discovered via the Mafia game). With more hits over a larger span of time than any other group, this group sang jazz and pop, made over 2,000 recordings, and sold more than 50 million records. Drumroll please… they’re The Mills Brothers.

Try to wrap your mind around this: the four brothers started singing together in 1922. Their first big hit, Tiger Rag (first recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917), was recorded in 1931. Their LAST great hit was in 1968! Holy cow! (Think of the changes in music over the past 37 years… times three.)

Brother John Mills, Jr. died in 1934 and was replaced by their father for 20 years and a guitarist. When Dad retired, they sang as a trio until 1982, and front-man Donald kept going with a younger relative until his death in 1999! And he pretty much always sounded awesomely mellow. Dang. (If you’re in a big rush, the first and last clips are the best quality, btw.)

Max Fleischer, who did a lot of kooky cartoons in the ’30s and featured the Mills Brothers in their first film appearance. Check out the groovy TV… pretty high tech for 1932, eh? This includes a modified version of “I Ain’t Got Nobody” (that song Igor parodied in Young Frankenstein) and also part of “Tiger Rag”. They feature some great ‘brass-less’ brass solos, a trademark of theirs, and some pretty crazy scat.

The rest of these clips don’t do them justice, I’ll be honest. The recordings are either very poor (YouTube) quality or some of the live recordings have bands which drown out their great harmonies (and most are not from their early years). But oh well, take that for what it’s worth…
Here is their famous rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan”, which they happen to do as an instrumental. (Dad had joined them at this point)

Here is another great early hit of theirs, “Till Then”. Donald’s voice is like velvet in this clip. The only problem? Harry (their other soloist) was drafted for a year and the random guy filling in, Gene Smith, doesn’t sound like him at all! It was actually really hard for me to find that information and when I finally did a few months ago I added it to their wikipedia entry:

This is a song by one of my favorite composers, Hoagy Carmichael. This is Up the Lazy River (NOT the Old Mill Stream… another standard erroneously named here). Hoagy also wrote Heart and Soul (not just the part you know) and the most recorded song ever, Star Dust. (For a very mediocre rendition, you can hear me play it at this page.) Unfortunately they are missing Harry again so his nice solo work goes to poor Gene, looking awkwardly ectopic once again.

Great clip from Lawrence Welk’s show, 1964.
“Paper Doll” is one of their all-time big hits.
“That’s the thing that makes the show business”. Thanks Lawrence… whatever the heck that means.

More: Yellow Bird, 1971

I try to keep these clean, but if you want to see an interesting movie fight montage (with some initial expletives from Fight Club) set to a great Mills Bros. song, click THIS.

And that’s it for today. So put away that Oingo Boingo for a minute and pick up a Mills Brothers album. Their actual recordings are way better than any YouTube clips folks.

Be seeing you!
.:re:.