Hugo Winterhalter
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Hugo Winterhalter (August 15, 1909 – September 17, 1973) was an American
easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit s ...
arranger and composer, best known for his many arrangements and recordings for
RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...
.


Biography

Hugo Ferdinand Winterhalter was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, on August 15, 1909, to Hugo Winterhalter and Mary Gallagher, both second generation German-Americans. He graduated from Mount St. Mary's in
Emmitsburg, Maryland Emmitsburg is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, south of the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania. Founded in 1785, Emmitsburg is the home of Mount St. Mary's University. The town has two Catholic pilgrim ...
, in 1931, where he played saxophone for the orchestra and sang in two of the choirs. He later studied violin and reed
instruments Instrument may refer to: Science and technology * Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft * Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific lab ...
at the New England Conservatory of Music. After graduating, he taught school for several years before turning professional during the mid-1930s, serving as a
sideman A sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform live with a solo artist, or with a group in which they are not a regular band member. The term is usually used to describe musicians that play with jazz or rock artists, whether solo o ...
and arranger for
Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
,
Tommy Dorsey Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombone, trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-to ...
,
Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early ...
, Claude Thornhill and others. Winterhalter also arranged and conducted sessions for singers including
Dinah Shore Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, television personality, and the chart-topping female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the ...
and
Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously a ...
, and in 1948 he was named musical director at
MGM Records MGM Records was a record label founded by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack recordings (later LP albums) of their musical films. It transitioned into a pop music label that continued into the ...
. After two years with the label, he joined
Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...
, where he scored a pair of hits with his recordings of " Jealous Heart" and " Blue Christmas". In 1950, Winterhalter moved to
RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...
, where he arranged sessions for most of the label's pop recording artists of the era including
Perry Como Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (; May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an American singer, actor, and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, from 1943 until 1987 ...
,
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte ( ; born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor, and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte ...
,
Eddie Fisher Edwin Jack Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010) was an American singer and actor. He was one of the most popular artists during the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show, '' The Eddie Fisher Show''. Actress E ...
, Jaye P. Morgan,
Eartha Kitt Eartha Mae Kitt (née Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress. She was known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby" ...
and the
Ames Brothers The Ames Brothers were an American singing quartet, consisting of four siblings from Malden, Massachusetts, who were particularly famous in the 1950s for their traditional pop hits. Biography The Urick brothers were born in Malden, Massachus ...
. He also recorded several
instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
albums, among them 1952's ''Great Music Themes of Television'', believed to be the first collection of TV
theme song Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at ...
s ever recorded. Winterhalter also notched a series of
chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...
hits, including " Mr. Touchdown, U.S.A.", " A Kiss to Build a Dream On", " Blue Tango", "Vanessa", "
The Little Shoemaker The Little Shoemaker" is a popular song based on the French song, "Le petit cordonnier", by Rudi Revil. The original French lyric was written by Francis Lemarque (page in French). The English language lyrics were written by Geoffrey Claremont ...
", and "Song of '' The Barefoot Contessa''". With pianist
Eddie Heywood Edward Heywood Jr. (December 4, 1915 – January 3, 1989) was an American jazz pianist and composer particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s. Biography Heywood was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was a ...
, he had a minor hit with "Land of Dreams" in 1954 and reached the number one spot on
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with " Canadian Sunset" in 1956. The record sold over one million copies, and was awarded a
gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
by the
RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
. Winterhalter penned the main title theme for the film, '' Diamond Head'' (1962). His other motion picture credits include work as conductor and arranger for
Eddie Fisher Edwin Jack Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010) was an American singer and actor. He was one of the most popular artists during the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show, '' The Eddie Fisher Show''. Actress E ...
and
Debbie Reynolds Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds (April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer and entrepreneur. Her acting career spanned almost 70 years. Reynolds performed on stage and television and in films into her 80s. She was nom ...
in the 1956 musical comedy, '' Bundle of Joy,'' and orchestrator for '' Thrill of a Romance'' (1945) and ''
Meet the People ''Meet the People'' (1944) is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical comedy film made, and set, during World War II, and starring Lucille Ball and Dick Powell and featuring Virginia O'Brien, Bert Lahr, Rags Ragland and June Allyson. The film takes its ...
'' (1944). Winterhalter remained with RCA Victor until 1963, at which time he moved to Kapp. Winterhalter recorded a handful of albums for Kapp including ''The Best of '64'' and its follow-up, ''The Big Hits of 1965'', before leaving the label to work on Broadway. He later worked in television and continued recording the occasional LP for various budget labels. Winterhalter's last US chart single was "Theme From 'Popi'", released by Musicor in 1969. It reached #35 in the Billboard Easy Listening Top 40. Winterhalter died from cancer, in
Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich ( ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 63,518. It is the largest town on Gold Coast (Connecticut), Connectic ...
on September 17, 1973. He is interred alongside his wife at Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill, New York. Winterhalter had a son, Hugo Francis Winterhalter, who was killed in Vietnam on December 29, 1966. He was with the 169th Combat Engineer Battalion.


Musical style

The back cover of "Huge Winterhalter Goes...Continental" shares this about the conductor:
"Maestro Winterhalter uses a very large string section, a full brass section (he was, incidentally, one of the first of the big-band leaders to use such previously symphonic instruments as the French horn in popular music), a large woodwind choir, and timpani galore. Together with the distinctive Winterhalter arranging touch, this all results in a fresh and ear-filling treatment of even those tunes that are standard fare wherever pop music is played."


References


External links


Biography of Hugo Winterhalter on "The Interlude Era"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winterhalter, Hugo 1909 births 1973 deaths American people of German descent American music arrangers American easy listening musicians RCA Victor artists People from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Musicians from Pennsylvania 20th-century American musicians 20th-century American male musicians