Alan Copeland circa 1970. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Alan Copeland, the songwriter, Grammy- winning arranger and also ultra-smooth singer understood for his several years with The Modernaires and also efficiencies on Your Hit Parade and also The Red Skelton Hour, has actually passed away. He was 96.
Copeland passed awayDec 28 in a nursing home in Sonora, California, his good friend Bob Lehmann informed The Hollywood Reporter
As lately as this autumn, Copeland was still vocal singing and also playing key-boards in a quartet called Now You Hazz Jazz “It was his dream to play in a small group until the last curtain, that’s how he termed it,” claimed Lehmann, the drummer.
Copeland created or co-wrote tunes consisting of “Make Love to Me”– Jo Stafford’s variation made it toNo 1 on the Billboard graph in 1954– “Too Young to Know,” “High Society,” “This Must Be the Place, “Darling, Darling, Darling” and also “While the Vesper Bells Were Ringing.”
After taking preparing lessons from Henry Mancini, he organized vocals for huge bands and also the similarity Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Bing Crosby, Jim Nabors, Count Basie, Engelbert Humperdinck, Peter Marshall and also Steve Lawrence & & Eydie Gorme.
In 1968, Copeland won a Grammy for ideal modern pop efficiency by a carolers for combining the motif from CBS’ Mission: Impossible with The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” (Listen to the collection here)
Known for incorporating musicality with wit, as kept in mind jazz doubter Stanley Dance when placed it, Copeland likewise invested numerous years in the 1960s on Skelton’s CBS range program with The Modernaires, that would certainly change right into The Skel- tones and alsoThe Alan Copeland Singers
Copeland, that passed the label Weaver, was birthed in Los Angeles onOct 6, 1926. As a participant of the Robert Mitchell Boy Choir, he sang in such legendary movies as Angels With Dirty Faces ( 1938 ), The Hunchback of Notre Dame ( 1939 ), Foreign Correspondent ( 1940 ), Meet John Doe ( 1941 ), Yankee Doodle Dandy ( 1942) and also Going My Way ( 1944 ).
After offering with the U.S. Navy, Copeland began his very own singing team, The Twin Tones, a highlighted destination with Jan Garber’s band.
He signed up with The Modernaires for the very first time in 1948, and also quickly, the team was carrying out together with The Andrews Sisters and also Dick Haymes on a five-nights-a-week radio range program organized by singer/bandleader Bob Crosby (Bing’s bro). The reveal after that segued to tv.
Copeland showed up with the team in The Glenn Miller Story ( 1954 ), starring Jimmy Stewart, after that entrusted to carry out solo on the prominent NBC/CBS program Your Hit Parade from 1957 up until it left the air in 1959.
He rejoined The Modernaires and also did plans and also included verses to such standards as “In the Mood” and also “Tuxedo Junction” for the 1960 cd The Modernaires Sing theGreat Glenn Miller Instrumentals They discovered even more success 4 years later on with New Top Hits in the Glenn Miller Style, a cd that included vocalist Tex Beneke.
Copeland organized and also carried out for Nabors’ 1966 hit “Cuando Calienta el Sol” and also sang on Universal Pictures’ Thoroughly Modern Millie ( 1967 ), starring Mary Tyler Moore and also Carol Channing And he acted as choral manager on Blake Edwards’ Darling Lili ( 1970 ), starring Julie Andrews and also Rock Hudson, and also on Bing Crosby- organized Christmas specials for 20 years.
Copeland looked like a participant of the band assembled by Tony Randall’s Felix Unger on 2 1974 episodes of ABC’s The Odd Couple and also was back, yet once again, with The Modernaires in the 1990s.
He likewise teamed up with his late partner, Joyce, a singer likewise called Mahmu Pearl, on numerous cds.
His narrative, Jukebox Saturday Nights, was released in 2007.
This write-up initially showed up on The Hollywood Reporter.
Source: billboard.com
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