All The Vocal Groups From Television, Cartoons, Radio, Movies, And Film - THE UNIQUE VOCAL MUSIC BLOG

 

This is not my church choir
but they look quite nice

I was always fascinated with music since my childhood. This was especially true with vocal music long before I learned to play guitar. I joined the children’s choir at my church. We had a great vocal music program in the school I attended. I later joined a church choir, and even took voice lessons. 

This is why as of today I am changing this blog’s theme to:

  THE UNIQUE VOCAL MUSIC BLOG 

I find that participation in a vocal music group can be fun, and a comfort to those that don’t want to stand out in the crowd. It is also wonderful to join in the blending of voices by harmonization. 

The TM Studios Jingle Singers 

Throughout my life I always wondered about those amazing folks that sang the vocals for movies, television themes, and even commercials. And what about those short little jingles that reminded us which radio or television station we were listening to.

I found out in the United States there were only a handful of professional choral groups that were hired for this purpose. 

Perhaps the most famous, and most heard were The Ron Hinklin Singers.

The Ron Hinklin Singers

The Ron Hicklin Singers were a group of Los Angeles studio singers contracted and organized by, who else but Ron Hicklin! In Los Angeles studio circles in the 1960s through 1980s,  

They were the vocal equivalent of and they often worked with  the Los Angeles session instrumentalists known as The Wrecking Crew, by performing backup vocals on thousands of songs, TV and movie themes, and as lead (while remaining anonymous) singers on thousands of radio and television commercials. 

The Ron Hinklin Singers

The Core Group usually consisted of Ron Hicklin, lead tenor, Tom Bahler, tenor, John Bahler, tenor, Jackie Ward, alto, Sally Stevens, soprano, Gene Morford, bass. 

Thurl Ravenscroft

However, this core group was often augmented with other specialist vocalists such as the deep bass voice of Thurl Ravenscroft, who provided the voice of Kellogg's Tony the Tiger of Frosted Flakes cereal for 50 years, and the vocalist for "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch"!). Also Mitch Gordon, Jim Haas, Andra Willis, and Linda Dangcil. 

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid 

This group performed themes for many major motion pictures in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. These included the song South American Getaway, written by Burt Bacharach for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Dear Old Dad, for the movie Death Game, 

They also sang a song called Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us written by William Batchelder Bradbury for the movie Mosquito Coast and the music for Rosemary’s Baby. 

Flipper the TV Show

The Ron Hinklin Singers also sang the theme songs for such major TV shows as Love, American Style, with lead vocalist John Bahler, Batman, Flipper, That Girl, Happy Days, for which Hicklin himself sang lead, Laverne & Shirley, along with lead vocalist Cyndi Grecco, Wonder Woman, with John Bahler singing lead, and Angie, along with lead vocalist Maureen McGovern. 

They also sang many commercial vocals, including campaigns for Kawasaki ("Kawasaki, let the good times roll"), Datsun ("Drive a Datsun, then Decide") and the McDonald's commercial ("You Deserve a Break Today"). 

Ron Hinklin Directing The Group 

I am sure you have heard many, many radio and television jingle such as “1360 WSAI” or whatever station you listened to. That was the Ron Hinklin Singers doing those short jingle packages for the last four decades. 

The group also sang on recordings that were credited to such artists as The Brady Kids aka The Brady Bunch, Cher ("Dark Lady"), the band Climax featuring Sonny Geraci. They were featured on recording attributed to The Ray Conniff Singers, The Percy Faith Orchestra and Chorus, The Anita Kerr Singers Jackie Ward sang alto on the group's Dot Records recordings which were usually done in Nashville. 

They also provided backing vocals for Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Mark Lindsay ("Arizona"), The Henry Mancini Orchestra and Chorus, The Monkees ("I'm a Believer"). 

The Partridge Family

Except for Shirley Jones, and David Cassidy, the Ron Hinklin Singer were essentially the voice on The Partridge Family songs. 

They backed up Gary Puckett & The Union Gap. Paul Revere & the Raiders, Ringo Starr ("Oh My My"), even Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps on the 1959 Crazy Times album. 

Without the entire group, The Bahler Brothers can be heard performing tenor harmonies on: Hugo Montenegro's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme. Jimmy Webb’s "MacArthur Park", "Suicide Is Painless", Johnny Mandel's theme to the 1970 film M*A*S*H. Member Jackie Ward also had a hit on her own as Robin Ward with the 1963 hit "Wonderful Summer". 

Hoyt Curtin

Of course those of us that are my age grew up watching cartoon shows produced by Hanna-Barbera, such as Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and many others. These theme songs were written by one man named Hoyt Curtin, who had been previously employed writing music for companies, and trade show. The vocal ensemble hired to perform was The Randy Van Horne Singers. 

Randy Van Horne Singers

Randy Van Horne's career began in the late 1940s as a Los Angeles studio musician. He formed his first musical group, the Encores, in the early 1950s with three other musicians. After The Encores broke up in the late 1950s he went on to create the Randy Van Horne Singers. The group was known for its easy style of music and remained predominantly a studio musical group. 

However, the Randy Van Horne Singers did make occasional television performances, such as on The Nat King Cole Show in 1957. 

The Randy Van Horne Singers

The group became most famous for recording the theme songs for several high-profile Hanna-Barbera cartoons when they were hired by Hanna-Barbera's music composer, Hoyt Curtin, to complete the theme songs. 

Aside from this the group also continued to record for commercials and radio station spots and jingles. Many of the jingles were actually written by Randy Van Horne. 

The Randy Van Horne Singers

The Randy Van Horne Singers officially disbanded in the early 1970s but Van Horne reunited the group after 2000 with many of the original members. They are currently led by Alan Wilson since 2018. 

The Anita Kerr Singers

The Anita Kerr Singers or The Jordanaires sang background on just about every Nashville hit in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The group contributed backup vocals on Patsy Cline's first studio album. 

A few years later, Kerr and her singers performed five times a week with Jim Reeves on his national radio program at WSM. The quartet's roster at this time featured tenor Gil Wright, baritone Louis Nunley, alto Dottie Dillard, and Kerr herself as both soprano and arranger. Singers and arranger soon began hiring the group to contribute to between twelve and eighteen recording sessions weekly. 

The Anita Kerr Singers

The Anita Kerr singer  backed Faron Young, Chet Atkins, and Webb Pierce on SESAC radio transcription sessions,. They were invited to record their own songs for SESAC. Between 1959 and 1963, the group recorded sixty SESAC tracks. 

In 1960, under the pseudonym "The Little Dippers," they recorded a hit single, "Forever", for the University label. Crediting herself as "Anita & Th' So-And-So's," 

Kerr multi-tracked her own voice to record the song Joey Baby, in 1961.  The Anita Kerr Singers continued to perform as backup singers in Nashville and can be heard on songs by Hank Snow, Brenda Lee, Perry Como, Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Vinton, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Floyd Cramer, Al Hirt, Ann-Margret, and many other artists. 

The Anita Kerr Singers

Under her RCA contract, Kerr also arranged and produced a series of albums for The Living Voices on the RCA Camden budget label. These Living Voices recordings included the Anita Kerr Quartet, with the addition of 4 other vocalists to form an octet. 

In 1964, together with Chet Atkins, Bobby Bare and Jim Reeves, the Anita Kerr Singers toured Europe. In the 1960s, Kerr composed and recorded numerous jingles for use by various American radio stations, including: Gene Autry's KMPC AM-710 in Los Angeles, California; WMCA AM-770 in New York City; WLS AM-890 in Chicago and at WGH AM-1310 in Newport News, Virginia.

After divorcing, Anita Kerr disbanded the Nashville version of her Anita Kerr Singers and relocated to Los Angeles. 

So there you go! And I hope you have by now realized that today is April the First.  

On April 2nd I will return to more guitar stories as The Unique Guitar Blog.

Click on the links under the pictures for sources and further information.