Leslie Thompson Baxter was an American musician, composer and conductor. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica and scored over 250 radio, television and motion pictures numbers.
Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, including "Strangers in the Night", “Danke Schoen” and "Moon Over Naples".
Percy Faith was a Canadian–American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of instrumental ballads and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format. He became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Although his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the swing era, he refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s.
MFSB, officially standing for "Mother Father Sister Brother", was a pool of more than 30 studio musicians based at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios. They worked closely with the production team of Gamble and Huff and producer/arranger Thom Bell, and backed up Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the O'Jays, the Stylistics, the Spinners, Wilson Pickett, and Billy Paul.
Paul Julien André Mauriat was a French orchestra leader, conductor of Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat, who specialized in the easy listening genre. He is best known in the United States for his million-selling remake of André Popp's "Love is Blue", which was number 1 for 5 weeks in 1968. Other recordings for which he is known include "El Bimbo", "Toccata", "Love in Every Room/Même si tu revenais", and "Penelope". He co-wrote the song Chariot with Franck Pourcel. Pourcel and Mauriat.
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani was an Anglo-Italian conductor, composer and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature.
Hugo Mario Montenegro was an American orchestra leader and composer of film soundtracks. His best-known work is interpretations of the music from Spaghetti Westerns, especially his cover version of Ennio Morricone's main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He composed the score for the 1969 Western Charro!, which starred Elvis Presley.
"Music! Music! Music! " is a popular song written by Stephen Weiss and Bernie Baum and published in 1950.
Vincent Montana Jr., known as Vince Montana, was an American composer, arranger, vibraphonist, and percussionist. He is best known as a member of MFSB and as the founder of the Salsoul Orchestra. He has been called "the Godfather of disco". Montana was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016.
Anthony C. "Tony" Mottola was an American jazz guitarist who released dozens of solo albums. Mottola was born in Kearny, New Jersey and died in Denville.
Claus Ogerman was a German arranger, conductor, and composer best known for his work with Billie Holiday, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Michael Brecker, and Diana Krall.
Anita Jean Kerr was an American singer, arranger, composer, conductor, pianist, and music producer. She recorded and performed with her vocal harmony groups in Nashville, Los Angeles, and Europe.
Ferrante & Teicher were a duo of American pianists known for their clever arrangements of familiar classical pieces, movie soundtracks, and show tunes, as well as their signature style of florid, intricate, and fast-paced piano playing performances.
Raymond Lefèvre was a French easy listening orchestra leader, arranger and composer.
The following is the discography for big band and traditional pop arranger Nelson Riddle (1921–1985).
Jerald Edward Kolbrak, known professionally as Jerry Cole, was an American guitarist who recorded under his own name, under various budget album pseudonyms and as an uncredited session musician.
RCA Camden was a budget record label launched by RCA Victor in 1955. Initially a classical label, it later expanded to include re-releases of older pop records, including those of Elvis Presley.
Gene Orloff was an American violinist, concertmaster, arranger, contractor and session musician.
The Mystic Moods Orchestra was a group known for mixing orchestral pop, environmental sounds, and pioneering recording techniques. It was created by audiophile Brad Miller. The first Mystic Moods Orchestra album, One Stormy Night, was released in 1966 through the label Philips. Throughout the rest of the 1960s and 1970s, the group continued to release similar styled recordings and their recordings continued to be reissued throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Exploito is a term generally given to describe cover version or sound-alike recordings that capitalize on the official recordings of artists. Typically they are of the budget release type of album. Often the buying public would think they are buying an album by the actual artist.
