After five years in preparation, Carlin America, in partnership with Hal Leonard Corporation will publish the first-ever complete and definitive “Author’s Edition” of the STEPHEN SONDHEIM classic musical FOLLIES in a song selection folio that includes all 33 FOLLIES songs, a Foreword and extensive commentary by the author, and, for this collection, Mr. Sondheim's personal revisions of his original piano/vocal arrangements.  Since its 1971 Broadway World Premiere (which earned seven Tony Awards ® - including "Best Music and Lyrics" for Mr. Sondheim - and the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Musical of that year), FOLLIES continues to be recognized as among the most important and influential landmarks in Musical Theater history.  The new publication will be the first occasion all the FOLLIES songs and cut-outs from the original, major revival and the legendary 1987 London productions are combined in a single, comprehensive volume.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM, in his Author's Foreword, recalls that when the publication was suggested, "I was delighted, mostly because of the opportunity to share with musical theater enthusiasts the songs that never got on to the stage before they disapperared forever into the past (the enthusiasts as well as the songs, that is."

In announcing the long-awaited publication of the FOLLIES "Author’s Edition," folio, Bob Golden, Editorial Director and Carlin America’s Vice President of Marketing stated, "This collection is the result of an extraordinary and dedicated collaboration between two music publishing giants and STEPHEN SONDHEIM whose indelible contributions to the musical theater continue to be unparalleled and immeasurable. It is a proud privilege for all of us to make available, for the first time since this classic score was written, every FOLLIES song in a complete, distinguished and authoritative volume that finally and faithfully represents both the author’s original and subsequently current visions of the work.

In a true premier Premiere of true premieres, the PS Classics label has released the first two volumes of an extraordinary series of STEPHEN SONDHEIM songs titled Sondheim Sings featuring demonstration recordings of the legendary Musical Theater composer/lyricist singing songs that would subsequently become American Songbook classics and standards.  Produced by Maestro Sondheim’s long-time archivist Peter E. Jones, the premiere CD has an accompanying 32-page full color booklet with all the lyrics; a Foreword by Larry Gelbart, notes by Jones and production and personal photographs.

In a recent interview, producer Jones (who also conceived the series) said that Sondheim Sings utilizes the demos held in STEPHEN SONDHEIM’s private collection, and consists of the composer/lyricist singing and playing songs from such shows as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company (MARRY ME A LITTLE, Multitudes of Amys), Follies (LOSING MY MIND, BROADWAY BABY, Don’t Look at Me, Pleasant Little Kingdom) and A Little Night Music, among others, all digitally re-mastered and including cut songs and expanded, alternate or different lyrics.  (Subsequent CD releases will contain material from as far back as 1946 in addition to songs written at college and for colleagues and friends.)

Jones further stated, "Steve performs with charm and exuberance. Volume I showcases some of his best known songs as we're used to hearing them, but also there are several early versions of songs that were revised after the demos were recorded. There are cut songs as well, some of which were replaced by other songs that were replaced yet again! Some of these demos have circulated around for years in bootleg versions — a copy of a copy of a copy; I think people who've heard those will be impressed by the fidelity of these first generation recordings. And those who are hearing these for the first time can look forward to the intimate experience of 'sitting on the piano bench' next to one of Broadway's most legendary figures."     

The producer had Sondheim’s fullest cooperation and noted that some of the profits from the series will go to the songwriter’s favorite charity, the Young Playwrights Festival, which Sondheim helped to found and where he continues to be an executive board member. 

[JOHNNY BIENSTOCK (1922-2006)]:

JOHNNY BIENSTOCK died on January 20, 2006 at the age of 83 in Naples, Florida where he had a home.  A music industry veteran for almost 60 years and a major figure at Carlin America and Carlin Music for two decades, Johnny was born in Vienna, Austria on March 1, 1922, and with his younger brother Freddy (the music industry icon who founded and is now Chairman of the Carlin music publishing corporations) escaped the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938, aided by their father’s Swiss citizenship.  After arriving in the USA at the start of the World War II in 1939, Johnny joined the U.S. Army 10th Mountain division.

In 1944 JOHNNY BIENSTOCK and his brother Freddy joined their cousins, music publishing legends Jean and Julian Aberbach, and Johnny started in the sheet music era by pitching songs to the popular bandleaders of the day.  He then joined the Aberbach-launched Hill & Range Music company which signed such top country stars as Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Eddy Arnold, and, most famously, Elvis Presley. 

When the Aberbachs launched Big Top Records in 1958, Johnny was appointed general manager of the label and supervised hit singles by Del Shannon, Johnny & the Hurricanes, Sammy Turner, Don & Juan, Miss Toni Fisher, Andrea Carroll and Lou Johnson.  (Big Top producers included Leiber & Stoller and Burt Bacharach, and in 1961, Phil Spector, another Big Top staff producer who was just beginning his career, scored with Ray Peterson’s “Corrina Corrina” and Curtis Lee’s “Pretty Angel Eyes.”)  At Big Top Johnny was also among the pioneers of a new recording genre when he released a line of early comedy albums for Bill Gaines of Mad Magazine.  

After the Big Top label ended its run, JOHNNY BIENSTOCK joined Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records in 1965 where Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin were among the first signings.  When Atlantic was acquired by the Warner group, the label continued to operate its own publishing firms - Cotillion Music, Pronto Music and Walden Music - which Johnny headed for two years.  He was then invited to helm Cotillion Records and enjoyed such major successes as the #1 “Woodstock” concert soundtrack album and Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” megahit.

When he was appointed the chief of RSO Records in 1972 by Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Stigwood, Johnny helped launch the careers of Eric Clapton and Derek & the Dominos and develop the then moderately popular Bee Gees into established superstar successes.  Other significant involvements included songwriter Jim Steinman and such Steinman-produced artists as Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler and the Air Supply group.

Six years later, JOHNNY BIENSTOCK rejoined his brother Freddy after buying the Moss Rose Music country music catalog which he then integrated into Johnny Bienstock Music which was administered by Freddy Bienstock Enterprises.  Subsequently, Johnny was appointed the general manager of the famed and venerable music publishing firm E.B. Marks Music Company, now a Bienstock subsidiary, became an executive with the UK-based Carlin Production Music Library, and in 1993 was a publishing partner behind “Bat Out of Hell II,” the Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman #1 follow-up album. 

JOHNNY BIENSTOCK finally retired in 2003 after a nearly six-decade music business career.  He is survived by his wife of 15 years, Nichola; daughters Jacqueline Kates and Andrea Bienstock and his brother Freddy Bienstock.  Johnny is also survived by a stepson, Alexander McKenzie; four grandchildren, Meredith and Brian Kates and Alexandra and Rebecca Bicks and great-granddaughter Maya Kates.

In a press statement issued after Johnny's funeral, he was memorialized by his brother Freddy Bienstock in these words, "Johnny was my brother, a great music man, and a lifetime friend.  The passion he shared with everyone for his family, his many friends and the music business will always be a treasured memory for all who were privileged to know and work with him."                                           

[WILLIAM BOLCOM]:

In June, 2005, a full CD of WILLIAM BOLCOM songs performed by the celebrated soprano Carole Farley will be released world-wide on the Naxos Records label.  The disc, which has been named the Editor’s Choice for July of 2005 by Gramophone Magazine, is an eagerly-anticipated sequel to Farley’s acclaimed recital of ERNESTO LECUONA songs on BIS Records (which was the Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice of September, 2004) and the continuously phenomenal “hit record” success of the Naxos WILLIAM BOLCOM: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE 3-CD set.  The new Carole Farley disc, which contains many World Recording Premieres and on which Maestro Bolcom, unquestionably among the most ubiquitous, prolific and successful classical composers in the world today accompanies the soprano on piano, features works from such renowned Bolcom masterpieces as his CASINO PARADISE, DYNAMITE TONIGHT and GREATSHOT “cabaret operas” and the I WILL BREATHE A MOUNTAIN, SONGS TO DANCE and THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS song cycles.  (The American song standard NIGHT, MAKE MY DAY is from CASINO PARADISE and included on the Naxos album.)  Ms. Farley, an internationally renowned Metropolitan Opera star who has made over 40 recordings and has received the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque (for her collection of Aubert Lemeland songs titled Songs for the Dead Soldiers), has performed with most of the major opera companies and orchestras in the world, and with famed conductors as Pierre Boulez, Sir Andrew Davis, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta and Jose Serebrier, her husband.              

        

Among the works to be performed by Irish flutist James Galway during his 2005 season World Tour will be WILLIAM BOLCOM's increasingly popular 1993 LYRIC CONCERTO FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA that was commissioned by and dedicated to the world-renowned virtuoso.  The tour includes a series of concerts with the Boston Symphony in January and visits to such other major American orchestras as the Houston Symphony in subsequent months.  Bolcom, one of the most ubiquitous, successful and acclaimed composers of his time, is currently enjoying "hit record" status with the World-Wide sales of his epochal SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE: A Musical Illumination of the Poems of William Blake in a three disc set released by the Naxos label while his most recent opera, A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (celebrated since it’s 2001 World Premiere as “the most significant new major opera of the past half century”) continues to rapidly gain permanence in the standard operatic repertoire.

The four movement LYRIC CONCERTO is, like most Bolcom orchestral compositions, a broad canvas of many disparate musical idioms and genres and as numerous technical and interpretive challenges.  As Bolcom describes the work, “When James Galway and I began discussing the idea of my writing a concerto for him, he was emphatic about wanting a ‘Celtic Concerto,’ and he sang a little passage of three descending notes followed by a descending fifth, which he called the ‘Celtic fall.’  I made use of this in the Concerto’s first movement, ‘Leprechaun.’

“The second movement, ‘Waltz-Clog,’ is sort of American-Irish of the 19th and early 20th centuries, contrasted with an authentic County Galway tune, ‘May Morning Dew.’

“‘Memory,’ the third movement, was made up of fragments of a solo piece I dashed off for Jimmy in 1960 or so, when we were students together in Paris, plus a further exploration of the County Galway tune.

“Jimmy requested a rondo for the end, so I tailored one for him: ‘A Bespoke Rondo,’ in which parts of the Galway tune are used again, and there is a section in memory of (jazz innovator and giant) Dizzy Gillespie who died as this was being composed.

“I called this work ‘Lyric Concerto’ because I was sure it would have several short movements and I wanted the option of the word ‘lyric’ so that listeners wouldn’t be over-attentive to any big formal argument.  In the end the piece turned out to have four movements, like a lot of concertos, but the low-pressure ‘lyric’ name still holds.  (It was suggested by Zemlinsky’s ‘Lyric Symphony’ title, and I suppose Malher’s ‘Lied von der Erde’ could also be called a lyric symphony.)” 
 

And as for the best-selling Naxos Records release of the WILLIAM BOLCOM masterwork SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE: A Musical Illumination of the Poems of William Blake (which The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe have named as among 'The Best Classical CDs of 2004'), critics have been unanimously rapturous as these few samples proclaim:

"...the most significant contribution of the year. . .This work, with over two hours of Mr. Bolcom's polystylistic music, is surely his masterpiece."   [Tommasini/The New York Times]

"If ever a single work could define everything that was vigorous and endearing and messy and wonderful about American musical composition in the late 20th Century, it would be William Bolcom's sprawling song cycle, set to the mystical poems of William Blake. . .Certainly Bolcom has written nothing finer or more ambitious than this epic 2-1/2 hour masterpiece. . .His multicultural stew of idioms includes atonal modernism, Mahlerian romanticism, folk songs, country music, ragtime, Broadway, rock and soul, ending with a setting of 'A Divine Image' as a giant reggae...something to cheer about, as loudly as possible, from the mountaintops."   [von Rhein/Chicago Tribune]

"Every one of the 50-plus poems receives exactly what the composer feels is needed. . .conductor Leonard Slatkin, who leads this clean, polished recording, couldn't be a better guide."   [Stearns/Philadelphia Inquirer]

"...cause for celebration.  Bolcom, a master of eclecticism, throws in even the kitchen sink in his nearly three-hour compendium of musical styles - from country and western to atonal contrapuntal - written for gargantuan forces.   But the real accomplishment is the way the piece holds together, has a voice and really does encompass innocence and experience."  [Swed/Los Angeles Times]

"The most important classical release of this or any other year...a landmark of American music. . .Conductor Leonard Slatkin reveals a breathtaking command of the shifting idioms...but Bolcom is the star.  His melodic inventiveness and authentic detailing give each setting the ring of truth, and his uniquely personal voice shines through from the beginning to end."   [Stryker/Detroit Free Press]

"...the project many music lovers have been waiting for. . . Bolcom succeeds masterfully. . .a stirring and wonderful performance."   [Anthony/Minneapolis Star Tribune]

"I was staggered by its freewheeling inventiveness and melodic ease. . .This is not a saccharine, populist work or a craven marshalling of forces for the sake of inflating minuscule ideas.  It's a piece that earns its dimensions."   [Davidson/NY Newsday]

"The greatest work to date by a major American composer, finally recorded after nearly 20 years. . .The recorded performance is thrilling, and there are important contributions by choruses, orchestra, and some extraordinary soloists."   [Dyer/Boston Globe]

"...Bolcom's magnum opus. . .Bolcom succeeds because he knows every territory intimately and isn't afraid to concoct a flavorful stylistic stew. . .At the center of Bolcom's vast, generous score is Leonard Slatkin, who invests the piece with all the fervor and care it deserves."   [Rosenberg/Cleveland Plain Dealer]

"...This is one of the most important recordings to appear so far on the Naxos label."   [Miller/St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

"...a thrilling experience by any standard -- this oratorio's effect is unique and extraordinary...much more than the sum of such excellent elements."
                                                                                             [Conrad/Opera News]

"...gloriously moving...an unforgettable piece, worth many hearings but captivating from the very first."    [Taitte/Dallas Morning News]

"...the sense of occasion hovering over these live performances certanly colors their first-rate contributions. . .Leonard Slatkin's leadership does ample justice to Bolcom's artistic vision..."   [Distler/ClassicsToday.com]

"...a holy grail of contemporary American music. . .it's great to finally have a recording of this work in all its over-the-top glory."   [Oteri/New Music Box]

"Best classical music CD of 2004."  [Boston Phoenix]

With “hit record” status, and more visibility, performances, critical acclaim and commissions than most of his contemporaries combined, internationally-renowned classical composer WILLIAM BOLCOM is on a continuous roll.  Among many recent triumphs is the enthusiastically received World Premiere of his third major opera A WEDDING presented in a December, 2004 Chicago Lyric Opera production as described in the following December 13, 2004 Chicago Tribune review by Tribune music critic John von Rhein:

“The blue-blooded Sloans of Lake Forest have just married off their son, a randy military-school cadet, to the bubbleheaded daughter of Snooks Brenner, the nouveau riche owner of a Louisville trucking company. The bride's people drip vulgarity. The groom's relatives are snooty hypocrites. It's only a matter of time before the families' dirty little secrets threaten the bonds of unholy matrimony.

That was the plot outline of director Robert Altman's satiric film, A Wedding, which audiences found diffuse and chaotic when it was released in 1978. The prospects that a failed movie would succeed as an opera 26 years later did not appear good.

But composer William Bolcom recognized the material's potential as the basis for a modern Marriage of Figaro, a grand comedy of manners that could capitalize on the resources of a major opera company.

With Altman back on board onboard as director, A Wedding has been greatly improved and exuberantly reborn as a two-act operatic entertainment. Outfitted with a smart and witty libretto by [long-time Bolcom collaborator] Arnold Weinstein and Altman, Bolcom's third commissioned opera from Lyric Opera of Chicago had its world premiere Saturday night at the Civic Opera House in a lavish production that honored the company's golden jubilee season.

The 16 principal roles were strongly filled by such stalwarts of the roster as Catherine Malfitano, Jerry Hadley, Patricia Risley, Timothy Nolen and Mark S. Doss. Conductor Dennis Russell Davies, a longtime champion of Bolcom's music, kept the orchestra perking along buoyantly. The performers and artistic team drew a prolonged ovation from a packed house that included some 30 members of the national and international press.

But it was Bolcom, looking bemused and elated, who emerged as the evening's conquering hero.

At 66, Bolcom is the great magpie of contemporary American music, never more himself than when he's borrowing from American popular song. He writes tuneful arias, duets and ensembles that show off the talents of individual singers. A Wedding is his best operatic score to date: accessible, singable, eclectic, consistently inventive and great fun.

Clearly the company believes in Bolcom: Lyric Opera already has commissioned him to write a fourth opera, which is scheduled to be performed before 2010. Whether he turns out to be the Verdi of the early 21st Century, or only its Zandonai, time will tell.

(Several weeks later, The New Yorker critic Alex Ross raved that the Bolcom score for A WEDDING was, "...half ironic, half tender, and fully enchanting." and from Germany, Rainer Wagner, the distinguished Opernwelt critic enthused, "This score is easily accessible but not shallow, it is singable, definitely eclectic, but also electrifying.")

[KANDER & EBB]:

Carlin America, Inc. has announced that its BMI subsidiary Bro ‘N Sis Music, Inc. has entered into a 5-year exclusive world-wide administration agreement with Kander & Ebb, Inc. owner of the copyrights for the songs and theater scores written since 1981 by JOHN KANDER and FRED EBB, the legendary Broadway composer and lyricist team.  Among the shows covered in the new agreement are such musical theater landmarks as WOMAN OF THE YEAR, THE RINK and KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, and song classics that include THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER, COLORED LIGHTS, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, SOMETIMES A DAY GOES BY and I MOVE ON, the 2002 song written for the Academy Award winning feature film smash CHICAGO based on the 1975 KANDER & EBB stage classic which is currently among Broadway’s longest-running hit revivals.

As it has for several decades, the Carlin organization continues to represent other KANDER & EBB holdings such as the classic musical CABARET in addition to LIZA WITH A ‘Z’, THE HAPPY TIME, ZORBA and FLORA THE RED MENACE and numerous song standards including CABARET, MAYBE THIS TIME, MEIN HERR, MONEY, MONEY, A QUIET THING, SING HAPPY, WILLKOMMEN and the pop song standard MY COLORING BOOK.

In recent statements, JOHN KANDER and FRED EBB said, "We’re very happy to be signing with Carlin America.  This affiliation makes good business sense because we are consolidating our newer catalog with our earlier works.  And one of the greatest pleasures of developing our association with Freddy Bienstock is that it feels like coming home again.”  Carlin’s Vice President of Marketing Bob Golden also stated, “Both the authors and their works are true American musical treasures, and this deeper relationship with KANDER & EBB gives us an extraordinary opportunity to generate even wider visibility and licensing success for them within the film and television and advertising communities.”

Composer JOHN KANDER and lyricist FRED EBB first teamed in 1963 on the songs MY COLORING BOOK and I DON'T CARE MUCH which were first recorded by Barbra Streisand.  (MY COLORING BOOK was a Top 20 single for both Kitty Kallen and Sandy Stewart in that year and thirty years later, I DON'T CARE MUCH resurfaced in the most recent major CABARET revival production - which ended its 6-year Broadway run earlier this year after over 2300 performances - and is now a permanent part of the show.)  After their first year as collaborators, KANDER & EBB debuted on Broadway with the 1965 musical FLORA, THE RED MENACE (which starred - also in a Tony winning Broadway debut - Liza Minnelli, who would be memorably associated with KANDER & EBB from then on.)  A year later, the composer and lyricist returned to Broadway with their breakthrough show, CABARET, a spectacular success which would win eight Tony Awards and run for three years.  That achievement was followed in the next decades by such Tony awarded and nominated musical theater accomplishments as THE HAPPY TIME (1968), ZORBA (1968), 70, GIRLS, 70 (1971), THE ACT (1975), WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1981) and THE RINK (1984) in addition to their multi Tony-awarded 1993 masterwork, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and CHICAGO (1975), which two decades later returned in a tremendously successful Tony Award-winning Broadway revival, a London production, two National Tours and, of course, the 2002 Academy Award winning film version. 

The KANDER & EBB partnership has also been celebrated in the very successful and often performed musical revues, AND THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND and SING HAPPY!  In motion pictures, JOHN KANDER composed music for KRAMER VS. KRAMER, IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT and AN EARLY FROST, the critically-applauded television movie.  With partner FRED EBB, KANDER wrote new (and soon-to-be standard) songs MONEY, MONEY, MEIN HERR and MAYBE THIS TIME for the 1972 screen version of CABARET which won 8 Academy Awards, as well as the Barbra Streisand vehicle FUNNY LADY, and the scores for two Liza Minnelli films, A MATTER OF TIME and NEW YORK, NEW YORK (which gave the City That Never Sleeps one of its most popular anthems and Frank Sinatra one of his biggest signature hits). KANDER & EBB also created (and FRED EBB produced) the television Emmy and Grammy-winning Minnelli special LIZA WITH A ‘Z’.  Separately, FRED EBB is a distinguished television producer with such specials as OL’ BLUE EYES IS BACK (with Sinatra), GYPSY IN MY SOUL and BARYSHNIKOV ON BROADWAY among his many credits. 
 

(Also, JOHN KANDER and FRED EBB, along with SHELDON HARNICK and JERRY BOCK, two of the most successful and important songwriting teams in Broadway Musical history, were honored at a ceremony at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts for their donations to the Library of script pages, song manuscripts and other stage memorabilia from their many shows.  The event, which could more accurately be described as a master seminar in musical comedy, was hosted by the legendary Broadway director and producer Hal Prince who stated, “these guys represent the best of American musical theater...a time in our history when things were better, and the fields were greener.”  Also speaking at the ceremony of the author’s contributions to the Library which will be an invaluable research collection for future generations of theater artists, New York Public Library president Paul LeClerc said, “This is an immensely important gift that will stay with us as long as it exists, and as long as we exist.” 

HARNICK & BOCK have collaborated on such landmark shows as SHE LOVES ME, THE ROTHCHILDS, THE APPLE TREE, the Pulitzer Prize winning FIORELLO!, and the immortal classic FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (IF I WERE A RICH MAN, MATCHMAKER, SUNRISE, SUNSET, etc.). JERRY BOCK, with others, co-wrote the 1961 Sammy Davis, Jr. vehicle MR. WONDERFUL which provided such song standards as TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT, WITHOUT YOU I’M NOTHING and, of course, the title song. 

KANDER & EBB have enjoyed an equally luminous association on Broadway with 
musical theater successes as CABARET, LIZA WITH A ‘Z’, THE HAPPY TIME, ZORBA, FLORA THE RED MENACE, WOMAN OF THE YEAR, THE RINK, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, the show and film CHICAGO and song classics that include CABARET, MAYBE THIS TIME, MEIN HERR, MONEY, MONEY, WILLKOMMEN, the pop hit standard MY COLORING BOOK, COLORED LIGHTS, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, the city anthem New York, New York, A QUIET THING, SING HAPPY and SOMETIMES A DAY GOES BY. )
 

[CHUCK LOEB]:

Carlin America is pleased to announce its acquisition of CuestaLoeb Music, Inc., the ASCAP publishing firm operated by hit composer, producer and ‘smooth jazz’ guitar giant CHUCK LOEB and his wife, singer and songwriter Carmen Cuesta Loeb.  Loeb, a veteran studio and jazz guitarist with 12 best-selling albums in current release on both the DMP and Shanachie labels, has had 5 #1 singles on the Jazz charts (THE MUSIC INSIDE, POCKET CHANGE, SARAO, JUST US and NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WES) and appeared on and/or produced Top 10 albums for such luminaries as Walter Beasley (For Your Pleasure:IF YOU KNEW), Carly Simon, Spyro Gyra (Got The Magic: SILK AND SATIN), FattBurger (Sugar: SPICE), Warren Bernhardt (Family Album: FELINICITY), Donald Harrison (The Power of Cool: THE TROPIC OF COOL), Bob James, Gato Barbieri, Nelson Rangell (Destiny: GRACE,LITTLE DREAM GIRL), Kim Waters (Love's Melody: NIGHTFALL), Stan Getz (BILLY HIGHSTREET SAMBA) and Michael Franks.  A busy headline performer at major music festivals and concert venues worldwide, CHUCK LOEB is a prolific composer who has written themes for countless commercials, soap operas and game shows as well as musical signatures for ABC News, Nightline, Headline News, CNN and CBS.   In a recent statement, Caroline Bienstock, the Chief Operating Officer of Carlin America said, "CHUCK LOEB is a major factor in the increasing popularity of the ‘smooth jazz” genre with the public and both the advertising and film and television communities.  We are especially proud to now have this opportunity to give Chuck’s catalog even wider exposure to our many friends who license music for the commercial and production media.”
 
 

[STRANGE FRUIT]:

The classic 1939 Billie Holiday version of the Carlin title STRANGE FRUIT is included in the first 50 recordings selected by the Library of Congress to initiate a national registry devoted to the preservation of the most significant American recordings.  As mandated by Congress in the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the project will eventually archive every culturally important recording since the invention of the phonograph (1890) and, in addition to STRANGE FRUIT, includes in the initial selection such immortals as the first recording of John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, Enrico Caruso’s 1907 Vesti la giubba, the Bing Crosby single of White Christmas, George Gershwin playing his Rhapsody in Blue with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the Elvis Presley Sun Records sessions, and many of the more influential recordings of Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Frank Sinatra, Tito Puente, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin.  An emotional depiction of a lynching in the American south, STRANGE FRUIT was originally a poem subsequently set to music by its author, a Jewish New York City high school English teacher named Abe Meeropol who militantly championed left-wing causes (he eventually adopted the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) and who brought the song to Billie Holiday, then at the first peak of her luminous, long career.  As soon as the vocalist added the ballad to her nightclub act, STRANGE FRUIT became a potent anthem for all activists protesting injustice, Holiday’s signature song and her first hit single (although she had to record it for a small independent jazz label as the company she was signed to, Columbia Records, refused to release such a “controversial” song). Holiday would record the ballad another four times joining numerous other versions by a wide diversity of artists including Nina Simone, Diana Ross, Carmen McRae, Tori Amos, UB40, Siouxsie & The Banchees, Lou Rawls, Josh White and Sting.  The subject of an eponymous best selling book in 2000 by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Margolick, STRANGE FRUIT remains an indelible cultural landmark that has been rightly described as “The beginning of the Civil Rights movement” and “One of ten songs that changed the world.” 
  
 

[CARLIN AMERICA]:

FREDDY BIENSTOCK, the legendary Chairman of Carlin America, recently received the Indie Award from the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) in recognition of his significant lifetime achievements as an independent music publisher. At a ceremony held at the NYC Princeton Club, Freddy was introduced by his daughter and Carlin Chief Operating Officer, Caroline Bienstock, who ended her comments by saying, “As he often reminds me, he has taught me everything I know about this business, which, sad to say, is not everything he knows.   Starting with his early days, he developed a close personal and professional relationship with Elvis Presley, which lasted throughout Elvis’s life.  He acquired a publishing company in the UK which he built into the #1 UK publisher for ten consecutive years through his relationships with Ray Davies and the Kinks, the Animals, Cliff Richards, and the Shadows.  He then began a twenty-year partnership with the fabled songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller, in which they acquired many important publishing catalogues.  Through it all, Freddy has maintained great relationships with such writers as Kander & Ebb, James Brown, Jim Steinman and Jerry Bock.  And they all say the same thing about him – I say it too – he’s such a great guy.  And, of course, a great music publisher.”

 
 

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