Mitch Miller - During the 1950s record producer Mitch Miller, choosing not to go along with the popular rock and roll movement of the times, introduced a series of  "Sing Along" recordings of old standard favorites and printed their lyrics on the album jackets so that the listener could read and sing along with the music. Mitch's success led him to television, first on a FORD STARTIME special in May 1960 and followed by the musical variety program SING ALONG WITH MITCH/NBC/1961-64. The program featured vocalists Carolyn Conway, Gloria Lambert, Barbara McNair, Louise O'Brien, Sandy Stewart, Diana Trask, and Leslie Uggams, as well as the Sing-Along Gang and the Sing-Along Kids. Throughout the program, the goateed Mitch Miller waved his musical baton and encouraged the viewers at home to "follow the bouncing ball" that jumped over the words of the songs superimposed on the bottom of the TV screens at home. A few years earlier the music show SING ALONG/CBS/1958 hosted by Jim Lowe used a similar Sing-Along formula.