Anita Kerr, the architect of the gorgeous Nashville sound and prolific session singer and arranger who later had a multifaceted career in pop music, died Monday in Geneva. She was 94 years old.
Her death at a nursing home in the city’s Carouge neighborhood was confirmed by her daughter Kelly Carr.
Working with producers such as Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, Ms. Kerr and her quartet of background vocalists Anita Kerr Singers, heard ‘hmm’ and ‘hmm’ on thousands of recordings made in Nashville in the 1950s and ’60s. In the process, they helped create the rich, orchestral Nashville sound, refining the rough-hewn provincial music the city was known for to appeal to a wider audience.
Equally important, Ms. Carr and her ensemble helped maintain the viability of country music in the face of the commercial threat posed by the advent of rock and roll.
Carr sang soprano and wrote, composed and arranged for groups including alto Dottie Dillard, tenor Gil Wright and bassist Louis Nunnley. Together they recorded hits by future members of the Country Music Hall of Fame such as Red Foley, Eddie Arnold and Hank Snow, as well as Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957) and Brenda Lee. played on major pop singles such as “I” from mSorry’ (1960) and Burl Ives’ ‘A Little Bitty Tear’ (1961).
Ms. Carr and her singer also sang the indelible “Dum Dum Dum, Dooby Doower.” “Only lonely people” Roy Orbison’s #2 pop hit in 1960.
With the exception of The Jordanaires, the Southern Gospel Quartet featured on groundbreaking recordings by Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline, the Anita Kerr Singers had more session work in Nashville in the 1950s and ’60s. There were no vocal ensembles in great demand.
“Initially, we recorded sessions twice a week,” Carr wrote on his website, describing the post-war boom in Nashville’s music industry. “By 1955, he was recording eight sessions a week, recording a national program five days a week with Jim Reeves at WSM.”
“Gradually,” she continued. Love every minute of it, take care. I am tired at times, but I am happy. “
Beginning in 1956, the group was also active in New York City, winning contests on the popular CBS television and radio variety show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” They soon began traveling regularly to appear on the show.
In 1960, another Carr-led quartet, the short-lived Little Dippers, had a Top 10 pop hit with dreamy ballads. “eternally.”
The Anita Kerr Singers signed a deal with RCA Victor Records in 1961 and released a series of Easy Listening Music albums, some of which were credited to the Anita Kerr Quartet. One, “We Dig Mancini,” featuring renditions of TV and film themes written by Henry Mancini, was the 1966 version of The Beatles’ “Help! For Honor.”
The Kerr Group won the same award the following year for its cover. “men and women” Theme song from the 1966 French film of the same name.
In the early ’60s, the group, with four vocalists, released several albums of contemporary pop material as part of RCA’s Living Voices series.
Carr and her ensemble include Carla Thomas’ ‘Thee With’ (1960), Esther Phillips’ ‘Release Me’ (1962) and Bobby Bland’s ‘Share Your Love With Me’. He also provided his voice for important R&B hits of the time. ”(1963).
In addition, Mr. Carr wrote and recorded jingles for popular AM radio stations of the time, including WMCA in New York City and WLS in Chicago.
Anita Jean Grilli was born on October 13, 1927 in Memphis to William and Sophia (Poronara) Grilli. An Italian immigrant, she settled with her family in Mississippi when she was a teenager, and she became a farm worker. Her father, who moved to Memphis with her wife, opened a grocery store there. Her mother, a contralto, had the opportunity to study classical music in New York, but she instead became a stay-at-home mom.
At the insistence of her mother, Anita and her two older brothers took piano lessons, but only Anita, who started learning piano at the age of four, continued. By the time she was in her senior year at her Catholic school in St. Thomas, she was playing the organ at the school mass.
At age 15, she was hired as a staff musician for an after-school radio show in Memphis. She also performed in a local dance band and composed arrangements for it.
She married Alker in 1947 and moved to Nashville after he accepted a job as a disc jockey at local radio station WKDA. Mr. Carr again worked with his dance band and also organized his vocal quintet. This quintet was eventually hired to appear on WSM’s show ‘Sunday Down South’, which was broadcasting ‘The Grand Ole Opry’.
A year later, Carr and her group were hired as background singers for Decca Records. They changed their name from Sunday Down South Choir to Anita Kerr Singers at the label’s request.
In 1965, after spending about 20 years in Nashville, divorcing Mr. Carr and marrying Swiss businessman Alex Grob, who became her manager, Mr. Carr moved to Los Angeles, where he began scoring orchestral scores. I have worked in the fields of writing, pop and jazz. , Latin and other idioms outside of country music.
She collected new editions of Anita Kerr Singers and released a series of musical omnivorous records, including three mariachi albums credited to Mexicali Singers. He has created several records dedicated to the writer’s catalog and composed, arranged and conducted the music for the album ‘The Sea’ featuring poetry by Rod McKen. In 1967 she was chorus director on the first season of The Smathers Brothers Comedy Hour.
In 1970, Carr and her husband moved to Switzerland with their two daughters from their first marriage. Ms. Carr formed another edition of her singing group there and continued to write, record and conduct. Two of her gospel albums she made during this period were nominated for Grammy Awards.
In 1975, she and her husband founded Mountain Studios in Montreux. They later sold it to British rock band Her Queen, which eventually became ‘Queen: The Studio Experience’, a museum and exhibition benefiting the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
Mr. Kerr remained active in the 1980s and beyond, writing scores for films such as the 1972 drama Limbo, and conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and other ensembles.
Not always recognized for his work as an arranger and group leader in Nashville, and still not a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Kerr received a special award in 1975 from music licensing organization ASCAP. She was recognized for her “contribution to the birth and development of her Nashville sound”. In 1992, she was awarded the Governor’s Award by the Recording Academy for her “Outstanding Contribution to American Music”.
“Anita Kerr: America’s First Lady of Music,” a biography written by Barry Pugh and with a foreword by Mr. Bacharach, was published this year.
In addition to daughter Kelly, Ms. Kerr has a husband left. Another daughter, Suzanne Trebert. She has five grandchildren; and she has two great-grandchildren.
From an early age, she knew that she would spend her life making music.
“I did everything musically and never got enough,” she writes on her website. I always thought it would be music.”