Recorded on September 8, 1949. The Mills Brothers were a jazz and pop vocal quartet of the 20th century producing more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and garnered at least three dozen gold records. The Mills Brothers were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.
In 1928, after playing May's Opera House in Piqua between Rin Tin Tin features, they accompanied the Harold Greenameyer Band to Cincinnati for an audition with radio station WLW. The Band was not hired, but the Mills brothers were. With the help of Seger Ellis, WLW Cincinnati DJ and a music legend of the '20s, they quickly became local radio stars and got their major break when Duke Ellington and his Orchestra played a date in Cincinnati. When the youngsters sang for Duke, he called Tommy Rockwell at Okeh Records, who signed them and brought the group to New York.
In September 1930, Ralph Wonders urged broadcasting executive William S. Paley, at CBS Radio in New York, to turn on his office speaker and listen to an audition of four young men. For the audition they were '\"The Mills Brothers,\"' but they had been known by many other names. They were billed as 'The Steamboat Four' when they sang for Sohio. They had been called the 'Four Boys and a Guitar' on their Sunday shows. When Paley heard their performance, he immediately went downstairs and put them on CBS radio. The next day, the Mills Brothers signed a three-year contract and became the first African-Americans to have a network show on radio.
Their first record for Brunswick, a cover of the Original Dixieland Jass Band standard \"Tiger Rag\" became a nationwide seller. Other hits followed -- \"Goodbye Blues\", their theme song, \"You're Nobody's Sweetheart Now\", \"Ole Rockin' Chair\", \"Lazy River\", \"How'm I Doin'\", and others. They remained on Brunswick until late 1934, when they signed with Decca, where they stayed well into the 1950s.
On all of their Brunswick records, as well as the early Decca's, the label always stated:
\"No musical instruments or mechanical devices used in this recording other than one guitar\"
They were a sensation on CBS in 1930-1931, particularly when they co-starred on the widely popular The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee. They had their own popular radio series in 1932-1933, one of the earliest built around a black act, billed as the \"Four Boys and a Guitar\". Before their show announcers commonly explained to listeners that the only instrument was a guitar, as the vocal effects made many listeners think they were hearing a muted trumpet, saxophone, and string bass.
The Mills Brothers were sponsored by some of the largest advertisers in early radio; Standard Oil, Procter & Gamble, Crisco, and Crosley Radio. They began appearing in films. Their first, The Big Broadcast (Paramount Pictures, 1932) was an all-star radio revue that included Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, and the Boswell Sisters. In 1934, the Brothers starred with Crosby for Woodbury Soap, and recorded their classics \"Lazy Bones\", \"Sweet Sue\", \"Lulu's Back in Town\", \"Bye-Bye Blackbird\", \"Sleepy Head\", and \"Shoe Shine Boy\". Their film appearances included Twenty Million Sweethearts (Warner Brothers, 1934) and Broadway Gondolier, (Warner Brothers, 1935).
