Marlene Miller

This CD may be scoffed at by serious jazz listeners, and even by big-band devotees wary of modern "ghost band" performances, but the fact is that it sold over 100,000 pieces when it first appeared in 1983, and its CD version was among the very earliest compact discs ever released commercially in the United States (indeed, so early that the actual CDs had to be imported from Japan). The second-ever release by GRP Records, it put the label on the map, and it also stood as testimony to how good those original arrangements of the Glenn Miller Orchestra were. So how is it as music?

These 20 CDs comprise over 25 hours of music captured on-stage in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s at KWKH’s legendary Louisiana Hayride radio show. Staged live in Shreveport, the Hayride featured national country music stars, soon-to-be legends, regional break-outs, and talented newcomers. Most of this music has not been heard since the day it was broadcasted.

A mere fifteen years after the end of WWI, the World witnessed the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, when he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933. The Second World War is widely accepted to have begun in 1939, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared that Britain was at war with Germany. Within hours, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies made the announcement that this country was also at war. As before, music played a great part in the upkeep of morale, for both the public at home and the brave soldiers, sailors and airmen involved in the conflict.