Thumbs Carllisle born 2 April 1931

Kenneth Ray Carllile (April 2, 1931 – July 31, 1987), better known as Thumbs Carllile (Carlisle in some collections),was an American country music guitarist and songwriter known for his innovative zither-like fingerstyle playing, sitting with his guitar in his lap while fretting, picking and strumming with his fingers and thumbs. He performed with Little Jimmy Dickens at the Grand Ole Opry in the early 1950s, and was a member of Roger Miller's band from 1964 to 1972. 

Kenneth Carllile was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up on his impoverished father's tenant farm in Harrisburg, Illinois. At age eight he began playing a Dobro resonator guitar won by his sister Evelyn, and after she hid the steel bar, Carllile began using his thumbs. When his father gave him a Silvertone guitar, his small thumb and fingers were too short to make it around the neck, so he played it on his lap like the Dobro. 

Thumbs & Hank Garland

In 1941, Carllile's family moved to Granite City, Illinois, and he later made his debut playing "Sweet Georgia Brown" at a Ferlin Husky concert at the Music Box Club in East St. Louis. He was expelled from high school at 16 for refusing to shave, and instead performed with Husky until he was discovered by Little Jimmy Dickens in 1949 during a St. Louis appearance. He joined Dickens' Country Boys after demonstrating he could play both parts of Dickens' twin guitar lines. Dickens gave him the nickname Thumbs, which Carllile never embraced. He played with the group until 1952, including performances at the Grand Ole Opry. 

From 1952–54, Carllile served in the US Army, performing with its Special Services division. He was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, where he met and married another service member, singer-songwriter Virginia Boyle, in 1955. After his discharge, Carllile regularly appeared on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri, from 1956 to 1957, both as a soloist and with Bill Wimberley's Country Rhythm Boys. They released Springfield Guitar Social on Starday in 1958. In the late 50s, he and Virginia performed in Billings, Montana and appeared on KOOK-TV. 

                                   

In 1961, Carllile met guitarist Les Paul, who was impressed by Carllile's skill and his wife's songwriting, and they recorded enough tracks for two albums at Paul's home studio in Mahwah, New Jersey. Later that year, Carllile (as Thumbs Carlyle) released a duet on Epic with his wife Virginia (as Ginny O'Boyle), "Indian Girl, Indian Boy". 

In 1963, Carllile joined the Wade Ray Five, and Ray's Las Vegas band, but left the following year to join Roger Miller's band, where he stayed until 1972. He appeared on Miller's 1966 NBC-TV show, and performed with him five times on NBC's Tonight Show during the 1960s. He also appeared at the Grammy Awards when Miller swept the country categories in 1964 with "Dang Me", and in 1965 with "King of the Road" (1965), for which Carllile provided the song's signature finger snaps. 

Miller helped him sign with Smash Records, where he released two albums, Roger Miller Presents Thumbs Carllile and All Thumbs in 1965. He released several singles for Smash, including "My Bossa Nova/Candy Girl" (1966). Several tracks he recorded for the label were popular but did not chart, including "Let it Be Me", "Caravan", "No Yesterday", "Theme from Picnic", "Blue Skies", "Stranger On The Shore" and "Hold It". In 1968, Carllile signed with Capitol and recorded the album Walking in Guitar Land. 

In 1986, he moved from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Decatur, Georgia, where Virginia worked in a factory making springs. Carllile underwent surgery that year for colon cancer, which, despite fundraisers, left the family bankrupt. After recovering, he played with his trio, The Indecent 3; performed on Sagebrush Boogie, a weekly program on Atlanta's WRFG-FM; and was a regular at such venues as the Freight Room in Decatur and The Point. Carllile suffered a fatal heart attack on July 31, 1987, at a friend's place in Chattanooga, TN, where he was in town holding a seminar. He was  buried in Decatur Cemetery. 

Carllile's two daughters are also musicians: Kathy Carllile is a blues singer in Atlanta, Georgia, who once led Kathy Carllile and Tabasco, and had a minor hit with "Stay Until the Rain Stops" in 1986 on the Frontline label. She and Carllile were once winners on The Gong Show. Tammy Carllile sang in the Cowboy Boogie Band in Las Vegas and won Nashville's Hall of Fame singing competition; and also sang vocals on albums with her father. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Shannon Byrne’s blog)

 

Bonnie Baker born 1 April 1917

Bonnie Baker (April 1, 1917 – August 11, 1990) was an American singer of jazz and popular music and was known from 1936 to the end of her performing career as Wee Bonnie Baker. Her biggest hit was "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!," recorded with the Orrin Tucker Orchestra in 1939. 

Bonnie with Orrin Tucker

She was born Evelyn Underhill* in Orange, Texas. She attended school in Galveston and Houston. At age 16, during the 1932–1933 school year, she was a day student at Mount de Sales Academy, in Macon, Georgia, which at that time was a Roman Catholic boarding school for girls. She then moved back to Houston where she sang in night clubs. She joined Orrin Tucker's band as a vocalist in 1936, after Louis Armstrong suggested that Tucker recruit her. Tucker gave her the stage name "Wee" Bonnie Baker on account of her height, about 4-foot 11 inches. She had only local fame before joining Tucker's orchestra – wider notability did not occur until she performed at the Empire Room of the Palmer House in Chicago in 1939, when she began to flourish in the South and Pacific Coast. 

Baker’s career with Tucker was uneventful until the runaway success of “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!” a twenty-year-old World War I-era song which sold over a million-and-a-half copies. Baker’s singing style made her wildly popular in her own right, and she began to receive equal billing with Tucker. Her girlish voice was described as "like a tiny silver bell, soft but tonally true". In 1940, she was voted most popular female band vocalist in Billboard’s annual college poll. Throughout the 1940s, she remained the most highly-imitated singer in show business. She also had success with the songs "You'd Be Surprised", "Billy", "Would Ja Mind?", and "Especially for You". Baker made two Hollywood appearances while with Tucker’s orchestra, including the feature film You’re the One. She shared the cover of Down Beat magazine’s February 15, 1940, issue with pianist and bandleader Joe Sanders. 

She left the Tucker orchestra in February and out on her own in February, Baker’s popularity soared. When Tucker enlisted in the Navy in mid-1942, she turned down an offer to front the band in his absence. As a solo act traveling with her own vaudeville unit and singing with various orchestras, she was making far more money than she could on a band salary. She legally adopted her stage name, Bonnie Baker, on October 9, 1943, in Circuit Court, Chicago, Illinois. 

                    

                Here's "Oh Johnny Oh Johnny Oh!" from above album.

                                  

She then continued with a solo career, singing with the USO (United Service Organizations) during World War II, and appearing regularly on the radio show Your Hit Parade. She also sang with other bands. Baker remained extremely popular through the mid-1940s. 

On January 30, 1943, she made the cover of Billboard and later that year sang several numbers in the Monogram feature film Spotlight Scandals. Baker’s popularity began to decline slightly after the war, though she continued touring and performing on the theater circuit as well as on radio and occasionally television. She recorded solo for the Memo label in 1946 and on Universal in 1948. In 1952, she recorded with Mel Blanc and Billy May on Capitol, singing opposite Blanc’s Porky Pig, Tweety and Sylvester characters and in 1956 she provided vocals for two Chilly Willy cartoons. That same year she released an album, Oh Johnny!, with orchestra conducted by Wilbur Hatch, on Warner Bros. Records.

Baker married four times during the 1930s and 1940s, the first to a man named Lakey in 1937. In October 1940, she and Tucker announced plans to wed. Even after she had left the band, in fall 1942, they apparently still intended to marry. How much of this was just the dreams of a publicity agent is unknown however. In interviews while with Tucker’s band, Baker typically insisted that she had no romantic interests in Tucker. In October 1943, she legally changed her name to her stage moniker and became engaged to a soldier, Lieutenant Johnnie Morse. The two married in December and were still together two years later. In March 1948, she married her manager, Frank Taylor. The couple had a child in October 1948 and divorced in October 1949. 

In spring 1950, Baker married comedy writer Bill Rogers. The pair teamed up, with Rogers playing guitar and writing specialty songs for her. Baker and Rogers continued performing as a team into the 1960s. Baker came to hate her signature song, as audiences always called for it. She grew tired of singing it, estimating that she performed it two thousand times each year. 

By 1975, Baker had married a fifth time, to a man named Gailey, a jazz guitarist and stage-act writer, also known as Billy Rogers. They moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1958 and performed in local clubs, such as Pier 66. She gave up singing in 1965, after a heart attack. By 1976, she was a switchboard operator at a Ft. Lauderdale medical center. She died in a Fort Lauderdale hospital in Florida on August 11, 1990 at the age of 73. 

 (Edited from Wikipedia, Bandchirps & Sun Sentinel) (* other sources give maiden name as Nelson)

Anita Carter born 31 March 1933

Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999) was an American singer who played upright bass, guitar, and autoharp. She performed with her sisters, Helen and June, and her mother, Maybelle, initially under the name The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle. Carter had three top ten hits as well as other charting singles. She was the first to record the songs "Blue Boy" and "Ring of Fire". Carter was also a songwriter, most notably co-writing the Johnny Cash hit "Rosanna's Going Wild." The epithet most widely used to characterise her soprano voice was "achingly pure".

L-R June, Maybelle, Anita & Helen

A member of country music's most famous family, Anita Carter found success of her own as a folk solo act during the early '50s and late '60s. The Carter Family had ruled country music during the 1930s, but broke up in 1943 after patriarch A.P. Carter and his ex-wife Sara decided to retire. Sara's cousin Maybelle, the third member of the Carters, re-formed the group the same year as Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters with her daughters Helen, June, and Anita. The sisters had sung on Carter Family radio broadcasts in 1935, and the new group more than made up for the breakup of the originals. The Carters performed on radio from Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri during the late '40s, but moved to the Grand Ole Opry in 1950.

In 1951, Anita stormed the charts with a one-off duet with Hank Snow; both "Bluebird Island" and its B-side, "Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts," reached the country Top Five. On March 26, 1952, she appeared on The Kate Smith Evening Hour with her family band "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" as the first females to represent hillbilly/country music and Music City Nashville on national television. On April 23, she returned to the program, where she performed a duet with Hank Williams, on his song "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)". 

Nita, Rita & Ruby

Then on May 21, she became the first female star of the Grand Ole Opry to sing a solo on The Kate Smith Evening Hour when she sang "Just When I Needed You". It was during the mid-'50s that she also performed with the teen trio 'Nita, Rita & Ruby, but spent most of her time with the Carters. The group continued to be popular on the Opry, and even opened for Elvis Presley in 1956-1957. After A.P. Carter's death in 1960, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters became the Carter Family and performed more contemporary country than gospel.

                                    

In 1961, the Carters began a long-running association with Johnny Cash by appearing in his road show. In 1962, she recorded "Love's Ring of Fire," written by her sister June and Merle Kilgore. After the song failed to make the charts, Johnny Cash recorded it as "Ring of Fire" in March 1963 with the horns and the Carter Sisters (along with Mother Maybelle). This version became a hit for Cash. The Carters also recorded the country Top 15 single "Busted" with Cash that year, and after June Carter married him in 1967, the Carters appeared on his ABC-TV show from 1969 to 1971. Though the Carter Family continued to record usually with Cash during the early '70s, they disbanded in 1969. Mother Maybelle became recognized as a major figure in the folk revival that year, appearing with Sara at the Newport Folk Festival and on the Rounder album An Historic Reunion. 

Meanwhile, Anita had begun to record for RCA in 1966, hitting the country charts with "I'm Gonna Leave You." Another single charted in 1967, and her duet with Waylon Jennings on "I Got You" reached number four in March 1968. Later in 1968, Anita moved to United Artists, but several singles proved unsuccessful. She recorded for Capitol in the early '70s and almost hit the Top 40 with "Tulsa County." Her last chart appearance with the Carter Family, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Soup," was released in August 1973. 

L-R Helen, June, Anita & Carlene

After Maybelle's death in 1978, Helen and Anita continued as part of the Cash troupe, which sometimes included a third generation of the Carter family, among them Anita's daughter, Lori. The three sisters and June's daughter, Carlene, gave a memorable show at the 1986 Wembley Festival of Country Music. The Carter sisters and their daughters made albums together in 1982 and 1988. Anita, Helen and June also made a guest appearance on the second volume of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's album, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, in 1990.

For the remainder of the decade Anita's activities were curtailed by severe arthritis and the drugs used to treat it severely damaged her pancreas, kidneys, and liver. She died in Tennessee on July 29, 1999, at the age of 66, a year after eldest sister Helen and four years before middle sister June. She was under hospice care at the home of Johnny and June Carter Cash in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Her interment was in Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Carter married fiddler Dale Potter in 1950 (marriage was annulled shortly thereafter), session musician Don Davis in 1953 (divorced and then remarried), and Bob Wootton (lead guitarist for Johnny Cash's band The Tennessee Three) in 1974 (divorced). She had two children.

(Edited from Wikipedia, The Guardian & AllMusic)

 

Randy Barlow born 29 March 1943

Randy Barlow (March 29, 1943 – July 30, 2020) was an American country music recording artist. Between 1976 and 1983, he released four albums, including three for Republic Records. In the same time span, he charted twenty singles on the Billboard U.S. country charts, including a string of four songs in a row which all reached No. 10. 

Born in Detroit, Michigan as Randy Moore, he began playing music at the age of 6 after receiving a guitar as a Christmas gift. Barlow played music throughout his upbringing including in a local band called The Royal Lancers. Growing up in Motor City and, specifically in the Garden City neighborhood would go on to influence Barlow’s music, including one of his best-known songs, “Willow Run,” named after the General Motors Transmission Plant located in Garden City where his father worked. 

Attending Western Kentucky University is where Randy Barlow’s musical passions broadened from Detroit rock to country and Western, playing in a band called E.A. Poe and the Ravens and also The Cavaliers. But before Barlow would become best-known for putting his life into country songs, he got his start in the music business working as an announcer and road manager for Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars tour, then later becoming the driver and road manager for Herman’s Hermits. 

This led Barlow to the West Coast where he played in show bands in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and in a band called Orange County Line. This is also where he first began to pursue a career as a recording artist, but with minimal success with his first few singles. 

                                         

In 1974, Barlow signed a recording contract and found his first success with “Throw Away the Pages,” which became a minor hit in country. This inspired him to move to Nashville, which resulted in numerous Top 40 country hits, including “California Lady,” “Kentucky Woman,” and the #18 hit “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa” written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. This put Barlow on the national map. 

From there Randy Barlow found his greatest commercial fame, stringing together four consecutive Top 10 hits with “Slow and Easy,” “No Sleep Tonight,” “Fall in Love with Me Tonight,” and “Sweet Melinda.” This earned Barlow a nomination for Best New Male Artist from the Academy of Country Music, and appearances on the popular television shows Hee-Haw and The Porter Wagoner Show. His success continued into the early 80’s with “Love Dies Hard,” and a country version of the song “Lay Back in the Arms of Someone” made famous by the English Band Smokie. Barlow also toured extensively throughout the period. 

But as is often the case, the lack of massive commercial success meant that Randy Barlow was left behind by the industry, but he never stopped singing and playing. Throughout the 80’s and up to 2015, Randy Barlow became a fixture of Nashville clubs, playing his own music and cover songs, as well as working as a writer and producer throughout town. This resulted in him being inducted into the Traditional Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016. He was also inducted into the Michigan Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016. 

By 2017, Randy Barlow had moved to Florida with his wife Carol, living in Palmetto, and continued to perform. Like many artists, much of Randy’s music went out-of-print, but he was able to re-release his music in digital form in 2014. 

Barlow had surgery on his back in June 2020, and during the procedure, a very aggressive form of small cell carcinoma Cancer was discovered affecting his liver, pancreas, and bones, according to his wife Carol Nims. Barlow was placed in hospice care, and passed away on July 30, 2020, at the age of 77. 

 (Edited from Saving Country Music & Wikipedia)

Paul Whiteman born 28 March 1890

Paul Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was a popular American orchestral leader. 

Because press agents dubbed him "The King of Jazz" in the 1920s, Paul Whiteman has always been considered a controversial figure in jazz history. Actually, his orchestra was the most popular during the era and at times (despite its size) it did play very good jazz. 

Paul Samuel Whiteman was born in Denver, Colorado. After a start as a classical violinist and violist, he led a large Navy band during World War I and always had a strong interest in the popular music of the day. In 1918, he organized his first dance band in San Francisco and, after short periods in Los Angeles and Atlantic City, he settled in New York in 1920. His initial recordings for Victor Records ("Japanese Sandman" and "Whispering") were such big sellers that Whiteman was soon a household name. His superior dance band used some of the most technically skilled musicians of the era in a versatile show that included everything from pop tunes and waltzes to semi-classical works and jazz. 

Trumpeter Henry Busse (featured on "Hot Lips" and "When Day Is Done") was Whiteman's main star during the 1921-1926 period. Seeking to "make a lady out of jazz," Whiteman's symphonic jazz did not always swing, but at Aeolian Hall in 1924 he introduced "Rhapsody in Blue" (with its composer George Gershwin on piano) in what was called "An Experiment in Modern Music." Red Nichols and Tommy Dorsey passed through the band but it was in 1927, with the addition of Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, and Bing Crosby (the latter originally featured as part of a vocal trio called the Rhythm Boys), that Whiteman began to finally have an important jazz band. Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang soon joined up, and many of Whiteman's recordings of 1927-1930 (particularly the ones with Bill Challis arrangements) are among his finest. 

                                   

In the 1920s, Whiteman was controversially dubbed The King of Jazz (see: Jazz royalty) and though he wore this title with pride, he hadn't stopped short of acknowledging the African American roots of the genre and never claimed to be a pioneer of the genre, but rather emphasized the way he'd approached the already well-established style of music while organizing its composure and style in a fashion of his own choosing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael singing and playing "Washboard Blues" to the accompaniment of his orchestra in 1927. 

Whiteman became the most popular band leader of the decade. In May, 1928, he signed with Columbia Records, only to return to Victor September, 1931, where he stayed until March, 1937.  Whiteman signed Mildred Bailey in 1929 (although she didn't record with Whiteman until 1931). It has been reported in a couple of recent books that Whiteman wanted to hire black musicians back in the late 1920s, but he was talked out of it by his management and record company. Red McKenzie and Ramona Davies joined the Whiteman group in 1932. 

Whiteman with Ramona Davies

After Beiderbecke left the band in 1929 and Whiteman filmed the erratic but fascinating movie The King of Jazz in 1930, the Depression forced the bandleader to cut back on his personnel (which at one time included two pianos, tuba, bass sax, string bass, banjo, and guitar in its rhythm section). While today most fans of jazz consider improvisation to be essential to the musical style, Whiteman thought the music could be improved by orchestrating the best of it, with formal arrangements. In a time when most dance bands consisted of six to 10 men, Whiteman led a much larger and more imposing group, numbering as many as 35 musicians. Whiteman's recordings were critically popular and commercially successful, and his more respectable brand of jazz music was often the first jazz of any form that some people heard. 

Whiteman with Bing Crosby

Although his orchestra in the 1930s at times featured Bunny Berigan, Trumbauer, and both Jack and Charlie Teagarden, Whiteman's music was considered old hat by the time of the swing era and he essentially retired (except for special appearances) by the early '40s. In the 1940s and 1950s, after he had disbanded his orchestra, Whiteman worked as a music director for the ABC Radio Network. He also hosted several television programs and continued to appear as guest conductor for many concerts. His manner on stage was disarming; he signed off each program with something casual like, "Well, that just about slaps the cap on the old milk bottle for tonight." 

Duke Ellington wrote in his autobiography: "Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz, and no one as yet has come near carrying that title with more certainty and dignity." Paul Whiteman died December 29, 1967, at the age of 77 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

 

Miriam Kline born 27 March 1937

Miriam Klein (born 27 March 1937) is a Swiss jazz singer. 

Miriam Klein was born in Basel, Switzerland and active in jazz from her teenage years and first rose to prominence when she performed in Paris in the 1950s with Pierre Michelot, Don Byas, and the pianist Art Simmons. After training at the music school in Vienna, she returned to Switzerland and sang in the formations of her husband Oscar Klein from 1963 and also made recordings under her own name. 

                             Here’s “I Cried For You” from above album.                    

                                    

In the 1960s and 1970s, she became internationally known as a singer. During this time, she recorded an album of Bessie Smith titles. In 1973, the international breakthrough came with the album "Lady Like", which was dedicated to Billie Holiday. Miriam was accompanied by musicians such as Roy Eldridge, Dexter Gordon and Slide Hampton, but the album had a mixed reception.

She was interested in singing in the style of her role model, but not copying her, the singer said. Roy Eldridge said after recording with Miriam Klein: Her voice would have been much more suitable for the film "Lady Sings the Blues" than that of Diana Ross. 

She recorded with Albert Nicholas (1971) and Wild Bill Davison (1975) and performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1974. In 1977 Klein worked with the Fritz Pauer Trio, and in 1978 with Sir Roland Hanna and George Mraz on their album "By Myself". At the Frankfurt Jazz Festival in 1980, she was accompanied by Hans Koller's International Brass Company. In 1981/82 she went on tour with Kenny Clarke, Hanna and Isla Eckinger. 

She has toured in Germany, Netherlands, Italy, former Czechoslovakia, Austria and Switzerland and has had appearances on radio and TV. In 2001, she took part in My Marilyn, the album of her son David Klein. 

(Scant information edited from Wikipedia, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Discogs)

Rafael Mendez born 26 March 1906

Rafael Méndez (March 26, 1906 – September 15, 1981) was known as the "Heifetz of the Trumpet" and one of the greatest trumpet players of the 20th century who strove to make the trumpet a classical solo instrument. He composed, or arranged, over 300 works featuring the trumpet. His big pure tones, technique and style have never been matched by any other trumpeter. 

Age 15 

Born in Jiquilpan, Mexico, Rafael Méndez’s musical training began at five when his father needed a trumpet player for an orchestra comprised of family members. The Méndez orchestra, a popular performing group, appeared regularly at festivals and community gatherings. Rafael loved the trumpet and actually practiced more than his father allowed. 

In 1916, the Méndez orchestra performed for guerrilla leader Pancho Villa. So taken with the family orchestra, he “drafted” them into his army. Rafael quickly became Villa’s favorite player, and after several months demanded that Méndez stay with the rebels, even after the rest of his family were allowed to return home. Months later, Méndez was released from the rebel army, and he began to perform in several traveling circus bands, in addition to the family orchestra. 

He joined the Mexican army in 1921, playing in the army orchestra. At age twenty, Méndez moved to the United States, working in steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Unhappy that he could not play his trumpet as much as he desired, Méndez moved to Flint, Michigan, where he began working at the Buick Company plant and playing in the company band. After winning a last minute audition for the Capitol Theatre orchestra, Méndez moved to Detroit and began working with other orchestras in the area, including the Ford orchestra and the Fox Theatre orchestra. It was also here that he met and married Amor Rodriguez. 

In 1932, Méndez suffered the first of two, horrific embouchure accidents. While warming up at the Capitol Theatre, a door was carelessly thrown open, his trumpet crushed against his face. After studying unsuccessfully with several famous trumpet teachers, he returned to Mexico to study with his father. A year later, Méndez returned to the United States, moved to New York and joined the band of Rudy Vallee. After touring Southern California with the Vallee band, Méndez and his wife fell in love with California and moved there in 1937. Méndez’s twin sons, Rafael Jr. and Robert were born shortly before the move to California. 

                                    

In 1939, Méndez joined the MGM orchestra, where he played on several movie soundtracks and performed regular live concerts. A Decca records representative offered him a twelve record contract after hearing him featured in an MGM concert. He was also contracted to arrange, compose, and author trumpet method books by the Carl Fischer company. Méndez began to appear more frequently as a soloist with orchestras away from the movie studio, appearing on such well-known shows as the Bing Crosby Show, the Red Skelton Show, the Art Linkletter Show, Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, and Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra featured Méndez as a regular soloist at the Hollywood Bowl. Méndez’s popularity as a trumpet soloist led to conflicts with his MGM schedule, and in 1949, he left the orchestra. 

It was at this time that Méndez began his full-time career as a trumpet soloist. He appeared with symphony orchestras, college ensembles, concert bands and big bands across the US and Europe. Soon he was performing more than one hundred concerts per year. He is regarded as the popularizer of "La Virgen de la Macarena", commonly known as "the bullfighter's song", to US audiences. His most significant if not famous single recording, "Moto Perpetuo", was written in the nineteenth century by Niccolò Paganini for violin. It features Mendez double-tonguing continuously for over 4 minutes while circular breathing to give the illusion that he is not taking a natural breath while playing. 

Having a strong sense of duty toward education, he began to work with public school bands as a soloist and clinician more frequently as his career progressed. His fame led to him signing an endorsement contract with the F.E. Olds & Sons trumpet manufacturing company. In the 1950s, Méndez began to appear in concert with his twin sons, who had also learned to play trumpet. He also began to appear regularly with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. 

By the late 1950s, Méndez was having serious asthma related problems and difficulty playing the trumpet to his own high standards. In 1967, he was hit in the face with an errant bat while attending a baseball game in Mexico. He eventually healed, but the accident, combined with his failing health led him to cut his concert schedule drastically. He retired from performing in 1975, but continued to compose and arrange. Rafael Méndez died, at home, on September 15, 1981.

(Edited from Rafael Mendez Brass Institute & Wikipedia)