Henri René born 29 December 1906

Henri René (December 29, 1906 – April 25, 1993), was an American musician who had an international career in the recording industry as a producer, composer, conductor and arranger. 

Born Harold Manfred Kirchstein in New York City but his German father and French mother soon moved back to Germany, and Rene grew up in Berlin. He received a thorough German education in classical music and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin. In the mid-1920s, he spent several years in the United States, working with a variety of orchestras, but he returned to work as an arranger for Electrola, an RCA affiliated recording company in Berlin. 

While touring Europe with his band some years before the war, he was appointed musical director of the two largest moving picture firms in Europe, Tobis and UFA. In 1936, René emigrated to the U.S. and became musical director and chief arranger for RCA Victor, forming his own Musette Orchestra in 1941. As an instrumentalist, Rene played the piano, saxophone, and Musette accordion. He was responsible for the original "Beer Barrel Polka" disk, which played an important role in the development of the music machine to its present status as a powerful entertainment medium. 

He began recording regularly for Standard and has since become its No. 1 artist, his disks selling in quantities comparable to those of the largest commercial dance bands. Among his most successful records have been "Cuckoo Waltz," "Waltzing on the Kalamazoo," "Tap the Barrel Dry," "Pete, the Pickelman" and "Tommy's Mustache." After service with the Allies in World War II, he resumed working for RCA Victor as a conductor and arranger. 

                              

In the mid 1950s, he issued several successful LPs which Allmusic has called "forerunners of the space-age pop aesthetic"; among the albums were Music for Bachelors, Music for the Weaker Sex, Compulsion to Swing and Riot in Rhythm. 

Rene composed music themes and scores for several popular television series. After this René worked in production for RCA Victor, with Harry Belafonte, Perry Como, the Ames Brothers and Eartha Kitt among others. He left RCA Victor in 1959 to work freelance for the rest of his active career. 

For his contributions to the recording industry, René has a Star at 1610 Vine Street on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

He died on April 25, 1993 (age 86) in Houston, Texas, USA

 (Edited from Wikipedia & Space Age Pop)