Glenn Miller

 | American History  | one comment  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

Shortly before his death, Glenn had outlined his postwar plans. He would mark his return to the United States with a concert at New York’s Paramount Theater and then work only six months out of the year, spending the rest of the time raising oranges at his California ranch, ‘Tuxedo Junction.’

Miller had no way of knowing it, but the Big Band Era was quickly drawing to a close. A strike by the musicians’ union against the record companies that lasted from August 1942 until September 1943 kept the bands out of the recording studios. Although the union eventually got what it wanted, the strike dealt a severe blow to the Big Bands. Singers, who had been able to record with choral backup, had gained popularity and were in demand for radio performances. The new vogue for romantic singers, initiated by Frank Sinatra after he left the Tommy Dorsey band in 1943, brought vocalists like Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, and Jo Stafford to the fore.

By the end of 1946, eight of the nation’s top bands had dissolved. As big-band veteran John Best once recalled, ‘I was on the road with Benny Goodman, and he was guaranteed $3,000 a night. Tommy Dorsey was getting $4,000. Suddenly one night, the total take was just $700.’

Radio disk jockeys were proliferating, rendering it unnecessary for stations to air live music. Also, a wartime twenty-percent amusement tax on nightclub checks continued into peacetime, with a predictable decline in business. Most crucial of all, tastes changed. As jazz moved into the era of bebop, fans rarely turned to Big Bands to hear their kind of music.

And yet Miller’s music survived. It weathered the period of neglect, and even aversion, that inevitably envelops the recently fashionable. But now you can hear it in television commercials or dance to it in clubs and at weddings. Even fifty years after Miller’s death, to listen to his band’s biggest hits is to be struck by their huge familiarity. These were not just songs of their day, but of the century. They are an indispensable part of American popular music.

*[ 4 ] He never did see his second adopted child

This article was written by Joseph Gustaitis and originally published in the April 2001 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: American History, Historical Figures, Music, People