Artist:Anita Kerr
Song:The Fool on the Hill
Album Favorites
Anita Kerr was a very important part of the Nashville music scene mostly providing backup singers for sessions. Her group The Anita Kerr Singers recorded many easy listening albums. She moved to Europe in the 70s. She was born Anita Grilli Oct. 13, 1927 in Memphis. She married Al Kerr in 1947 and they moved to Nashville so he could be a DJ at radio station WKDA. Anita was performing with her vocal group in clubs when a WSM radio program director hired her to arrange and conduct a choir for the show Sunday Down South. She got into providing session singers for producer Owen Bradley at Decca Records. By 1955 they were doing eight sessions per week. Anita and her singers won on the TV show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and they became regulars on his daily TV show. When they weren't in New York doing that, they were still doing sessions in Nashville. The Anita Kerr Singers signed with RCA Records in 1961. They recorded easy listening covers of hits similar to The Ray Charles Singers. They won a Grammy for the 1965 album We Dig Mancini. Anita also arranged and produced Living Voices albums. Plus Anita and her singers continued do do sessions. After Anita divorced her husband in 1965, she moved to Los Angeles with new husband Alex Grob. She left RCA for Warner Bros. and formed a new version of The Anita Kerr Singers. She continued to record albums, was choral director for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and recorded several albums with poet Rod McKuen. After switching to Dot Records in 1969, Anita moved to her husband's native Switzerland in 1970. She formed a new group with British singers Anne Simmons, Ken Barrie and Danny Street and recorded for Philips Records and later Word Records. She slowed down in the 80s and didn't record much. This recording of The Fool on the Hill was on the 1994 album Favorites on Bainbridge Records. I was surprised she didn't record this song in the 60s. The album is mostly 60s covers recorded in England. Anita Kerr died on Oct. 10, 2022 at age 94. Here's Anita Kerr performing The Fool on the Hill Dec. 14, 1974.
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