Storied vocal group the Mills Brothers are featured in a newly-released clip of a performance from the earlier years of The Ed Sullivan Show. The family group from Ohio are seen singing a medley of “The Jones Boy” and “Lazy River” on the November 7, 1954 edition of the famous variety series, some seven years into its epic run on CBS and less than a year before the show officially changed its name from Toast of the Town to the title it was already widely known by.
The Mills Brothers had started to develop their unique vocal interaction on radio broadcasts in Cincinatti in the late 1920s, and were already nearly a quarter-century into their chart success by the time of this Sullivan appearance. Their earliest popularity on record was with the No.1 smash “Tiger Rag” in late 1931, followed by another chart-topper, “Dinah,” in 1932.
They would appear consistently among the bestsellers for decades to come, long into the rock’n’roll era. They topped the charts again in 1943 with another of their best-known songs, “Paper Doll,” which sold a reported six million copies in the US, and with “You Always Hurt The One You Love” in 1944 and “The Glow-Worm” in 1952. They continued to make chart appearances until 1968 and were recognized with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.
The brothers had released “The Jones Boy,” written by Mann Curtis and Vic Mizzy, as a single in November 1953. Backed by Sy Oliver and his Orchestra, it appeared at the same time as a rival version by Bobby Wayne with Orchestra conducted by Richard Hayman. Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodin’s much-covered “Lazy River” was first cut by Carmichael and his Orchestra in 1931.
The Mills Brothers released their first version in 1942 and charted with it again a decade later; more than 350 other interpretations have included those by Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps (as “Up A Lazy River”) in 1956, the Ray Charles Singers in 1957, and Bobby Darin’s US Top 20 version in 1961.
Watch all the latest archival videos from The Ed Sullivan Show on the program’s official YouTube channel.
