Lou Busch aka Joe "Fingers" Carr - The Lou Busch/Joe "Fingers" Carr Collection 1940-62 (2018)

This is the latest in Acrobat’s series featuring the great arranger/conductor/composers of the ‘golden era’ of popular music during the 1940s and ‘50s, which so far encompassed the likes of Billy May, Nelson Riddle, Hugo Winterhalter, Ray Conniff and others. Lou Busch was a pianist, producer, composer and arranger who, as well as working with other artists, made records himself both as Lou Busch and in the zany persona of bowler-hatted ragtime pianist Joe “Fingers” Carr, and under those guises had big hits with records like “Zambesi”, “11th Hour Melody”, “Portuguese Washerwoman”, “Sam’s Song” and “Down Yonder”. Joining Capitol Records soon after it was founded in 1942, he worked with many major artists over the next two decades, and this collection features his arrangements, productions and accompaniments for Lena Horne, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Kay Starr, Margaret Whiting, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Janet Blair, Pee Wee Hunt, Dorothy Provine and others. This great value 107-track 4CD set, which, like our other arranger/conductor collections, has been researched, compiled and annotated by former national newspaper showbiz journalist and photographer Geoff Wilding, provides an intriguing insight into the career of a versatile and innovative industry practitioner, and an entertaining showcase for his considerable talent.