Mitch Miller, Performer and Influential Label Executive, Dead at 99

Mitch Miller, who helped shape the budding pop music genre of the 1950s and '60s, died Saturday due to complications from an unknown illness the New York Times confirms. He was 99.

Born in 1911, Miller's career ran the gamut of the music industry. Not only was he a singer and performer who had a widely popular NBC show called 'Sing Along With Mitch' from 1961-66, he was an A&R man and producer who worked with such luminary vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day and Dinah Shore. Miller was an outspoken critic of the budding rock 'n' roll movement -- he even passed on signing Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly -- and worked to keep alive the long-standing crooning tradition. In 2000, Miller earned a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to modern music.

Although younger generations might not be as familiar with his 'Sing Along' series, it can hear his handiwork every year: Miller spearheaded the Christmas classic, 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,' then sung by a pre-teen Jimmy Boyd. While some critics couldn't look past Miller's love for the more novelty aspects of commercial pop music, he himself was skilled at the oboe and released albums on Columbia Records as Mitch Miller and His Orchestra. In the mid-1950s, he briefly had a string of hits, including a cover version of marching score from 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' and a version of the children's rhyme, 'This Old Man.'

He's survived by two brothers, his two daughters and son.