Ken Bloom Wins Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for 'Shuffle Along' CD

By: Feb. 13, 2017
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Ken Bloom, author of the new book SHOW AND TELL: The New Book of Broadway Anecdotes has won a 2017 Grammy Award in the category Best Album Notes along with his collaborator Richard CarlinIt's for Harbinger's Sissle and Blake Sing HUFFLE ALONG CD. This was Bloom's second Grammy nomination. His recording of "Maxine Sullivan Sings Great Songs from the Cotton Club" was previously nominated as Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Ken Bloom is a leading authority on American popular song and musical theatre. For his latest book, he has compiled stories both hilarious and tragic from the hits and flops starring the greats and near greats and who-the-hell-are-theys, all of whom contributed to the business we call show. Starting at the first glimmer of an idea through the writing, casting, rehearsing, tryouts, openings on Broadway and Off and critical reactions, theatre folk and their shows come to life on this funny, occasionally poignant page-turner.

Ken Bloom's books AMERICAN SONG (Reference Book of the Year by Choice Magazine); HOLLYWOOD SONG (named an Outstanding Reference Source), and TIN PAN ALLEY are seminal works on stage, film and popular songs. His BROADWAY: AN ENCYCLOPEDIC GUIDE TO THE HISTORY, PEOPLE AND PLACES OF TIMES SQUARE (named one of the top reference books of the year by The New York Times). It was followed by JERRY HERMAN: THE LYRICS: A CELEBRATION. His BROADWAY MUSICALS: THE 101 GREATEST SHOWS OF ALL TIME, written with Frank Vlastnik (won the American Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award). Others include AMERICAN SONGBOOK: THE SINGERS, THE SONGWRITERS, AND THE SONGS; REMEMBER THAT I LOVE YOU, written with Jerry and Elaine Orbach; as well as collaborations on HOW TO ATTEND A CONCERT, a BROADWAY MUSICALS CALENDAR and SITCOMS: THE 101 GREATEST SHOWS OF ALL TIME. His newest book was HOLLYWOOD MUSICALS: THE 101 GREATEST SONG AND DANCE FILMS OF ALL TIME.

Ken hosted 12-hours of musical theatre on Sirius. He was a programmer for United Airlines' inflight entertainment. Ken enjoyed a 15-year run as the co-host of Musical Theatre Today on WKCR-FM, contributed to National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Morning Edition, and a Broadway correspondent for the CBC. For over a decade he was Publications Director for the Theatre Historical Society and editor of their MARQUEE magazine.

He has produced and directed benefits with such stars as Patti LuPone, Carol Burnett, Marc Antony, Paul Anka, Wynona Judd, Donna Murphy, Jerry Orbach, and Duncan Sheik. The musical revue, Metropolita(i)n, premiered in Paris and later in NYC. He co-produced a concert of Cole Porter's La Revue des Ambassadeurs in Paris' Theatre de la Mutualite. A subsequent concert had its North American premiere at NYC's Town Hall featuring Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, with the previously lost original orchestrations of the 1928 show, not heard for 85 years. The show was subsequently performed in San Francisco.

President of the 31-year-old Harbinger Records, produced more than fifty albums including albums devoted to the music of Sheldon Harnick, Hugh Martin, Cy Coleman, Richard Rodgers, and John Kander. He has served as a judge for the Producer of the Year GRAMMY Award. He has been a consultant for Angel Records, Decca Broadway, Sony, Universal Music, the Museum of the City of New York, Smithsonian Institution, Goodspeed Opera House, Prentice Hall, and the National Endowment for the Arts Theatre to name a few. He has worked for the Library of Congress working on the papers of Burton Lane, Jerry Herman, Howard Dietz, Florence Klotz, Peter Stone, and others. He currently sits on the board of the Library of the Musical Theatre of the Goodspeed Opera House.

Executive Producer of MICHAEL FEINSTEIN'S AMERICAN SONGBOOK, a three-part series broadcast by PBS. He is currently producing a documentary on legend Gwen Verdon. Ken, in partnership with John Winson, is creating InsideSongs.com, the first internet database of popular songs that contains information on two hundred and forty million popular songs including composer, lyricist, source (Broadway, Hollywood), recordings, etc



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