Donald Mills
1915 - 1999
Donald Mills, the last surviving member of the Mills
Brothers singing group, known for their close harmony,
has died Saturday, November 13th, 1999 at Cedars Sinai
Medical Center of complications from pneumonia. He was 84.
His singing career spanned seven decades. With his
brothers, Herbert, Harry and John, the Mills Brothers
began performing in 1922 in Piqua, Ohio, and sold an
estimated 50 million records. The group broke racial
barriers in the era of Jim Crow and sang before royalty
in London. During an overseas tour in the 1930s, they
performed before the King and Queen of England.
From the early 1930s onward, the Mills Brothers were a
nationwide hit on radio and in record sales. In 1931, the
song "Tiger Rag" sold 1 million copies. Some of their other
hit songs included "You Always Hurt the One You Love," "Glow
Worm" "Yellow Bird" and "Paper Doll." The brothers also
appeared in several movies, including "The Big Broadcast"
in 1932, and "Twenty Million Sweethearts" in 1934.
The Mills Brother were known for their tight harmony and
uncanny ability to imitate instruments. "Many people who
only knew them by radio thought there was an orchestra
behind them," one family friend said.
They were the first so-called "black" artists to have a
commercially sponsored national radio show. They are
credited with being among the first "black" entertainers
to gain wide acceptance among a non-black audience. "We
always had the audience singing along," Mills recalled in
an Associated Press interview last year. "The songs we
did were very easy to do."
The group often dealt with racial discrimination at home
and abroad. "They were affable and unassuming and in their
own quiet way made it possible for black artists who
followed them to reach for the stars and actually touch
them," the family friend said.
In 1936, after the death of John Mills, the oldest of the
brothers, their father joined the group and sang with it for
22 years. Then the group continued as a trio until 1982 when
Harry and Herbert Mills decided to retire. More recently,
Donald Mills toured with his youngest son, John.
The Mills Brothers contribution to the music industry was
recognized in 1998 when Donald Mills accepted a Grammy
Award for Life Achievement. The Penguin Encyclopedia of
Popular Music calls the group "perhaps the most popular
vocal group of all time."
Donald Mills is survived by six children, 21
grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
King Hassan II of Morocco
Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun
(More to come...)
King Hussein of Jordan
