I met a music legend!

You might not know her name, but she has created a HUGE musical legacy.  I think she might be the best well kept music secret in Rochester, NY!  About Ethel Gabriel

Ethel Gabriel, now 90 years old, achieved notability as the first woman to become a record label producer, won six Emmy Awards and produced fifteen Gold records out of over twenty-five hundred releases to her credit.  As a VP at RCA,  she initiated the company’s Nashville studios and was a leader in the experiments and methods of electronically improving and influencing the sound of music, such as simulating the first stereo sounds by shifting sound between speakers.  She was first to release a disco record and the first digital album.  She created and/or developed music careers for many celebrities including Elvis, and under her direction, RCA issued recordings by Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves, Henry Mancini, Perry Como, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Peter Nero, Neil Sedaka. Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and other artists, achieving top record sales for several of these artists.

I was so excited to meet with her and interview a woman who accomplished so much at a time when woman didn’t achieve her level of her success.  She was greatly influenced by her father as she was “suppose to be a boy” and did those things girls didn’t do…like go to college, and shoot a gun!  Her mother also supported her dreams of a music education and was responsible for getting her a payment plan at Temple University.

She clearly talks about an industry she adored and her message was filled with the importance of doing what you love and don’t focus on the competition.

I asked her about Elvis since she was instrumental in his successful career and she said he was shy, but that his hip gyration wasn’t fake.  The music moved him in that way.  Ethel shared how she purchased fur coats for the wives of Elvis and Sinatra as that kind of coat was a sign of success back then!  I love her stories and the sparkle in her eyes as she talked about an industry she loved so much!

Until I talked with her, I didn’t know that she brought the Mambo and Cha-cha to the states from Brazil, as she traveled the world.  She had huge notoriety in the industry, and an unbelievable amount of responsibility for creating the gigantic careers of so many famous artists!

In 1959 Gabriel created the “The Living Strings” series of albums, which were easy listening instrumental string versions of popular tunes,^[4] earning a Grammy Award in 1968.  I got a chance to surprise this legend with four of those albums that had been in my parent’s collection.  She looked at them with such joy, that it brought tears to my eyes.  You could see the love she has for the industry as she read through the covers and fondly remembered those days .  Her words filled me up with happiness as she said “you don’t know what this is doing to me” while she tapped her heart.

As a music lover, I thank you Ethel, for what you brought to our lives!  I am proud to know you!

UPDATE:  I originally met Ethel Gabriel when a band I sang with, gave a performance where she lived.  I was so intrigued by her story and I met with her a few more times.  Because she was so instrumental in the music industry, and her stories were so great, I asked if I could do a recorded interview with her  She seemed thrilled to be asked and so we chatted!  We met where she lived, and I asked her to recap some stories that she had shared with me in earlier meetings.

She was lovely and she clearly had a sparkle and joy on her face when talking about her life and career memories.

My parent’s album collection included some of the “Living Strings and Living Voices” albums that she recorded in “England”.  She didn’t have her own albums anymore and I could see how valuable those were to her heart…so I left them with her!  You can hear her humming to one of those albums playing April In Paris at the end of our visit and interview!  This was a joy for me too!

Listen to my Ethel Gabriel interview here!