Sad news

I hope that Bob Mitchell's family won't mind me putting this text here:

Bob Mitchell was born in Los Angeles on October 12, 1912. He began piano study at four and pipe organ at the age of ten. He accompanied silent movies beginning in 1924 (at age twelve) until 1928 when sound replaced live music. At eighteen he was the youngest candidate to receive the degree of Fellow of the American Guild of Organists (F.A.G.O.). He was a scholarship winner at Eastman School of Music and the New York College of Music and still found time to sing and play on his own radio show in New York City.

Returning to Los Angeles, he founded the Mitchell Choirboys in 1934 - which continued for nearly 70 years. They performed in some one hundred motion pictures, most notably Going My Way, The Bishop's Wife, and White Christmas. They toured extensively - five times abroad and once around the world, and made thousands of radio and TV appearances.

Bob served overseas in the Navy during World War II, and was pianist/organist for Meredith Willson's Armed Forces Radio Service Orchestra.

He served as staff pianist/organist at several Los Angeles radio stations - KFI, KHJ, KECA, among others, and on TV with Art Linkletter's House Party, The Jack LaLanne Show, and even The Mitchell Choirboys Show. Bob and the choir were featured in the Academy-nominated short film Forty Boys and a Song, and he was honored on Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life.

Bob was organist for four years for the Dodgers and Angels at the then new stadium, the only person to 'play' for both the National and American leagues at the same time. He was Musical Director for many religious institutions over his 87 years as a professional musician, and most recently regularly exciting his many fans at the Silent Movie Theater (on Fairfax Blvd.), Hollywood. Bob passed away peacefully on Saturday afternoon, July 4, 2009.