Nathaniel Shilkret

Nathaniel Shilkret (b. 25 December 1895 - d. 18 February 1982) (some sources [1] give 1889-1992) in New York, to an Austrian-Jewish immigrant family was an American composer and conductor.

For many years he was "director of light music" for the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor). He conducted the orchestra for the very first recording of George Gershwin's symphonic poem An American in Paris, in 1928. His best-known popular composition was The Lonesome Road, sung by Jules Bledsoe (dubbing Stepin Fetchit) in the final scene of the 1929 part-talkie film version of Show Boat and recorded by more than one-hundred artists, including Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson. He moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and there contributed music scores to a string of Hollywood films for MGM and RKO, particularly Mary of Scotland (1936), Swing Time (1936), The Plough and the Stars, and Shall We Dance? (1937) and several films of Laurel and Hardy. Shilkret also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Anderson's stage drama Winterset (1936). In 1939, he conducted a group of soloists (including tenor Jan Peerce) and the Victor Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor's multi-disc tribute to Victor Herbert, which were recorded following a special NBC radio broadcast. He left the movie business after 1946 to join the CBS radio network as its music director.