Benjamin Bernard Selvin was an American musician, bandleader, and record producer. He was known as the Dean of Recorded Music. Selvin was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants. He started his professional life at age 15 as a fiddle player in New York City night clubs. Six years later, as leader of his own dance band, the Novelty Orchestra, he released what was later alleged to be the biggest-selling popular song in the first quarter-century of recorded music. "Dardanella" allegedly sold more than six million copies and an additional million pieces of sheet music—although in a joint interview with Gustave Haenschen, founding director of popular-music releases at Brunswick Records, Selvin described the alleged record-sales total as “nonsensical” and said the actual sales of “Dardanella” and other purported “million-sellers” in the 1920s was 150,000 discs. He was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America that was presented to Selvin on his retirement on March 14, 1963. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, Selvin recorded more musical sides than any other person. One reason for this prolific output is that he recorded for dozens of different record labels during this productive time in the industry, using a different name for each label. His output has been estimated at 13,000 to 20,000 song titles.
1919–1927
Selvin started recording for Victor in 1919. He proceeded to record for almost all record companies at the time including Paramount, OKeh, Emerson, Lyric, Arto, Cardnal, Vocalion, Pathe, Federal, Brunswick, Grey Gull, Banner, and Columbia. From 1922 to 1925, over half of his records were on Vocalion, but he apparently did not have an exclusive contract with any of these labels until he signed with Columbia in 1927.
Columbia
From 1927 to 1934 Selvin was artists and repertoire director for Columbia Records, where his many productions included musicians Mannie Klein, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, and Bunny Berigan. Many of these recordings are collectable and prized. There were incorrect reports that Ben Selvin's Band played under the name "Perley Stevens and his Orchestra". Perley Stevens occasionally played with Ben Selvin's Band and many others, including Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras and Paul Whiteman's Band. During the Columbia era, Selvin recorded under many different names including:
Selvin helped develop Muzak in the mid-1930s. In 1934 he was named Vice President of programming at Muzak in New York City. He was musical director of Majestic Records beginning in 1947. He was a vice-president and A&R director at Columbia Records in charge of the recordings of Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark in the late 1940s and early '50s. He was an A&R director in 1953 at RCA Victor in charge of the company's popular Camden Records label and served as the musical director for a recording in 1954 with John Serry Sr.. In 1956 he served once again as musical director with Serry for another swing jazz album at Dot Records After retirement, he became a consultant to 3M, helping them make the transition from vinyl records to audio cassettes.
Selected discography
Popular recordings from Selvin's extensive discography include:
