Archibald Martin Bleyer (June 12, 1909 – March 20, 1989)[1] was an American song arranger, bandleader, and record company executive.
In 1945, Bleyer began a collaboration on the CBS radio network as the orchestra conductor for the popular Gordon MacRae Show.
[1] The label's first artist was Julius La Rosa, a member of the Godfrey cast, which also included vocalists Janette Davis, Frank Parker, Marion Marlowe, and the racially integrated vocal group The Mariners.
Bleyer had several instrumental hit singles of his own, and signed other artists who had performed on Godfrey's programs, including The Chordettes, one of whose members, Janet Ertel, became his wife in 1954.
While LaRosa was unable to sustain his early successes, later Cadence artists included Andy Williams and the label's biggest act of all, The Everly Brothers, whose hits such as "Bye Bye Love" and "Wake Up Little Susie" were produced by Bleyer in Nashville with country studio musicians led by Chet Atkins.
It became a Top 15 album in the spring of that year, reportedly selling more than 20,000 copies, a respectable debut for a jazz artist.
It was the only chart album Shirley was to enjoy, but his sales remained steady enough that he was with the label until it closed in 1964, recording more than a dozen long-play releases.
While he clearly, and correctly, viewed the Everlys as a commercially appealing, clean-cut act whose country-influenced harmonies could reach a vast following, he was not as tolerant of pioneer garage-rock guitarist Link Wray.
In 1957, Bleyer reluctantly agreed to release Wray's no-frills, roaring instrumental "Rumble," in part due to his daughter's fascination with the song.
In 1964, Bleyer, who was unable to accept the changing pop music market at the dawn of the British Invasion, sold the Cadence label and all its recordings (except for certain material which he kept to himself, like the Link Wray album).