Editing Archie Bleyer (section)

==Cadence Records==
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 (The Everly Brothers song)|Bye Bye Love]]" and "[[Wake Up Little Susie]]" were produced by Bleyer in Nashville with country studio musicians led by [[Chet Atkins]]. Bleyer was also the step father-in-law of Phil Everly. (In 1963, Everly married Jacqueline Alice Ertel, daughter of Bleyer's wife, Janet. They divorced in 1970.)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0263616/bio |title=Phil Everly Biography |website=IMDB.com|access-date=June 3, 2022}}</ref> [[Don Shirley]] appeared on the label in 1955 with "Tonal Expressions". 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.

Bleyer also had limits to his tolerance for rock and roll. 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 (instrumental)|Rumble]]," in part due to his daughter's fascination with the song. Wray had a contract with Cadence, but in 1958 after he submitted a newly recorded album of similarly raw material recorded in Nashville, Bleyer was convinced the instrumental music was morally and musically inappropriate. He shelved the album and canceled Wray's contract. The material would not be released for decades until it was acquired by the British Rollercoaster label.

Cadence had a short-lived jazz subsidiary, [[Candid Records|Candid]], which lasted for about a year from 1960 (it was reactivated under new owners several decades later).

Cadence had another major hit in 1962 with comic [[Vaughn Meader]]'s album ''[[The First Family (album)|The First Family]]'', which featured Meader's comedic sketches and his peerless impersonations of President [[John F. Kennedy]]. The album was an enormous seller, as was a follow-up, until Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Cadence always maintained a small roster of artists. Other Cadence hits included 14 chart hits by [[Johnny Tillotson]], ten by [[The Chordettes]], four by [[Lenny Welch]], and two by [[Don Shirley]]. 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). The buyer was Cadence artist Andy Williams, who formed [[Barnaby Records]] to manage the Cadence catalog.

Bleyer moved with his wife Janet to her hometown of [[Sheboygan, Wisconsin]], where he died in 1989 of the effects of [[Parkinson's disease]], less than a year after his wife. <ref>'Archie Bleyer, 79, Music Director, Dies,' ''[[The New York Times]],'' March 21, 1989</ref>

Bleyer was a [[Freemasonry#North America|freemason]], and a member of St. Cecile Lodge No. 568, New York City.