Biography
Frank Luther (born as Francis Luther Crow on August 4, 1900, near Lakin, Kansas) was a successful vocalist on the Decca label in the years between The Great Depression and World War II. Prior to recording for Decca Records, he recorded for the Edison recording company. Between 1928 and 1940 Luther had a string of country music and dance band hits in the US, eventually singing on hundreds of recordings. By 1933 Luther started to record children's stories and nursery rhymes, which ultimately led him to quit his career as a vocalist of popular tunes and country music. According to Decca Records, in 1946, 85% of all children's records in the English speaking world were made by Frank Luther.
When he was sixteen, Luther toured the Midwest as a tenor of a vocal quintet called The Meister Singers, shortly before becoming reverend Jesse Kellems' music director. This led him to be signed to Edison and Decca respectively. At the latter label he made fame as a country & western singer first, and later Luther became the US' top-selling artist on children's records. During the war years, Frank Luther recorded obscure and forgotten folk songs from the Civil War era, as well as (amongst others) rare Christmas carols and Irish traditionals. He rose to critical acclaim with two albums worth of tunes composed by Stephen Foster.
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Luther became an executive at Decca Records after World War II, and was in charge of recordings the label produced with educational and religious content, as well as children's songs. Besides recording several albums in his own right, Luther wrote a musical based on Mark Twain's novel "Tom Sawyer" and he produced the million-selling musical "The Fantasticks". Frank Luther went on to record and produce albums and other musical and educational projects well into the 1970s. He died on November 16, 1980. He was married to fiddler Zora Lyman.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.