Bert Kaempfert

German producer, arranger, conductor, band-leader and composer, born October 16, 1923 in Hamburg, Germany, and died June 21, 1980 on Mallorca, Spain. His nickname was Fips. Altogether he wrote about 400 titles and 700 arrangements. More than 150 million records had been sold when he died. Kaempfert has won a Golden Globe-Award for his composition Strangers In The Night, and is also famous for A Swingin' Safari and Moon Over Naples. Stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Caterina Valente, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington and Count Basie were successful with Kaempfert’s compositions. In 1961, he hired The Beatles to back Tony Sheridan for an album called . The album and its singles, released by Polydor Records, were the Beatles' first commercially released recordings.