Guy Mitchell with Ray Conniff & his Orchestra

To some listeners, the name Guy Mitchell evokes contempt -- as the singer whose pop-styled covers of "Singin' the Blues" and "Knee Deep in the Blues" cut the legs out from under Marty Robbins' country-styled original renditions. To others, Mitchell evokes the last period of America's innocence, the mid-'50s, when he periodically ascended the pop charts in the company of singers like Frankie Laine. Mitchell was all of those things and more, in some ways a trail-blazer -- he was the first major recording artist whose career was crafted in the studio, by a record company, and sol...