Before the birth of Rock & Roll in the mid-1950s, popular music was dominated by Big Bands from the 1930’s through the 1940s led by bandleaders like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and many others. They played jazz and swing music featuring vocalists like Dick Haymes, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and many others.

World War II stressed the availability of musicians and by the end of the war, swing bands slowly diminished in importance and their vocalists moved on to becoming soloists. They represented a cross section of American ethnic groups, but as they moved into the late 1940s and early 1950s, male Italian-American singers became by far the most dominant.