Uploaded May 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
High Up On A Hill-Top
Words and music by Abel Baer, Ian Campbell and George Whiting
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
Milton Charles at the WENR Radio Studio Wurlitzer Organ, Chicago Illinois
Columbia 1653-D
Recorded November 27, 1928
Milton Charles (1897-1991) was born to a musical family in San Jose, California. He began piano lessons at the age of 7 and became a church organist when he was 13. As a teenager played at movie theaters in San Francisco and was eventually hired to play at the Grauman Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. In the early 1920s he moved to Chicago where was the featured organist at the Tivoli Theatre as well as assisting at the Chicago Theatre and Uptown Theatre. After sound films became prevalent at the end of the 1920s, Charles moved to radio, scoring background music for "The Amos and Andy Show," "Ma Perkins" and "The Road of Life." He later worked on the Roy Rogers and Gene Autry radio shows, was a staff organist with CBS in Los Angeles, and spent the last 20 years of his career as organist and vocalist at the Kings Arms restaurant in Toluca Lake. He died on November 1, 1991 in Corona, California.
High Up On A Hill-Top
Words and music by Abel Baer, Ian Campbell and George Whiting
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
Milton Charles at the WENR Radio Studio Wurlitzer Organ, Chicago Illinois
Columbia 1653-D
Recorded November 27, 1928
Milton Charles (1897-1991) was born to a musical family in San Jose, California. He began piano lessons at the age of 7 and became a church organist when he was 13. As a teenager played at movie theaters in San Francisco and was eventually hired to play at the Grauman Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. In the early 1920s he moved to Chicago where was the featured organist at the Tivoli Theatre as well as assisting at the Chicago Theatre and Uptown Theatre. After sound films became prevalent at the end of the 1920s, Charles moved to radio, scoring background music for "The Amos and Andy Show," "Ma Perkins" and "The Road of Life." He later worked on the Roy Rogers and Gene Autry radio shows, was a staff organist with CBS in Los Angeles, and spent the last 20 years of his career as organist and vocalist at the Kings Arms restaurant in Toluca Lake. He died on November 1, 1991 in Corona, California.
