BOB THIELE

Born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in 1922.Thiele hosted a jazz radio show when he was 14. At 17 he founded the Signature Records label and recorded jazz greats, Lester Young, Erroll Garner and Coleman Hawkins.

Thiele joined Decca records in 1952. In 1954, he took over Coral Records and proceeded to sign and record artists such as Buddy Holly, Jackie Wilson, The Crickets, Buddy Hackett, Lawrence Welk, and The McGuire Sisters.

In 1959 Thiele produced pop records by Pat Boone and the Mills Brothers for Dot Records as well as an album by Jack Kerouac. When the head of Dot decided that Kerouac's poems were obscene, the album was recalled. Thiele resigned and formed a new label, Hanover-Signature, re-releasing the Kerouac album.

In 1961, Thiele joined ABC Records and took over the Impulse label. He proceeded to change jazz history, not only because of the breadth of the music he recorded -- everything from Duke Ellington to Pharoah Sanders -- but because he recorded John Coltrane's most important work, "A Love Supreme."

During the years he spent at Impulse, Thiele made albums with Coleman Hawkins, Oliver Nelson, Earl Hines, Albert Ayler, Alice Coltrane, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp, Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and Louis Armstrong. One of Mr. Armstrong's hits, "What a Wonderful World," was written by Mr. Thiele, with George David Weiss, during this period.

On the Blues Way label, a subsidiary of ABC, he made some of B. B. King's best modern recordings (Lucille, released in 1967) and also recorded T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker and Otis Spann.

In 1969, after leaving Impulse, Thiele started Flying Dutchman Records.