Ethel Nagy Gabriel was an American record producer and record executive with a four-decade career at RCA Victor.
41 Facts About Ethel Gabriel
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Ethel Gabriel produced over 2,500 music albums including 15 RIAA Certified Gold Records and hits by Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Al Hirt, Henry Mancini, and Roger Whittaker, among many others.
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Ethel Gabriel was born in November 1921, and grew up in a Philadelphia suburb.
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Ethel Gabriel was the youngest of five daughters born to Hungarian parents.
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Ethel Gabriel played trombone and started her own dance band at the age of 13.
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Ethel Gabriel's band played for troops at USO functions during off-duty hours.
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Ethel Gabriel was a trombonist in the Philadelphia Women's Symphony Orchestra from 1939 to 1940.
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Ethel Gabriel studied with Donald Reinhardt in Philadelphia and New York.
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Ethel Gabriel graduated in 1943 from Temple University, where she studied music education.
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Ethel Gabriel began her employment at RCA Victor in Camden, New Jersey while still in school to help pay tuition and living expenses.
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Ethel Gabriel took some music and conducting courses at Columbia University between 1945 and 1948.
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Ethel Gabriel spent most of her career based in New York City but traveled the world through her work with RCA Victor.
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Ethel Gabriel was the wife of Gus Gabriel, President of Dunhill Publishing Company.
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When Gus Ethel Gabriel was hospitalized, Frank Sinatra sent autographed photos to all of the nurses to make sure he got the best care.
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Ethel Gabriel previously resided in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania in a home she designed herself before moving to Rochester, New York to be closer to family, as she had no children.
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Ethel Gabriel died in Rochester, New York in March, 2021 at the age of 99.
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Ethel Gabriel's tasks were to affix labels to records, pack records for shipment and various secretarial duties.
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Ethel Gabriel was then promoted to quality control as a record tester.
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Ethel Gabriel's job was to listen to one out of every 500 records for sound quality, check the label was correct and that the record had no scratches.
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Ethel Gabriel learned a lot about hit records, having had to listen to so many different styles and types of music.
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The recording studios at RCA Victor were nearby so Ethel Gabriel brought her trombone to work.
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Ethel Gabriel would watch recording sessions and practice between sessions when she could.
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Ethel Gabriel "practically lived at the sound studios" where she learned by listening and watching others work.
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Around 1959, Ethel Gabriel became head of the RCA Camden budget reissue label which was in danger of folding.
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Ethel Gabriel suspected that her boss, who was not in favor of women in the record industry, put her in charge of the moribund Camden label as a way to possibly force her out of RCA Victor.
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Ethel Gabriel went on to rejuvenate the Camden label and transform it within just a few years, into a multimillion-dollar label.
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Ethel Gabriel was transferred from Camden, New Jersey to New York City to work for RCA Victor's educational and international record department.
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Ethel Gabriel commented she learned everything on her own because her boss enjoyed going out on the road and left the work to her.
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In 1959, Ethel Gabriel created the RCA Camden "Living Strings" series of albums, which were easy listening instrumental string versions of popular tunes, earning a Grammy Award in 1968.
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Ethel Gabriel was involved with the production of George Melachrino's "Music for Moods" series that yielded the titles Music for Dining, Music for Daydreaming, Music for Faith and Inner Calm, and Music to Stop Smoking By.
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Ethel Gabriel was the first woman at RCA Records to achieve a vice-president title.
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At RCA Victor, Ethel Gabriel was on the ground floor of the creation of the company's famous Nashville studios.
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Ethel Gabriel was a leader in the experiments and methods of electronically improving and influencing the sound of music, such as simulating the first stereo sounds and experimenting with the use of an echo chamber.
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Ethel Gabriel supervised the first stereo recording with Bing Crosby.
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Ethel Gabriel was involved with RCA's earliest disco record release, The Brothers Disco-Soul in 1975.
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Ethel Gabriel was executive producer of the first digitally-remastered album ever issued, Enrico Caruso: A Legendary Performer, issued on the RCA Red Seal label in 1976, which was the first acoustic recording to utilize the computer restoration process developed by Thomas Stockham of Soundstream.
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Ethel Gabriel retired from RCA Records in 1984, after 44 years with the label.
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Ethel Gabriel co-produced off-Broadway plays such as The Aunts in 1989 and A Cast of Hawks.
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In 1984, Gabriel gave her entire RCA retirement to a friend, former United States Treasury Secretary Robert B Anderson, to form a new recording company.
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Ethel Gabriel later discovered her Gold Record Awards had unintentionally been auctioned.
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Ethel Gabriel produced fifteen gold records out of over twenty-five hundred releases to her credit.