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In the Fall of 1972, Hauser's taxi fare was an aspiring young singer named Laurel Massé, who was familiar with the sole album by Hauser’s earlier Manhattan Transfer combo, and was looking to form a group. Janis Siegel was the third member of The Manhattan Transfer. In 1974 the group began performing regularly throughoutNew York City.Signed to Atlantic Records by the legendary head of the label, Ahmet Ertegun, the group released their self-titled debut in 1975; the second single from the album "Operator" took radio stations by storm, from the opening four-part a cappella intro to Siegel's emotional lead vocal, eventually peaking in the Top 20. Their next two albums, Coming Out and Pastiche, brought them a string of Top 10 hits in Europe. In 1978, Massé was injured in a car accident and during her convalescence, decided not to rejoin the group that had since moved to California. Cheryl Bentyne, auditioned for her slotand they immediately felt her impact, invited her to join, and, as Paul puts it, “The Transfer’s second phase began.” The first album featuring the now legendary quartet of Hauser, Siegel, Paul & Bentyne was 1979’s Extensions which earned the band another smash. The group went from strength to strength, when in 1981, they became the first group ever to win Grammy Awards in both Pop and Jazz categories in the same year. The critical praise and commercial success of the group’s first seven studio albums could hardly have prepared them for the monumental 12 Grammy nominations they received in 1985 for the album Vocalese. Those 12 nominations made Vocalese the single greatest Grammy nominated album in one year, and cemented the group’s status as one of the most important and innovative vocal groups in the history of popular music. Heading into the new millennium, with worldwide sales in the millions, Grammy Awards by the dozen, and as veterans of soldout world tours, The Manhattan Transfer once again proved their uncanny knack for being ahead of the times by teaming up with the then relatively unknown, but future Grammy Award winning, producer Craig Street to record their tribute to the music of Louis Armstrong (The Spirit Of St. Louis). The release of The Definitive Pop Collection, a 2-disc retrospective of the group’s greatest hits, provides not only an opportunity to look back at one of the greatest bodies of work in American popular music, but also the chance to look ahead to 2008, the 35th Anniversary of a group that is restless adventurous, limitless and, as the Philadelphia Inquirer so aptly put it, a group that "still can sound dangerous!”
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