Biography

Alan Copeland won a Grammy award in 1968 for "Mission Impossible/Norwegian Wood".

He's teaching "Swing Choir" at Berkeley, California.

Alan is the ex-brother-in-law of the late dwarf actor/humanitarian Billy Barty who was the brother of Alan's first wife of over 20 years Dede Barty. He and Dede actually share the same birth date October 6, 1926.

Alan Copeland was an acquaintance of the award-winning musician Henry Mancini. Early on, Alan took orchestration coaching from Henry Mancini and later on hired Henry's wife Ginny Mancini to be one of the voices that Alan used to create the Alan Copeland Singers.

The creation of The Alan Copeland Singers: When Red Skelton decided to change the format of his popular long-running prime time TV program on CBS's "Red Skelton Show", he hired The Modernaires to be a part of the new variety show style format replacing his mainly comedy content. Red's music director was the well-celebrated TV show music creator David Rose (Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven etc.). Because of the new format David was expected to handle a greater amount of music arrangements than ever before which prompted him to enlist Alan Copeland's talent on a weekly basis usually handling the music for the guests on the program. When a conflict arose with the show's dance director, the Modernaires were going to be let go, which prompted David Rose to suggest the idea to the producers to put a new vocal group around Alan. Thus the birth of what was called at first The Skeltones, then changing to the Alan Copeland Singers, a name that became associated with winning a Grammy in 1968 (presented in 1969).