"The King of Swing" Benny Goodman was kept in stellar company from the 1920s to the ‘70s among swing era legends Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and John Hammond. His knockout career was surpassed by few if any, and his incredible musical abilities took him from radio to prime-time television to Carnegie Hall and everything in between during his nearly five decades of reigning in the big band business.

The patriarch of the clarinet was raised in Chicago as the son of two Russian immigrants. Goodman got his musical push at the age of 10, when he started taking clarinet lessons at a synagogue. Goodman eventually made his musical debut - at age 12 - and ultimately dropped out of high school when he was 14 to pursue a career in the industry. Goodman's real start to music began at age 16 when he joined the Ben Pollack band, and by age 20 he had moved to New York City, taking gigs as a freelance musician and performer in the pit bands of Broadway musicals. Goodman signed with Columbia Records in 1934, and his first Top Ten hit followed that same year with the hit single "Ain't Cha Glad?," followed by "Riffin' the Scotch," "Ol' Pappy" and "I Ain't Lazy, I'm Just Dreamin'."

Goodman's initial success influenced him to organize his own performing orchestra, which recorded the hit song "Moon Glow" before the musical mastermind made his television debut, playing the last hour of the NBC radio program Let's Dance. A string of hit songs followed, and by the time Goodman left the show his popularity on the West Coast had grown so immense that his number ones just kept popping out like clockwork. Performing at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles and then at Carnegie Hall, Goodman went on to produce hits like "Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)," which was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Goodman went with the times, performing overseas during the war and appearing in films while still creating music, remaining an American celebrity until way after his death in 1986.