Sonny Lester was a producer of big band, jazz, and easy listening albums, and followed in the limelight of his contempories like Enoch Light. He also wound up, unintentionally, becoming influential among the sample-hungry DJs of the 1990s as the originator of the Groove Merchant label. Lester was born in New York City in 1924, and began his music career as a trumpeter, appearing in several big bands until being drafted into the army. After WWII, he returned to New York and made a name for himself as a musician and as the man behind a successful string of Play Along With the NBC Rhythm Section book and records. He soon made the switch to producing and worked at Coral Records, then moved to Dot Records in 1958, focusing on producing jazz records, many of them live at such venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the New York Town Hall. He again moved, this time to Arthur Rank's Top Rank Records, producing rocker Jack Hall, the Fireballs, and the Knightsbridge Strings.