Spike Jones - Biography

Biography

Jones' father was a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley got his nickname by being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself. A railroad restaurant chef taught him how to use pots and pans, forks, knives and spoons as musical instruments. He frequently played in theater pit orchestras. In the 1930s he joined the Victor Young orchestra and thereby got many offers to appear on radio shows, including Al Jolson's Lifebuoy Program, Burns and Allen, and Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall.

From 1937 to 1942, he was the percussionist for the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, which played on Bing Crosby's first recording of White Christmas. Spike Jones was part of a backing band for songwriter Cindy Walker during her early recording career with Decca Records and Standard Transcriptions. Her song "We're Gonna Stomp Them City Slickers Down" provided the inspiration for the name of Jones’s future band, the City Slickers.

The City Slickers developed from the Feather Merchants, a band led by vocalist-clarinetist Del Porter, who took a back seat to Jones during the embryonic years of the group. They made experimental records for the Cinematone Corporation and performed publicly in Los Angeles, gaining a small following. The original members included vocalist-violinist Carl Grayson, banjoist Perry Botkin, trombonist King Jackson and pianist Stan Wrightsman.

The band signed a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1941 and recorded extensively for the company until 1955. They also starred in various radio programs (1945–1949) and television shows (1954–1961) on both NBC and CBS.

During the 1940s, other prominent band members included:

• George Rock (trumpet, and vocals from 1944 to 1960)
• Mickey Katz (clarinet and vocals)
• Doodles Weaver (vocals — specialized in playing sports commentators and absent-minded singers who persistently scrambled their lyrics into malapropisms and digressed into stand-up comedy)
• Red Ingle (sax and vocals)
• Carl Grayson (violin and vocals)
• Country Washburne (tuba)
• Earl Bennett, a.k.a. Sir Frederick Gas (vocals)
• Joe Siracusa (drums)
• Joe Colvin (trombone)
• Roger Donley (tuba)
• Dick Gardner (sax and violin)
• Paul Leu (piano)
• Jack Golly (trumpet and clarinet)
• John Stanley (trombone)
• Don Anderson (trumpet)
• Eddie Metcalfe (saxophone)
• Dick Morgan (banjo)
• George Lescher (piano)
• Freddy Morgan (banjo and vocals)
• A. Purvis Pullens, a.k.a. Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath (tuba, bird calls, dog barks)

The band's 1950s personnel included:

• Billy Barty (vocals)
• Gil Bernal (sax and vocals)
• Mousie Garner (vocals)
• Bernie Jones (sax and vocals)
• Phil Gray (trombone)
• Jad Paul (banjo)
• Peter James (vocals)
• Marilyn Olson Oliveri (vocals & stand up bass)

The liner notes for at least two RCA compilation albums claimed that the two Morgans were brothers (the 1949 radio shows actually billed them as "Dick and Freddy Morgan"), but this is not true; Freddy's real name was Morgenstern. Peter James (who was sometimes billed as Bobby Pinkus) and Paul "Mousie" Garner were former members of Ted Healy's vaudeville act and had replaced Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard as Healy's "stooges" in the 1930s.

Spike Jones's second wife, singer Helen Grayco, performed in his stage and television shows. Jones had four children: Linda (by his first wife, Patricia), Spike Jr., Leslie Ann and Gina. Spike Jr. is a producer of live events and television broadcasts. Leslie Ann is the Director of Music and Film Scoring at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Marin County.