This wacky bandleader had a band full of (talented) oddballs like him.
by Rich Watson
Spike Jones (not to be confused with Spike Jonze) was a bandleader and musician from the forties and fifties whose public persona was, in a word… odd. He wore the loudest suits, performed the weirdest songs, and led a band that was different from others of the era.
To put it mildly.
Big band leaders
For the first half of the twentieth century, big bands typically had one guy up front who acted as the conductor. These jazz ensembles had horns: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, accompanied by bass and drums. The bandleader either played an instrument of his own or not, and often composed the music.
Glenn Miller is one of the best examples from this period.
He assembled his orchestra, arranged their music and played the trombone. He and his band’s hits, such as “Moonlight Serenade” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo” were the soundtrack of the American wartime era.
People danced to big band music in ballrooms, dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns, and did the lindy hop, the charleston or the jitterbug. Movies that used big band music, such as Top Hat, often had sophistication and elegance.
Jones was unlike any of that.
And so was his music.
I can’t take the way he sings/
But I love to hear him talk
The former Lindley Armstrong Jones was so skinny as a kid he was compared to a railroad spike. Hence his nickname.
As a drummer in Victor Young’s orchestra during the thirties, he also played in radio shows. But he got bored. He and some friends started a part-time band in 1941, doing parodies. A year later, they took a song from a Donald Duck anti-Nazi cartoon and recorded it for RCA Victor’s Bluebird label.
“Der Fuehrer’s Face” went to number three on the charts.
Jones became a star. By 1945 he had his own radio show, and later, a TV show.
As his fame grew, so did his band. Here are only some of the many City Slickers:
1. Del Porter
Porter was co-founder of the CS. He co-wrote and sang on “Fuehrer” and other songs. Before, he sung with the Foursome in the thirties; Jones played on their records. Porter also performed on Broadway and toured with Miller.
At Jones’ suggestion, Porter started a band which Jones managed, but they made little. Jones had bigger things in mind. So they started the CS.
During the war the CS performed for American troops in Europe.
2. Doodles Weaver
Another vocalist, he appeared in movies such as Topper, Winchester ’73, and The Birds, as well as TV. He had his own show in 1957. For a time, he even wrote for Mad Magazine.
As part of the CS, he often portrayed funny announcers. Perhaps his best-known instance of this is in Jones’ version of the William Tell Overture, where Weaver calls a horse race set to the music.
Sadly, his 1983 death from self-inflicted gunshot wounds was ruled a suicide.
He was uncle to Sigourney Weaver.
3. Helen Grayco
Jones’ second wife was a singing star from the age of eight. Discovered by Bing Crosby, she toured with top bands and also had bit parts in movies, including A Night At the Opera.
In 1946, Jones heard Grayco sing at the Hollywood Palladium. He wanted her for the CS but she wasn’t interested in doing comedy at first. He said her straight singing would be an alternative to his sillier material. Here’s an example of her music.
They married in 1948.
Grayco also sang in Jones’ Other Orchestra, his more serious band.
She died in 2022.
4. Perry Botkin
Botkin played guitar, banjo and ukulele, not just for Jones, but for some of the biggest composers and singers of the twentieth century, like Hoagy Carmichael, Benny Goodman, and Bing Crosby. Later, he moved to television. Among the shows he worked for include The Beverly Hillbillies. His son Perry Jr. achieved even greater fame as a Grammy-winning composer.
5. Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath
Otherwise known as Purv Pullen, he was a vocalist who specialized in animal sounds, especially birds. For Walt Disney, he worked on Snow White, Pinocchio, and Sleeping Beauty. He was also the voice of Cheetah in the Tarzan movies and Ronald Reagan’s simian sidekick Bonzo.
Jones gave Pullen his alias. The Q stood for quinine because he was “hard to take.”
In this 1985 radio interview, he goes into detail on Jones and the CS. Funny!
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Do you remember Spike Jones and his City Slickers? Leave a comment and let me know!
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