Spike Jones

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Spike Jones
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Spike Jones
For the music video and film director, see Spike Jonze.

Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was a popular musician and comedian. He was born in Long Beach, California.

Contents

[edit] Biography

His father was a Southern Pacific railroad agent. He got his nickname by being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of eleven he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself. A chef in a railroad restaurant taught him how to use adapted 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 Band and thereby got many offers to appear to radio shows including the Al Jolson Lifebuoy Show, Burns and Allen (with George Burns) and Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall. In 1940, he had an uncredited part in the film Give Us Wings, and in 1942 as a hillbilly in Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy. He joined up with vocalist Del Porter and performed in Los Angeles, gaining a cult following. By 1941 the band included violinist Carl Grayson. Other band members were George Rock (voice and trumpet), Mickey Katz (clarinet and voice), Doodles Weaver (voice) and Red Ingle (voice). They became his backing band The City Slickers. Saxophonist Ed Metcalfe performed with Spike Jones for a while. Jones's wife was the singer Helen Grayco, who performed on some of his radio shows. They received a recording contract with RCA Victor and recorded extensively for the company until the mid 1950s. They also hosted a weekly television show on NBC during the 1950s. Jones had four children, Spike Jr., Linda, Leslie and Gina. Leslie today is the Director of Music and Film Scoring at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Marin County.

[edit] Der Führer's Face

In 1942 Walt Disney made a propaganda cartoon called "Donald Duck in Nutzi Land". It contained the song "Der Fuehrer's Face" which was released as a single by Spike Jones before the cartoon was released. It reached number 2, and it is said that even Hitler heard it. The success of the record inspired Disney to release the cartoon with the song title as the cartoon title. Spike had seven top ten hits from 1942 to 1949, even though no new recordings were made for a year during a strike by the American Federation of Musicians. His signature tune, Cocktails for Two, was recorded in 1944. In 1945 he got his own radio show. In more than 60 shows his guests included Groucho Marx, Frankie Laine and Burl Ives. Spike's parody of Vaughn Monroe's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" was quickly withdrawn due to displeasure from Monroe (the parody was performed as if being sung by a drunkard, and ridiculed Monroe by name in its final stanza) and is a prized rarity. Frank Sinatra appeared on the show in October 1948, and Lassie appeared in May 1949. Through the late 40s and early 50's the band toured the USA and Canada under the name "The Musical Depreciation Revue". The band grew from 7 to 16 players. Jones also appeared in a dozen films in the late forties and fifties, always playing himself.

[edit] "Murdering The Classics"

One of his earliest recordings was an adaptation of Liszt's "Liebesträume". It was played at a jaunty pace on unusual instruments. Rossini's "William Tell Overture" was rendered on kitchen implements. In live shows Spike would acknowledge the applause with complete solemnity, saying "Thank you music lovers". A collection of 12 of these "homicides" was released by RCA in 1971 as "Spike Jones is Murdering The Classics". Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, provided the hiccups on "Clink Clink Another Drink". It used drinking glasses as musical instruments. In 1948 Spike recorded "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth". It was a number one hit. Dora Bryan had a hit in 1963 with a variation called "All I want For Christmas is a Beatle".

[edit] Soundies

A series of short musical films were made by the band. These so-called soundies were put onto juke boxes. In them we see Jones dressed in a suit with an enormous check pattern, leaping around playing cowbells, a suite of klaxons, foghorns, then xylophone then shooting a pistol into the air. One of their instruments was a "latrinophone", a toilet seat with strings. The band got their own variety shows on NBC then CBS from 1954 to 1961. In 1990 BBC2 screened six compilation shows from these broadcasts. Songs from the soundies were released on a compilation called Not Your Standard Spike Jones Collection.

[edit] The Fifties

The war years were lean times for Frank Sinatra and he was glad to get work doing a guest spot with Jones. Once his fame grew, Sinatra repaid his debt to Spike by inviting him onto his show in 1958. "The Perry Como Show" had him as a guest in 1956, and Jack Benny in the same year. Also in 1956, Jones released his first LP, Dinner Music For People Who Aren't Very Hungry. By 1959 his act seemed old-fashioned and work dried up. He made a few stereo comedy albums in the early 1960s, then switched to recording "straight" dance albums with a full orchestra. A lifelong smoker (he was once said to have gotten through the average workday on coffee and cigarettes), Spike Jones died from emphysema in Beverly Hills, California on 1st May 1965, at the age of 54. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

[edit] Radioland Murders

In 1994 Mel Smith directed a film based on a script by George Lucas. Set in 1939, it contains fictionalized versions of Spike Jones and Frank Sinatra. Radioland Murders was poorly reviewed and compared unfavorably with Woody Allen's Radio Days. It contains the last appearance of George Burns. Two members of Spike Jones's band appear in the film: Billy Barty (1924 - 2000) and "Mousie" Garner (1909 - 2004), playing themselves.

[edit] Misleading biographies

Many compilations from the seventies and eighties contained spurious dates of birth and death for Spike in the liner notes. Unfortunately they have been widely reproduced on the web and in books. He was not born on 14th May 1916, nor did he die on March 29th 1966. His real name was not Harry Joseph Chick Daugherty.

[edit] Influence

There is a clear line of influence from the Hoosier Hot Shots and the Marx Brothers to Spike Jones and to Stan Freberg, Gerard Hoffnung, Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach, The Goons, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, The Roto Rooter Goodtime Christmas Band and "Weird Al" Yankovic (Billy Barty even appeared in Yankovic's film UHF and a video based on the movie). Jones is also mentioned in The Band's song, Up on Cripple Creek. Novelist Thomas Pynchon is an admirer and wrote the liner notes for a 1994 reissue of some of Jones's most adventurous recordings, entitled "Spiked!" (BMG Catalyst).

Syndicated radio personality Dr. Demento regularly features Jones's music on his program of comedy and novelty tracks.

Some other well-known tracks included:

[edit] Sources

Notes by Peter Gamble from Clink Clink Another Drink CD by Audio Book & Music Company, ABMMCD 1158.

[edit] External links

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