Baltimore's Marching Ravens are the official marching band of the Baltimore Ravens football team. They were founded as the Baltimore Colts' Marching Band on September 7, 1947 and have continuously operated ever since even though the original Colts disbanded in 1950, leaving Baltimore without a team for 3 years until the new Baltimore Colts were installed. The band also stayed together after the team moved to Indianapolis and became the Indianapolis Colts, notoriously leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night in 1984, which left the city without a team for eleven years. They are one of three official marching bands in the NFL, the others being the Attica High School Marching Band (for the Buffalo Bills) and the Washington Redskins Marching Band.
According to an ESPN documentary directed by Baltimore native Barry Levinson called The Band that Wouldn't Die, band leaders got advance warning that the team was being moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis overnight and were able to remove their equipment from team headquarters before the moving vans arrived. At the time of the move, the band's uniforms were being dry-cleaned. Band President John Ziemann contacted the owner of the dry cleaners, who told Ziemann that legally they could not release the uniforms to Ziemann, but told him that that evening, he should take the company van "for a walk."[1] Ziemann and some associates then hid the uniforms in a nearby cemetery until the wife of then-Colts owner Robert Irsay said they could keep them.
From 1984 until the Cleveland Browns relocated to Baltimore in 1996, the band stayed together, playing at football halftime shows and marching in parades, eventually becoming well known as "Baltimore's Pro-Football Musical Ambassadors".[2] The band remained an all-volunteer band as it is today and supported itself. At one point, John Ziemann pawned his wife's wedding ring for the money to buy new equipment.[1] Ironically, one of the band's first gigs after the Colts left was an invitation from then-Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell to play during the halftime show of a Browns game. "They were cheap," Modell said. Twelve years later Modell would move the Browns to Baltimore and they would become the Baltimore Ravens. When David Modell appeared, along with a group of former Colts (including Johnny Unitas) on a local talk show hosted by Kwesi Mfume, the host introduced Ziemann to a huge round of applause. Ziemann then asked Modell if the band could become the Ravens' official band, and Modell smiled and said "I thought you already were" as the crowd roared its approval again. (In "The Band That Wouldn't Die", Modell, who had always wanted a band for his team, called the decision a "no-brainer".[1])
When Baltimore was in the running for a National Football League franchise in the 1990s, Ziemann enlisted the band's help in convincing the Maryland General Assembly, the state legislature, to approve funding for a new football stadium.[1] The band played on the steps of the Maryland State House while the legislature was in session one evening, causing a crowd to gather, including then-Governor William Donald Schaefer, who had been pushing hard for a team and a football stadium. Eventually, the legislature approved the funding.
For the Ravens' first two seasons, the band retained its name as The Baltimore Colts Marching Band. At the start of the 1998 season, it assumed its current name, The Marching Ravens, coinciding with the opening of Baltimore's new football stadium.
The band also had a new fight song for the Ravens, which was drastically different from the old Colts fight song. In 2010, Zeimann announced that the band was considering using the Colts fight song with new lyrics for the Ravens. Fans were allowed to vote online. Over 10,000 votes were cast, with an overwhelming 79% in favor of using the Colts fight song with new lyrics.
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