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Hey everyone I was wondering if anyone knew of any celebrities that were in their schools band programme, high school or college. I think younger students would think it was cool if they knew that their favorite celebrity was in band at one time. I already know if Wynton, the guys from 311 and Marilyn Manson, and I think I heard Trent Rezner from Nine inch Nails was as well. Any info would be great thanks!

Purdue's Marching Band has had Orville Redenbacher in their sousaphone section and Neil Armstrong in their euphonium section.

Bruce Willis was in my HS band my first 2 years teaching. I can't say he made much of an impression with his trumpet chops, though!

Macho Man Randy Savage played trombone in high school...(not my high school...I graduated in 2004).

Velvet Brown played tuba at Annapolis high (i am almost positive) thats not my school, but it is five minutes away.

Emeril Lagassi went to school at the New England Conservatory for a few years. He was a percussionist.

Jane Monheit went to my junior high school where I teach band, but she was in chorus. She would have made a fine tuba player!

My Dad went to high school and college with Sheryl Crow. She was the drum major in his high school band and majored in piano at Mizzou. He said she was really nice and a good friend, he also said she was hot then too....

Some of us remember former President Bill Clinton playing his sax on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1992 (in those hilarious sunglasses). Not only was he a "fat band kid" in his description, but as to be expected of students who push themselves, he was first chair tenor sax in the Arkansas All-State Band for several years. Below is an excerpt from an interview he gave to a Harvard publication on mentoring:


Who Mentored President Bill Clinton?

William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States.

My high school band director, Virgil Spurlin, had a huge impact on my life. Not because he was a particularly great band director. He was quite good, but he was a world-class human being. He took a personal interest in kids, and seemed to instinctively know when they were having trouble at home or having trouble in school, and always to know what to say to them and more importantly maybe what questions to ask to find out what was really going on in their lives. He also was always looking for things that young people could do besides play music. We put on the state band festival every year, for example, and he let lots of us help. And he taught us basic organizational skills and how to allocate resources and move things around. But always he was trying to find things that people were good at. He thought that everybody was good at something and if he just looked hard enough he could find it, he could convince them of it, and he could raise their aspirations and their hopes.

He was unbelievable. All my life I thought of him. I stayed in touch with him on and off until he passed away. I really felt that my early years with him convinced me that I could organize and run things. That I could do whatever I wanted to do and that I could actually marshal other people in a common effort, and of course if you're in politics that's very important.

I went to Jr. high school with Marc Gordon who was a member of the group "LeVert". He was in our brass quartet during solo and ensemble playing trombone. LeVert

The two biggest musical stars from my high school are:
Joe Rocarro, Tuba, West Point Army Band, retired...
Jeff Curnow, Associate Principal Tpt, Philly Orchestra

Joe graduated the year I was born, and Jeff a few later... Got to meet them both at a band alum concert a few years ago... I went to the same college as Jeff... 20 years later and he still had a great reputation at Temple...

The only other celeb from my hometown is Larry Holmes, the Easton Assasin.... Heavy weight champion of the world a few decades ago...

Shane

Flea, the bass player from the Redhot Chili Peppers plays trumpet. I'm not sure, but I think he played it in high school.

Frank Beamer (football coach at Virginia Tech) played trombone in middle school.

Or so he tells us every year...

Jimmy Webb ("MacArthur Park," "Up, Up, and Away," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix") played trumpet in my high school band--about six years before I got there.

I was second trumpet at a stage band rehersal at the University of South Alabama, when Jimmy Buffet walked into our band room with a flat top guitar, sat down next to me and pulled out the guitar charts for what we were playing and played what was written without a mistake. He was very nice and extremely competent.
He wasn't that well known in those days (late 60's), but most of us knew who he was and were impressed.
Paunchy and bald, he still packs 'em in and encourages us old geezers to keep on pounding it out for the folks.
tubatooter1940
www.johnreno.com/

Actress Deidre Hall of "Days of Our Lives" (Dr. Marlena Evans) played clarinet in my H.S. band (Lake Worth H.S.). We were both officers in the band and graduated in '65. I dated her twin sister, Andrea a few times. Deidre (Dee Dee) was cute back then but not as gorgeous as she is now. WOW!



Can you believe she's 58 years old! Oops... gotta go... my wife just came in.

http://deidrehall.com/

tommy lee in the nebraska marching band 2 years ago

Althought I wasn't in school with them, nor did they attend my school:

David Robinson (NBA)
Dan Hampton (NFL)
Waymon Tisdale (NBA)


Sure there are some more............


Tom Mason

Andy Griffith played tuba in a few of the "Andy Griffith Show" episodes (I'm sure this has been mentioned before on this site). He grew up in Mount Airy, North Carolina and earned a music degree at UNC-Chapel Hill in the late 1940s.

I met CBS "Early Show" host Harry Smith a few years ago (1988). He talked about his life as a tuba player, particularly his activity in Denver many years ago, while he was a radio personality on KHOW. He claimed that he did some work with the old Denver Symphony. I believe he still plays.

The Late Jean Shepherd played sousaphone in the Hammond (IN) High School marching band:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Shepherd