Spike Jones and his City Slickers

[tntuba]

Don't know if this has already been talked about (did a search and didn't come up with anything), but does anybody know who the tuba/sousaphone player was that played with Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The link below has a picture of one of the album coves at 0:04 - this is the one I'm interested in. Some very funny stuff besides the good playing. Thanks in advance.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNuytuN7 ... re=related" target="_blank

P.S. Did a Wikipedia search and came up with two names; Country Washburne and Roger Donley. Don't know anything about either of these two, so if you have info on them that would be great too.

[David Richoux]

According to "Spike Jones and His City Slickers (The Untold Story)" by Jordan R Young, Disharmony Books, Moonstone Press 1982, the tuba player in the picture is Eddie Robertson.

spike-1957-1.jpg

Who actually played on the recording?
Could have been Roger B Donley (with SJ from 1947-1955)

Roger-B-Donley.jpg

Born 1922, Quincy, Il. Son of a piano teacher, Donley started on piano and accordion at age 5, he later switched to trumpet and finally bass. During WW2 he served in an Air Force band, which took him to China, India and Burma. After 8 years on tuba and bass with Spike, he joined the editing department at UPA; he later worked for Bill Melendez Productions, and freelanced at other studios.

or Hank (Henry) Stern (with SJ 1941-1942,) but also could be:
Country Washburn(e*) was often the tuba player with Spike, in both his small group and "Spike Jones' Other Orchestra" but that picture does not look too much like him (but a bit hard to tell.) I will dig further though my record collection and biographical stuff I have. Jones also later formed a sort of "Country & Western" band that was not very funny, however, those uniforms look possibly more like that sort of thing.

(* The "e" at the end of his name seems to come and go, depending - according to Dan Augustine, Washburne's nephew Jim is a Washburn. )

spike-jones-&-Washburne.jpg

Here is some info collected a few years ago by Bill Haesler over on DJML:

Joseph (Joe) H 'Country' Washburne, the musician, vocalist and arranger.
Born on 28 Dec 1904 in Houston, Texas, he won local fame in the 1920s playing bass horn with the legendary pianist 'Peck' Kelley band in Galveston. (Other alumni from the 1920s Peck Kelley group include Jack Teagarden, Leon Roppolo, Pee Wee Russell qnd Leon Prima.)
He worked and recorded with Ted Weems orchestra from mid 1929 to 1942 (tuba, string bass, vocalist) and can be heard on the band's Victor, Columbia and Decca records. (Red Ingle was also in the Weems' band, from 1931 to 1941.)
He also recorded with Jimmy McPartland's Squirrels (April 1936). Joe joined Spike Jones' City Slickers (string bass, tuba, vocalist and arranger) in July 1942 and was with the group until 1946, plus later guest spots with the band. He is featured on Spike Jones And His Other Orchestra 1946 versions of "When Yuba Plays The Rhumba On The Tuba".

During the 1940s-1950s he was on the Capitol records made by Wingy Manone, Eddie Skrivanek (Sextette From Hunger), Marvin Ash, [Charles] Lavere's Chicago Loopers, Nappy Lamare's Levee Loungers, Zutty Singleton and Billy May, and with Bob Crosby's Bob Cats in 1950 (part of the Coral 'Sousa Marches' album).
He joined Red Ingle's Chosen Seven in March 1947 and is on their famous early Capitol records.

On radio Country Washburne worked on the 'Great Gildersleeve', 'Fibber McGee and Molly' and Bing Crosby 'Chesterfield' radio shows. He also led the band on the Roy Rogers radio show. In early 1950 he also led the band on Curt Massey - Martha Tilton CBS and NBC television shows for over ten years.He then retired from the studios to operate a music studio.

Country Wasburne's compositions include "Oh Mo'nah", "One Dozen Roses", "I Saw Esau", "We'll Sing The Old Songs", "Everybody Calls It Swing", "At Last I'm First With You", "That's The Reason"and "Them Darn Fool Things". He became an ASCAP member in 1943. He died from a heart attack at Newport Beach (or Santa Anna), California on 21 Jan 1974.

More pictures to be posted below -

For those who are interested in this sort of stuff, a search of the DJML archives will provide a lot of info not available many other places - Red Ingle's son Don has been on that list for years, and he has posted stories about Spike Jones, Natural Seven and other great novelty bands.

[David Richoux]

I found one picture with Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath holding a helicon (too small to scan well,) but I don't think he actually played it on any recordings. Another picture lists a man named Candy Hall on tuba who played with the group in the mid 1940s for a year.

cand-hall.jpg

The discographies I have found does not list the make-up of the City Slickers band for any particular song, so they are not of much use... Also, most of the LP reissues have random photographs and almost no personel information - a lot of them were unauthorized (boot-leg ) or semi-authorized releases, or were from other countries with different (read: lax) copyright laws in force at the time of printing.

So, to sum it all up:
PROBABLY NOBODY KNOWS!

[eupher61]

David, send a link to Don Ingle. He would know for certain.

Don's dad played with SJ for a few years. A great player in his own right, but he got the Jones gig because he could belch a perfect Eb on command.

[David Richoux]

David, send a link to Don Ingle. He would know for certain.

Don's dad played with SJ for a few years. A great player in his own right, but he got the Jones gig because he could belch a perfect Eb on command.

I mentioned Don Ingle in my first reply - a vital source of info on all of this comedy & hokum!

Going back to the original question in this particular thread - "Who played tuba with Spike Jones" - I don't think Don would have any better info since the record keeping on discographies was weak, the photo being referenced by tntuba was not actually one of the musicians on the track "Never Hit Your Grandma with a Shovel" recorded on 4/20/1942 - (with no tuba!) that picture was from 1957. Photos of the City Slickers, Other Orchestra, New Band and such other Spike Jones ensembles were scrambled at random in all of those re-release recordings. Not so much such thing as historical accuracy when they were essentially pirate/boot-leg issues... and Youtube broadcasts of old records with a random still image and no other info are not helping!

I often went through this sort of digging when I was a DJ on KFJC - this was way before "The Internets" and I had to rely on limited record jacket info, photocopied discographies, letters, phone calls, and memories/conversations with old-time musicians, fans and a few interested musicologists (but Comedy and Hokum recordings were usually not a serious subject for academic research )

[David Richoux]

I just found this book by discographer Jack Mirtle ( "Thank You Music Lovers A Bio-Discography of Spike Jones and His City Slickers, 1941-1965" ) that might have some better answers. I have another discography by the same author (about Billy May) that is quite good, so I might get the Spike Jones book.

BTW, I found out that even though it shows as "back ordered" on the website, it is actually a "print to order" book.

I'll get Right back to Ya! if there is any new info.

[Gongadin]

The picture with Eddie Robertson is of Spike's band that played on his "L&M" sponsored television show. That was long after the City Slickers disbanded. The only holdovers from the Slickers were Freddie Morgan (banjo) and George Rock (trumpet). The soundtrack to the provided YouTube clip ("Never Hit Your Grandma With A Shovel") wasn't released commercially - it was originally recorded for Standard Transcriptions, 16" records for radio stations that weren't available to the public.

I have Jack Mirtle's book and would be glad to look up any recordings to let you know who the tubist was. I met Roger Donley at Joe Siracusa's house once - Joe was Spike's two-headed drummer, and I still talk to Joe regularly. One of the TubeNet members....Dale...used to own Roger's Martin recording bass that's pictured above. The helicons that you see Doc Birdbath, Sir Frederick Gas and others play were all props. Some were filled with water and emptied out over other members heads during the show. The recipients of the shower would look up to the sky and then open an umbrella to cover themselves while they played. The band also utilized a bass saxophone that would eject live frogs from its bell. I visited Doc Birdbath at his house in Vacaville once....what a trip! Incidentally, Doc (Purves Pullen) was in the Guinness World Record book for the number of animals and birds he could imitate.

[David Richoux]

OK! Just got my copy of Jack Mirtle's "Thank You Music Lovers" and I have a few additions to the list of tuba players in Spike's bands. Unfortunatley
Mirtle could not always specify if a muscian was playing "String Bass" or "Tuba" (or even "Bass Guitar") in the index, so I will include all previously unmentioned "Bass" players. Hopefully I won't miss anybody...

Cecil Johnson played tuba in mid 1941 (he was 4' 11" tall, so comic visuals ensued, I suppose.)
Herschell Edison Ratliff replaced Country Washburn on tuba and bass in 1944 - recorded extensively on those Armed Forces Radio Show series.
Paul King played bass for a USO show in 1944 with the Slickers.
Martin Kaplan played bass 1947 on one recording session.
P.G. (Lofty) Smearer played tuba on many recordings around 1950 - he did a lot of session work around that time on bass and tuba.
Cliffie Stone (Snyder) played bass in Spike's "Country Cousins" 1952 (pretty sure he was playing String Bass, not Tuba. Pretty famous C&W player/producer.)
Phil Stevens, bass 1953
Eddie Robertson, Larry Breen and Arnold Olsen all are listed as bass/tuba on the various 1957 Spike Jones TV Show band.
Bernie Miller played bass in 1958 with the Slickers for a Frank Sinatra Show
Bobby Lewis played bass with a Slickers touring band in 1959
Don Whitaker played bass in a 1959 band.
Ira Westley played tuba on a Hamm's Beer commercial Spike recorded in 1960.
Tommy Terry, Red Callender, and Robert K. Stone all played bass in the 1963-1964 touring "New Band."

So that probably is "IT!" - I doubt anybody else would do another Spike Jones discography with much more info than Mirtle has at this point.

[David Richoux]

seems to be a duplicate post

[tntuba]

Wow that's a lot of information. Thanks for all your work guys.

Brian