Profile of Spike Jones on Famous Like Me

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.

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 1930's 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), Doodles Weaver (voice) and Red Ingle (voice). They became his backing band The City Slickers.Jones's wife was the singer Helen Grayco, who performed on some of his radio shows. They recorded five records for Victor's label "Bluebird" before receiving their big break. The rock band Aerosmith almost named themselves "Spike Jones" in the late bandleaders honor.

Der Fuehrer'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. It reached number 2. It is said that even Hitler heard it. 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 about 1943. In 1945 he got his own show. In more than 60 shows his guests included Groucho Marx, Hank Williams, Frankie Laine and Burl Ives. Spike's parody of Vaughn Monroe's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" was quickly withdrawn and is a prized rarity. Sinatra appeared in October 1948, Lassie 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. He appeared in a dozen films in the late forties and fifties, always playing himself.

Murdering The Classics

One of his earliest recordings was an adaption of Liszt's "Liebestraum". It was played at a jaunty pace on inappropriate 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 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".

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.

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. Spike Jones died in Beverly Hills on 1st May 1965. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

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 Paul "Mousie" Garner (1909 - 2004), playing themselves.

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.

Influence

There is a clear line of influence from the Marx Brothers to Spike Jones and to Stan Freberg, The Goons, Frank Zappa, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and to "Weird Al" Yankovic. Billy Barty even appeared in a video by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Some other well-known tracks included:

• "Cocktails for Two"
• "I Went to Your Wedding"
• "That Old Black Magic"
• "The Blue Danube"
• "The Sheik of Araby"
• "You Always Hurt the One You Love"
• "William Tell Overture"

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Spike Jones