Wilson "Serious" Myers (born Ernest Wilson Myers or Wilson Ernestine Myers, October 2, 1906 – July 10, 1992) was an American jazz double-bassist, baritone and bass saxophonist, vocalist, bandleader and arranger, best known for his contributions to New Orleans jazz. He also played trombone on a 1996 released album of Django Reinhardt recordings.
Jeanne Behrend (11 May 1911 – 20 March 1988) was an American pianist, music educator, musicologist and composer.
Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance.
Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tail coat and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience.
On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She tried to continue her musical career but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era she started wearing dresses and married, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones.
Nathaniel Lester Lanin (August 26, 1907 – October 27, 2004) was an American jazz and pop music bandleader. He was famous for long, smoothly arranged medleys, at a consistent rhythm and tempo, which were designed for continuous dancing. Lanin's career began in the late 1920s and his popularity increased through the advent of the LP era. His music remained very popular among fans of the Ballroom dance world. Starting with Epic Records in the middle of the 1950s, he recorded a string of albums for several labels, many of which hit the US Billboard 200.
Chuck Cabot (né Carlos Guillermo Cascales; 16 May 1915 Querétaro, Mexico – 27 December 2007) was an American saxophonist and big band leader. The Chuck Cabot Orchestra launched in 1937 while Cabot (Cascales) was a student at the University of Southern California. He later transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles where he became a member of the legendary UCLA 1939 football team along with Jackie Robinson, Kenny Washington, and Woody Strode. In the early 1940 he was athletic coach at El Monte, Jefferson, and Hamilton High Schools.
His orchestra played to capacity crowds in the 1940s and 1950s in ballrooms such as Roseland in New York, the Palladium in Hollywood, and the Catalina Island Casino.
He co-partnered with Arthur Benson in the forming of Hollywood International Talents. He was instrumental in discovering and securing recording contracts for 'Los Nomadas,' the first inter-racial rock and roll band. He recognized the individual talents of the band's lead guitarist Bill Aken. (Adopted son of Cabot's friends Francisco & Lupe Mayorga) Changing Aken's name to 'Zane Ashton,' he was instrumental in launching the young singer/guitarist's solo career. He lived long enough to see his young protege inducted into the Musician's Hall of Fame as a member of 'The Wrecking Crew' in November, 2007.
Beginning in the 1960s until shortly before his death, Cascales booked performances for The Coasters, The Drifters, and The Shirelles. He also organized the Rolling Stones' first West Coast concert tour.Cabot and His Orchestra recorded on the Atomic label in Hollywood in the 1940s.
His brothers, Johnny Richards, Jose Luis Cascales (Joe), and Juan Adolfo Cascales (Jack) were also professional musicians.
Lorin Farrar Wheelwright (December 20, 1909 – November 4, 1987) was an American Latter-day Saint hymnwriter, composer, musical instructor and educator.
Edward Beatie "Ted" Kimball, the image is of his father who was the organist for the Tabernacle Choir and wrote several hymns (February 17, 1910 – August 5, 1985), was a professional radio host in the Salt Lake City region. He was the first announcer of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast "Music and the Spoken Word".
Kimball was born in Salt Lake City in 1910, the son of Edward Partridge Kimball. In 1929, when "Music and the Spoken Word" began radio broadcasting, Kimball was the 19-year-old son of the choir's organist. For the first broadcast a long microphone cable stretched over a block from the KDYL radio station (KSL's predecessor) to the Salt Lake Tabernacle. With the station's only microphone suspended from the Tabernacle ceiling, Ted Kimball announced each song while standing on a ladder during the whole show. After only eleven months, Kimball was replaced by Richard L. Evans, who is considered the first regular narrator and voice of the show. Evans expanded the narrations to include inspirational thoughts, called "sermonettes", and stayed with the show for 41 years.In the early 1980s, Kimball worked as a part-time radio host for KWHO-AM in Salt Lake City, a commercial fine arts radio station.
Pete Daily (May 5, 1911 – August 23, 1986) was an American dixieland jazz cornetist and valve trombonist.
Wade Ray (April 13, 1913 in Evansville, Indiana – November 11, 1998 in Sparta, IL) was an American Western Swing fiddler and vocalist. His bands, the Wade Ray Five, Wade Ray And His Ozark Mountain Boys, etc., included musicians such as Kenneth Carllile and Curly Chalker. He retired to Sparta, Illinois in 1979 where he died in 1998.
David Thornburg Robbins (August 14, 1923 – September 23, 2005) was an American-Canadian trombonist, composer, arranger, and teacher.