Mortarboard Society

A few months ago, I wrote a blog entry praising Steven Beasley’s biography of Big Band leader Kay Kyser, titled Kay Kyser: The Ol’ Professor of Swing! America’s Forgotten Superstar (Richland Creek Publishing, 2009). I received a cheerful email from Steve yesterday, who wrote to tell me that he’d just returned from an exhilarating 4-day tour of North Carolina promoting the book, a tour financially supported by the Chapel Hill Museum (Kyser, as everyone from those parts knows, was from Chapel Hill, North Carolina). Steve indicated he did a 30-minute oral presentation and Q&A session at two of the larger locations, followed by book signings at each of the four cities he visited—Chapel Hill, Durham, Rocky Mount, and Raleigh. In Rocky Mount he spoke to several (elderly) people who’d known Kyser and heard some good stories. He also stopped by to say hello to Kyser’s widow, Georgia (pictured in the 40s, with Kyser), who at age ninety I’m happy to report is doing very well. Georgia graciously presented Steven with a couple of absolutely amazing gifts, truly historic items which you can read all about on his latest blog, available at www.myspace.com/officialkaykyser. I’ll let Steven tell you about the gifts she presented to him on his blog, but I will add that I, too, can’t think of a person more deserving of the gifts. I believe him when he says the gifts brought tears to his eyes, and I would have loved to have been there for the occasion.

Steve also indicated in his email that his publishing company, Richland Creek, has just issued a new 18-track CD titled Kay Kyser: The Ol’ Professor of Swing! Live Air Checks 1937-44, which he compiled, produced and annotated. Since he is a world authority on Kyser, you can be sure it is historically and factually accurate. You can purchase the CD at the book site, www.kaykyserbook.com. I should add that Steve owns one of the largest collections of Kyser memorabilia in the world (now, thanks to Georgia, grown a bit larger). As I stated in my earlier blog post, Steven’s book is the first (and only) full-length biography about the once popular band leader. In addition to its many fascinating biographical details, it is loaded with rare and unpublished photographs and interviews, sheet music and magazine covers, and the definitive Kyser discography. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in America’s musical past, especially the Swing Era. To reiterate: Kay Kyser and His Orchestra had 11 “Number 1” records and 35 “Top 10” hits. In addition, Kyser had a top-rated radio show for eleven years on NBC, featuring the Ol’ Professor of Swing along with his show, “Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge.” No band leader of the Swing Era has a more extensive filmography than Kay Kyser, who starred in seven feature films and had appearances in several others. He frequently outdrew the Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman orchestras in live appearances; ballroom attendance records set by the Kyser orchestra during the Swing Era have never been toppled. In short, Kay Kyser was one of the most and popular and beloved entertainers in America from the late 1930s to the late 1940s.

I’d also like to applaud the Chapel Hill Museum for helping support Steven’s tour through North Carolina, as it seems to me such activities are an indication of its commitment to championing regional artists and culture. Incidentally, in addition to Kay Kyser, another of Chapel Hill’s favorite sons is James Taylor, for whom the museum maintains a website, available here.

Death Without Publicity

During the Second World War, the war publicity machine widely trumpeted the names of Allied military commanders. In its putative morale-building effort, the contemporary equivalent of ad-men glorified, for instance, British General Montgomery and, of course, American General Eisenhower. Even lesser-unit commanders could be celebrated, such as U. S. Army General Anthony McAuliffe, who was commander of the defending 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge. His reply to a German proposal to surrender, “Nuts!,” became one of the legendary moments of American courage and recalcitrance—“guts”—during the war. Among generals, an eagerness for publicity, as Paul Fussell notes in Wartime, led to the development of “publicity hounds,” the most egregious of which were probably Generals Mark Clark, in Italy, and MacArthur (pictured), in the Pacific, the latter having a huge publicity organization. “Of Clark, David Hunt has said that 'his reading of Clausewitz’s famous dictum was that war was the pursuit of publicity by other means'” (161).

At the level of the common soldier (as opposed to that of the war’s “upper tier,” its commanders), credit “became a crucial concept” (Paul Fussell, Wartime 155). “That all-important home-town audience the troops never forgot,” argues Fussell, because for the soldiers, “ultimate value is assigned by the distant, credulous” hometown crowd—what people were saying back home (155). Curious, then, that in the Kay Kyser wartime film, Around the World (released November 1943), the name of the Marcy McGuire character’s father, killed on a transport ship before he ever actually was able to step onto the battlefield, is never given. Obviously, his proper name, unlike a General’s (the General’s name more significant by virtue of his having to shoulder the heavy demands and responsibilities of power), is not important. The proverbial “unknown soldier,” her dead father becomes an emblem of sacrifice, the sacrifice necessary for all Americans during wartime. Informed of her father’s death (perpetrated by cowards, as the ship was torpedoed), she is asked to put on a stiff upper lip, to buck up, in effect, to sublimate the loss. She is told that her father did, in fact, fight in the war, he just wasn’t able to fight for very long. His death was as valuable to the war effort as any other, since war by its very definition demands a sacrifice by everyone. Names are not important.

These are not idle ruminations, without application to our own time, for as Paul Fussell observes, “The postwar power of 'the media' to determine what shall be embraced as reality is in large part due to the success of the morale culture in wartime. It represents, indeed, its continuation. Today, nothing—neither church, university, library, gallery, philanthropy, foundation, or corporation—no matter how actually worthy and blameless, can thrive unless bolstered by a persuasive professional public-relations operation, supervised by the later avatars of the PR colonels and captains so indispensable to the maintenance of high morale and thus to the conduct of the Second World War” (164).

That Ol’ Professor of Swing

I’m extremely happy to report the publication of Steven Beasley’s biography of Big Band leader Kay Kyser, titled Kay Kyser: The Ol’ Professor of Swing! America’s Forgotten Superstar (Richland Creek Publishing, 2009), which I finished reading this morning. Steve Beasley, who owns one of the largest collections of Kyser memorabilia in the world, has worked on this project for twenty years, and the result is clearly evident. The book—remarkably, the first published full-length biography written on the once immensely popular band leader—in addition to its many fascinating biographical details, is loaded with rare and unpublished photographs and interviews, sheet music and magazine covers, and the definitive Kyser discography. I congratulate Steve for his achievement and thank him for his important contribution to our understanding of America’s Swing Era of the 1930s and 40s. The biography was long overdue, but thanks to Steve’s efforts, that problem has now been redressed.

During the course of his career, from the late 1920s until his retirement in 1950, Kay Kyser and His Orchestra had 11 “Number 1” records and 35 “Top 10” hits. In addition, Kyser had a top-rated radio show for eleven years on NBC, featuring the Ol’ Professor of Swing along with his show, “Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge.” No band leader of the Swing Era has a more extensive filmography than Kay Kyser, who starred in seven feature films and had appearances in several others. He frequently outdrew the Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman orchestras in live appearances; ballroom attendance records set by the Kyser orchestra during the Swing Era have never been toppled. In short, Kay Kyser was one of the most and popular and beloved entertainers in America from the late 1930s to the late 1940s.

Wearing wire-rim glasses, a mortarboard and an academic gown, the Ol’ Professor of Swing (a stage persona probably inspired by the 1937 comedy Swing It, Professor, starring the obscure comedian Pinky Tomlin) had surrounded himself with equally eccentric personalities, such as “Ish Kabibble,” who sported bangs to his mid-forehead and had a dead-pan demeanor modeled on Buster Keaton, and great talent, including the top-notch arranger and composer George Duning (during the years 1927-1944). In the late 1930s RKO invited Kay Kyser to Hollywood, where it produced his and the band’s first film, That’s Right—You’re Wrong (1939), featuring Lucille Ball in an early, major supporting role. The success of that film lead to Kyser’s second film, the haunted house mystery You’ll Find Out (released Thanksgiving weekend 1940), starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre, in their only film together. He would make three more films for RKO: Playmates (1941), My Favorite Spy (1942), produced by comedy legend Harold Lloyd, and Around the World (1943). Kyser also made features for Columbia and MGM. The viewing pleasure of these films now largely resides in their nostalgic value, as the films’ topical references and allusions, and the presence of a once hugely popular entertainer forgotten by all but a few today, makes them seem now to be woefully antiquated and déclassé. Although Kay Kyser died over twenty years ago, in 1985 at the age of 80, Kyser orchestra hits such as “Three Little Fishes,” “Who Wouldn’t Love You,” “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle,” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” have remained durable in the decades since they were first recorded. Serendipitously, just last weekend, my wife Becky and I were doing some Christmas shopping at a local department store when we happened to hear over the store’s stereo system the Kyser orchestra’s fine recording, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” Happily, I can report that Kay Kyser's widow, Georgia Carroll, who appeared in several of the aforementioned feature films, celebrated a birthday recently; she has lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina since she and Kay retired there in 1950.

The book’s back cover asks the question, “How could one who accomplished so much be forgotten today?” The answer, to which Beasley dedicates several chapters, is that in 1950 Kyser disappeared from show business “without so much as a word.” Recognizing that the Swing Era had ended after the end of World War II, and tired of show business, Kyser returned home to his beloved state of North Carolina and became a very active statesman, helping bring Public TV to the state and raising millions of dollars for medical services for returning war veterans. He also became a religious leader later in life. A very private man with many contradictions, Beasley explores Kyser’s post-celebrity life in fascinating detail. Because Kyser retired from public life permanently in 1950, his career and accomplishments have gone largely unnoticed by the so-called “Baby Boom Generation,” by far the vast majority of which were born after Kyser had quietly retired, explaining why he is so rarely heard of today.

Almost twenty years ago, Image Entertainment issued on laser disc the films Kay Kyser made for RKO; these titles were also issued on VHS at the same time, and are now long OOP, although they occasionally show up for sale on eBay. These films, as well as the other films starring Kyser made in the 40s, also screen on Turner Classic Movies now and then. Recently, Warner Home Video issued on DVD You’ll Find Out as part of its Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics set, which also included The Walking Dead, Frankenstein 1970, and Zombies on Broadway (You’ll Find Out, tellingly, has no audio commentary, as do two of the three other films).

Again, I must congratulate Steven for his outstanding accomplishment, and commend his tenacity. I should mention that he has, for years, also been working on a documentary film on Kyser, and hopefully the publication of this biography will help him realize that project as well. I spent a few pleasant and enjoyable hours with Steven a few years ago while in Los Angeles, when he shared with me some rare footage from the documentary, and I wish him the best of luck with that important project. Additional information on the book can be found at kaykyserbook.com, and I’ll also direct readers to the Kyser website Steven maintains, kaykyser.net. He can also be found at www.myspace.com/officialkaykyser.

The Wikipedia page for Kay Kyser can be found here, which contains several links to additional sources. C'mon chillen, yess'dance!

From Big Band To Rap

Moments after posting my entry on Jack Kirby and Paul McCartney this morning, my friend Dion Cautrell sent me an email with a link to today’s press release announcing that Marvel Comics has teamed up with Eminem to create a limited series comic featuring the famed rapper and Marvel’s provocative vigilante, The Punisher, in Eminem/Punisher: Kill You. Apparently Marvel discovered Eminem is a fan of The Punisher, and worked out an arrangement with the musician to issue a comic coinciding with the release of his new album. Click the link on my blog entry from earlier today (below) to go to my initial discussion of the relation between rock music and the comics. I admit to being hard-pressed to think of another popular musician appearing as himself in an original comic book story; I’ve previously cited Alice Cooper’s From the Inside, a comic featuring Alice as well as characters from his 1978 album of the same title. I don’t think the now defunct “Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics,” published by Revolutionary Comics, qualify, as they largely consisted of a rock star’s or rock band’s biography told in graphic novel form.

The only other popular musician I can think of who appeared as himself in a comic book with an original story is big band leader Kay Kyser, who appeared with Batman and Robin in DC’s Detective Comics #144 (February 1949; pictured), in an episode entitled “The Mystery Broadcast.” Kay Kyser’s band was one of the most popular of the big band era, and no other bandleader of the swing era can boast such an extensive filmography as Kyser. Although hugely popular during the late 1930s and the 1940s, especially with his “College of Musical Knowledge” radio show, Kyser permanently retired from the music business shortly after Detective Comics #144 appeared in 1949. He hosted a TV game show sponsored by Ford Motor Company in 1950, but retired by the end of that year, largely explaining why he is virtually unknown to “Baby Boomers.” The fact that he appeared as a character in a comic book suggests just how popular he was at the time.