Bob Moore born 30 November 1932

Bob Moore (November 30, 1932 – September 22, 2021) was an American session musician, orchestra leader, and double bassist who was a member of the Nashville A-Team during the 1950s and 1960s. He performed on over 17,000 documented recording sessions, backing popular acts such as Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Bob was also the father of multi-instrumentalist R. Stevie Moore, who pioneered lo-fi/DIY music and is arguably one of the most recorded instrumentalists in music history. 

Bob Loyce Moore was born in Nashville, Tennessee and was raised by his grandmother near Nashville’s Shelby Park. By age nine he set up a shoeshine box near the entrance of the historic Ryman Auditorium, and before long was invited backstage to shine the boots and shoes of Opry stars. Only a year later, Moore had begun performing in a band he formed called the Eagle Rangers. He learned to play bass from Jack Drake, Ernest Tubb's bass player. 

Moore was 15, he joined th Grand Ole Opry duo Jamup & Honey before joining Little Jimmy Dickens’ band at 18. At age 23, his abilities brought an offer to play on the famed Red Foley ABC-TV show, Ozark Jubilee. Playing with the show's band in Springfield, Missouri on Saturdays and traveling to Nashville during the week proved to be exhausting, however, and after two years, he returned to Nashville. 

Moore met Owen Bradley, who was playing trombone in Nashville radio station WSM-AM's staff band. In 1950, Bradley hired Moore to perform on a direct-to-disk transcription which was recorded via cable from the stage of the Ryman Theatre. Soon thereafter, Bradley became the head of Nashville's division of Decca Records and brought Moore in as a session musician. Moore went on to perform on over 17,000 documented (Federation of Musicians Local 257) recording sessions and was a key member of The Nashville A-Team, a core group of first-call studio musicians, that began to coalesce in the early 1950s playing on Nashville recordings that represented what would become known as rockabilly, including for  Brenda Lee, Bobby Helms, Wanda Jackson, and Johnny Burnette and the Rock & Roll Trio. 

                              

In 1958, he played on his first of many Elvis Presley sessions at RCA Studio B and soundtrack. The following year he teamed up with Fred Foster to establish Monument Records, where, as the label's musical director, he created arrangements for Roy Orbison. Moore appeared on almost all of Cline's Decca sessions from her first in November 1960 to her last in February 1963. 

Roy Orbison & Bob Moore

In 1960, he formed the Bob Moore Orchestra and recorded an album which included "Mexico", a 1961 45 rpm single that went to number seven on the Billboard pop music chart, remaining in the Top 40 for ten weeks. The song also topped the Easy Listening chart for one week in 1961and went to No. 1 in Germany and Australia. It sold over two million copies, worldwide earning a gold disc. Bob Moore also plays the bass intro on the Roger Miller hit, "King of the Road". 

His work in the 1980s included touring with Crystal Gayle and Jerry Lee Lewis, also recording with the likes of J.J. Cale and George Strait. Moore worked in a variety of music scenes, including a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival and recording with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He had strong roots in country music, and in 1994 Life named him the number one Country Bassist of all time. He performed with such diverse recording artists as Bob Dylan, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Flatt and Scruggs, Patti Page, Sammy Davis, Jr., Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, Connie Francis, Moby Grape, Wayne Newton, Quincy Jones, Burl Ives, Roger Miller, and French singer Johnny Hallyday. 

Moore was honoured as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museums’ Nashville Cats: A Celebration of Music City Session Players program, and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007, along with other members of the Nashville A-Team. He died on September 22, 2021, at the age of 88. 

His career is best summed up by himself. "I can imagine how tragic it would be for a man to work all his life and not have access to what he did. I can turn on the car radio, and I can always hear me!" 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Pitchfork, tims & Music Row)

Denny Doherty born 29 November 1940

Denny Doherty (November 29, 1940 – January 19, 2007) was a Canadian singer. He was a founding member of the 1960s musical group the Mamas and the Papas for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. 

Dennis Gerrard Stephen Doherty was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of an ironworker and a "housewife and mystic" as he once described his mother. He made his first public appearance at the age of 15 singing the Pat Boone hit Love Letters in the Sand at amateur night at the local skating rink. By the late 1950s he had shifted allegiance to the burgeoning folk song movement and had gained a recording contract with the New York company Columbia, with his group the Halifax Three. 

The group emigrated to New York, the centre of the folk revival in the early 1960s. In Greenwich Village, he met Cass Elliott with whom he formed a short-lived group, the Mugwumps, which also featured future Lovin' Spoonful members John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky. 

Next, Doherty joined forces with husband and wife John and Michelle Phillips, as the New Journeymen. Michelle recalled that "it was so incredible to sing with somebody who had such a beautiful voice because John and I were just little croakers". Early in 1965, Cass Elliott brought her equally vital vocal talent to the group and the Mamas and the Papas were formed. As John Phillips wrote in the song Creeque Alley, his New York musician friends such as Roger McGuinn (of the Byrds) and Barry McGuire (singer of the hit Eve of Destruction) had already headed west ("McGuinn and McGuire just a-gettin' higher in LA"); the Mamas and the Papas decided to follow suit. 

In Los Angeles, the Mamas and the Papas linked up with the producer Lou Adler. Under his guidance, the Mamas and the Papas had six Top 20 hits in America in two years, beginning with California Dreamin' on which Doherty's pure tenor and jazz flautist Bud Shank perfectly conveyed John Phillips's paean to the west coast. This was followed by Monday, Monday, I Saw Her Again, the vaudeville-styled Words of Love, the lush 1950s ballad Dedicated to the One I Love, and Creeque Alley. Monday, Monday, perhaps the finest moment of Doherty's recording career, won a Grammy award as Best Contemporary Group Performance of 1966. The group enjoyed similar success in Britain where California Dreamin' became a hit all over again after it was used in a commercial in 1997. Although John Phillips was the group's principal songwriter, Doherty co-wrote I Saw Her Again and Got a Feeling. 

                    

In the summer of 1968, however, the group collapsed as a result of the prodigious drug intake and the complicated inter-personal relationships of its members. As music historian Barney Hoskyns put it: "An affair began between Michelle and Denny for whom Cass lusted." Mama Cass launched herself on a solo career, while Michelle Phillips moved into acting and John and Denny each recorded solo albums. Denny's Waiting For a Song was the last album Cass sang on before her death in London in 1974. In 1975 Doherty made his acting debut in Man on the Moon, a Broadway show created by Phillips and Andy Warhol. 

Despite the dissolution of the group, there remained a public demand for the Mamas and the Papas. There was a brief reunion to record an album in 1971, but the Mamas and Papas did not appear again on stage until 1982 when Doherty and John Phillips toured with two new members, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (from the 1960s group Spanky and Our Gang) and the Phillips's daughter, McKenzie. In later line-ups of the group Doherty was replaced by Scott McKenzie, whose John Phillips-composed San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) had been a hippie anthem. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. 

Doherty had returned to Canada in 1978 and played a variety of roles in TV dramas and films including Elvis Presley's father in Elvis Meets Nixon. From 1993 to 2001, he played the part of the Harbour Master, as well as the voice-overs of the characters, in Theodore Tugboat, a CBC Television children's show chronicling the "lives" of vessels in a busy harbour loosely based upon Halifax Harbour. He also memorialised the Mamas and the Papas in an autobiographical stage show, Dream a Little Dream, co-written with Paul Ledoux. 

Doherty died on January 19, 2007, at his home in Mississauga, Ontario. The cause was not immediately known, but he had suffered from kidney failure following surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm. His funeral service was held at St Stephen's Roman Catholic Church in Halifax. He was interred at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.

 (Edited mainly from article by Dave Laing @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)

Bruce Channel born 28 November 1940

Bruce Channel born 28 November 1940) is an American singer and songwriter, known for his 1962 million-selling number one hit, "Hey! Baby". 

High School 1960

Channel (pronounced "shuh-nell") was born Bruce McMeans in Jacksonville, Texas. He performed originally for the radio program Louisiana Hayride and then joined with the harmonica player Delbert McClinton, singing country music. Channel wrote "Hey! Baby" with Margaret Cobb in 1959 and performed the song for two years before recording it for Fort Worth record producer Bill Smith. It was issued originally on Smith's LeCam label, but as it started to sell well, it was acquired for distribution by Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury. 

The song went to number one in the US in March 1962 and held that position for three weeks. Besides topping the U.S. popular music charts, it also became number two in the United Kingdom. It sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. Channel had four more singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Number One Man" (which peaked at number 52), "Come On Baby" (number 98), "Going Back to Louisiana" (number 89), and "Mr. Bus Driver" (number 90, produced by Dale Hawkins in Memphis and recorded by Terry Manning), but none of them was as successful as "Hey! Baby". 

                             

Channel toured Europe and was supported at one gig by The Beatles, who were then still unknown. John Lennon, who had "Hey! Baby" on his jukebox, was fascinated by McClinton's harmonica. A popular urban legend has it that Lennon was taught to play harmonica by McClinton, but by that time, Lennon had already been playing the instrument live for some time. 

L to R: Pete Best, John Lennon, Delbert McClinton,
Bruce, Paul McCartney and George Harrison

The harmonica break in "Hey! Baby" inspired Lennon's playing on The Beatles' first single, 1962's "Love Me Do" as well as later Beatles records and the harmonica break on Frank Ifield's "I Remember You."  Ironically, it was the Beatles who led the British Invasion of the mid-60's which swamped artists such as Bruce Channel but he became a very popular act in England. 

Channel's only other top 40 recording in the UK Singles Chart was "Keep On" (June 1968), which reached number 12; it was written by Wayne Carson Thompson and produced by Dale Hawkins. "Keep On" also charted in Australia. Channel disliked touring, so he settled as a songwriter in Nashville, scoring a number of Broadcast Music Incorporated award-winning songs during the 1970s and 1980s – "As Long As I'm Rockin' with You", for John Conlee; "Don't Worry 'bout Me Baby", for Janie Fricke; "Party Time", for T. G. Sheppard; "You're the Best", for Kieran Kane; and "Stand Up", for Mel McDaniel. In 1987, "Hey! Baby" was featured in the popular movie Dirty Dancing. In 1988 Channel made a surprise guest appearance while on a visit to the UK, as a disc jockey on BBC Radio 2. 

Delbert McClinton went on to have success as a solo artist and songwriter, penning songs recorded by Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris. In 1995 Channel recorded his own version of "Stand Up" for the Memphis, Tennessee based Ice House label. Delbert McClinton reprised his role on harmonica on it and several other tracks including a heavy duty version of "My Babe." Channel then recorded a project with singer-songwriter Larry Henley (ex-The Newbeats) as Original Copy. 

Channel was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He continued to perform in cruises with other 1960s musicians and now lives in Nashville with his wife Christine who he first met whilst in England. He’s been devoting full days to writing music for nearly 60 years and has upwards of 300 songs to his credit. 

(Info edited from Wikipedia and Music Path) 

Gayle McCormick born 26 November 1948

Gayle McCormick (November 26, 1948 – March 1, 2016) was an American singer, best known for her work with the rock band Smith. 

She attended Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights, Missouri and sang high soprano with the Suburb Choir, a 150-voice unit that performed annually with the St. Louis Symphony. Her recording and performing career stretched from 1965-76. McCormick started her career singing songs by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Tina Turner before joining Smith. 

In 1967, she was the lead singer in a band called Steve Cummings and The Klassmen. The band released a single in 1967 called "Without You" which had success in Missouri, and a second and final single in 1968 called "Wonderous Time". In 1969, Smith was formed in Los Angeles, their first album titled A Group Called Smith, featured McCormick as the primary vocalist. 

Smith mainly played and recorded covers of pop and soul songs and made the top five with a remake of "Baby It's You", charting higher than the previous hit version by The Shirelles. Smith's version was also featured in Quentin Tarantino's film Death Proof, part of the Grindhouse double feature. While riding the wave of that hit, McCormick and the band made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand and elsewhere. 

                              

Despite the group’s early burst of success, Smith disbanded following the release of their sophomore album, 1970’s Minus-Plus. Not wanting to lose the dynamic singer to another label, Dunhill signed McCormick to a solo deal which led to her self-titled debut in 1971. Though unable to match the early success of Smith, the set’s standout single, the dance-ready “It’s a Cryin’ Shame,” did reach No. 44 on the Hot 100. 

Two more solo albums followed: Flesh & Blood on Decca/MCA in 1972 and One More Hour on Fantasy in 1974. After that, as her friend King writes, “Gayle had lost some interest in the music business, married a carpenter and moved to Hawaii” before ending up back in St. Louis a few years later. 

McCormick recorded the tracks "Coming in Out of the Rain" and "Simon Said" for a 1975 single on the Shady Brook label; it scraped the lower reaches of the Adult Contemporary chart that fall. McCormick also contributed backing vocals to Jimmy Rabbitt and Renegade's Waylon Jennings-produced 1976 self-titled Capitol LP, from which the single "Ladies Love Outlaws" was drawn after which she retired from the entertainment industry. 

In 2015, McCormick was hospitalized for pneumonia, and during the treatment, it was discovered that she had cancer that had metastasized from a tumour in a lung to the rest of her body. McCormick died of cancer March 1, 2016 in suburban St. Louis. She was 67 years old. 

(Edited from Wikipedia Billboard) 

Charlie Applewhite born 25 November 1932

Charlie Applewhite (November 25, 1932 – April 27, 2001) was an American singer and radio host. 

Charles Edwin Applewhite was born  in Fort Worth, Texas. Applewhite was taught to sing by his mother, who was part of a church choir. He began singing in local children's talent shows at age 4. His first professional performance occurred at the age of 10, singing in a Fort Worth movie theater. After young Applewhite became old enough to go into downtown Fort Worth alone, he would travel there to sing for money on street corners if his allowance had run out. 

At High School, Applewhite learned how to read music and played trumpet in the school band. After his graduation, Applewhite worked for a short time in the oil fields. When he broke his arm in a work-related accident, Applewhite quit his job and went back to Fort Worth and began singing in a Dallas night club for five dollars a night. This led to a more lucrative offer from Carswell Air Force Base to entertain at their Officers Club for US$100 per week. Applewhite then received an offer to become a singing waiter at the Studio Lounge in Dallas. After working at the Studio Lounge for a time, Applewhite was offered night club engagements in Shreveport, Louisiana and Kansas City, Missouri. 

At age 21, he left Texas for New York City, attempting to make a career as a performer. His "big break" came of his own initiative; three days after arriving in New York and being turned down by every agent he contacted, he boldly ignored the office personnel and, unannounced, entered the office of Milton Berle and demanded that he be auditioned. Berle acquiesced in thoughts of appeasing him, but was impressed to the point of signing Applewhite to a contract to appear regularly on Berle's show. He was also signed to a contract with Decca Records. His first appearance on Milton Berle's television show was December 1, 1953. While working on the Berle program, Applewhite was a regular cast member of The Morning Show, along with female vocalist Edie Adams, while Jack Paar was the host. After Paar moved to a weekday afternoon television program at CBS, he brought Applewhite and the other cast members to the new show. 

               

Applewhite was divorced from his high school sweetheart in 1956, which led to his being reclassified as 1A for service. He was drafted into the United States Army, serving from 1956 until 1958. At the time he was drafted, Applewhite was earning US$100,000 a year; he was making many guest appearances on television and hosted more than six regular radio programs. Private Applewhite was given a one-week leave from his army duties in June 1956; he appeared as the star of a General Electric Theater presentation. 

Richaard Hayes, Charlie Applewhite & Gary Crosby

While in the service he hosted a radio show produced by the Army, promoting the Army, entitled Country Style, USA which featured leading country music talent. He also hosted another radio show that featured mainstream popular music talent. At one point he found himself hosting 17 weekly shows for the Army. Applewhite also recorded with the United States Army Band during his two years as a soldier. After discharge he maintained residence in New York, but developed interests in his native North Texas, owning the Gaslight Club in Dallas. 

For Decca Records three of his singles charted on Billboard. The first, entitled "Cabbages and Kings" occurred in February 1954. His next hit occurred in April that year. "This Is You". His last charting single appeared in June of that same year. "No One But You". Other popular recordings included "Ebb Tide", "I Could Have Danced All Night", and "I Love Paris". He released singles for MGM Records in 1956. He was briefly signed to RKO/Unique Records in 1957. Later in 1957, Applewhite signed with budget label Design Records, making an album for them entitled Our Love Affair. He was also included in that label's first release of singles. 

Charlie with Jeannie Carson

In September 1961 he was in a plane crash in Midland, Texas that took the life of his wife, Nancy, and an oil-executive friend while leaving Charlie unconscious and in critical condition. Applewhite, a licensed pilot, was at the controls of the single engine aircraft when it crashed into a field near the Midland Airport. It took a year for Applewhite to recover from his injuries. Because of the injuries to his face, Applewhite needed plastic surgery; he hoped he would then be able to make a comeback. 

Applewhite moved from New York to Lafayette, Louisiana in 1965. Retiring from the entertainment industry in 1967, he moved to Dallas and started an office supply business. Although he ended his professional career, he enjoyed embarrassing his family by singing in public areas. After suffering a stroke, he died in Plano, Texas in a nursing home on April 27, 2001. Applewhite was married at least twice, and had two sons and two daughters.

(Edited from Wikipedia)

  

Serge Chaloff born 24 November 1923

Serge Chaloff (November 24, 1923 – July 16, 1957) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist. He has been described as 'the most expressive and openly emotive baritone saxophonist jazz has ever witnessed' with a tone varying 'between a light but almost inaudible whisper to a great sonorous shout with the widest but most incredibly moving of vibratos.' 

Chaloff was born in Boston. His father was a pianist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra while his mother, Margaret, taught music at the Boston Conservatory of Music, over time educating an illustrious series of pianists including Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, and Richard Twardzik. Chaloff himself studied piano and clarinet before teaching himself the baritone sax in emulation of Jack Washington and Harry Carney. Charlie Parker was also a monumental influence.

Chaloff made his professional debut in support of Boyd Raeburn, followed by a stint behind Georgie Ault. He first earned widespread renown after joining Jimmy Dorsey in 1945, earning the distinction of bebop's first baritone soloist. Chaloff nevertheless remains best known for his stint with Woody Herman's Second Herd, which he joined in late 1946. Alongside tenors Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Stewart he vaulted to jazz immortality the following year via the Jimmy Giuffre composition "Four Brothers," a landmark recording extending each of the saxophonists a solo turn. In mid-1947 Chaloff also led his first recording session, leading trombonist Red Rodney, tenor saxophonist Earl Swope, pianist George Wallington, bassist Curley Russell, and drummer Tiny Kahn on several sides cut for the Savoy label. 

However, by this time Chaloff was deep in the throes of heroin addiction, and for years after leaving the Herman band in 1949 he was considered persona non grata throughout much of the jazz community, earning an abysmal reputation for missed gigs and erratic performances. Chaloff settled in New York City, assembling a group featuring the visionary pianist Bud Powell and trombonist Earl Swope that, sadly, never recorded. For part of 1950, Chaloff played in the All Star Octet of Count Basie who, like Herman, had broken up his big band. The band comprised Basie, Chaloff, Wardell Gray, Buddy DeFranco, Clark Terry, Freddie Green, Jimmy Lewis and Gus Johnson. The group recorded a handful of sides for Victor and Columbia and was also captured on airchecks. 

His friend Al Cohn observed 'It wasn't until he left the big bands that he really started to develop as a soloist. By early 1952 he returned to Boston, and that spring cut an unissued session with pianist Twardzik, trombonist Sonny Truitt, bassist Jack Lawlor, and drummer Jimmy Weiner. Championed by local disc jockey Bob Martin, Chaloff gradually eased back into the larger consciousness, appearing on television's The Steve Allen Show and leading the house band at the Beantown club Jazzorama. 

                             

In June and September 1954, Chaloff made two recording sessions for George Wein's Boston Storyville label, released as two 10" LPs. The first Serge and Boots was presented as a joint album with Boots Mussulli. On the second Storyville album, The Fable of Mabel, Chaloff played in a nine-piece band featuring Charlie Mariano, who composed three of the five originals, and Herb Pomeroy. The ambitious title piece was composed by Dick Twardzik, who described it on the sleevenote: 'The Fable of Mabel was introduced to jazz circles in 1951-52 by the Serge Chaloff Quartet. Audiences found this satirical jazz legend a welcome respite from standard night club fare. 

Just a month after his second Storyville recording, Chaloff went through a personal crisis. In October 1954, with no money and unable to find heroin, he voluntarily entered the drug rehabilitation program at Bridgewater State Hospital. After being hospitalized for three and a half months. he was released in February 1955, finally drug free. In 1955, Bob Martin persuaded Capitol Records to record a Chaloff LP as part of their 'Stan Kenton Presents Jazz' series. Chaloff's come-back album, Boston Blow-Up! was recorded in New York City in April 1955.

After completing work on Boston Blow-Up!, a loose but impassioned Stan Kenton-produced date for Capitol, Chaloff relocated to Los Angeles, where in 1956 he assembled pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Philly Joe Jones to record his masterpiece Blue Serge, a gripping, evocative set that ranks among the finest jazz recordings of its era. Chaloff continued to work on the West Coast, performing at the Starlite Club in Hollywood in May 1956. That month, while playing golf, he was struck down by severe back and abdominal pains, which paralysed his legs. Chaloff flew back to Boston, where an exploratory operation revealed that he was suffering from cancer of the spine after which he was confined to a wheelchair. 

He played his final recording session at a reunion of the Four Brothers in 1957, but by this time the cancer had spread and five months later  he died on July 16, 1957, in Boston, at the age of just 33. 

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)

This is reputed to be the only video image in which Serge Chaloff (the last 4 bars of the first chorus of solos). The Woody Herman Big Band – Northwest Passage

Harpo Marx born 23 November 1888

 Arthur "Harpo" Marx (November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, mime artist, and harpist, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. In contrast to the mainly verbal comedy of his brothers Groucho and Chico, Harpo's comic style was visual, being an example of both clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blond wig and was silent in all his movie appearances, instead blowing a horn or whistling to communicate. 

Born Adolf Marx in New York City, one of six sons born to immigrants Miene 'Minnie' Schönberg and Samuel Marx. He attended school until the second grade, dropping out at the age of eight. He was infatuated with music, but when the family bought a piano, they could afford lessons for only one, and they went to older brother, Leonard 'Chico' Marx. Despite this set back, he self-taught himself the piano, and discovered he had an innate talent for musical instruments. Despite never learning to read music, he easily picked up several other instruments, including the harp, which would eventually give him his stage name. 

He joined the family vaudeville act after gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his older brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an office errand boy. He then began to develop the pantomime for which he became so well known. In early vaudeville roles he would perform speaking parts until he reportedly read one review in which a critic was said to have noted that Harpo was brilliant, his pantomime hilarious, but the effect was spoiled when he spoke. He took the criticism to heart, and never spoke another word on stage or in front of a camera while in character. 

During World War I, he changed his name from the Germanic Adolf to the more acceptable Arthur. Despite his lack of formal education, his intelligence and wit were sharp, and he was included as a member of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City. The Marx Brothers had an extremely successful stage career in New York prior to their movie debut in 1929 in 'The Cocoanuts,' which was a direct translation from stage to screen. Their first motion picture was filmed in New York City, the rest would be made in Hollywood. Over their career, the brothers produced more than a dozen collaborative movies, supposedly one every time one of the brothers needed money. 

He married actress Susan Fleming in 1936, and they adopted four children together. During World War II, he performed on War Bonds tours, and worked to entertain Allied troops. After the final official Marx Brothers film, Love Happy, in 1949, Harpo's solo career was largely reduced to cameos and television appearances. The Harpo persona was predominantly mute, so his solo career was rather limited by how creative he could be. However, there was one time when he narrated a DuPont Show of the Month entitled The Red Mill, broadcast on April 19th, 1958 - albeit through the medium of a harp (he was helped vocally by co-narrator Evelyn Rudie). 

                              

Another mute outing was in the General Electric Theater's The Incredible Jewel Robbery (March 8th, 1959), which he agreed to appear in for the sake of co-star Chico Marx, who needed the money to pay off his gambling debts. For Christmas 1960, Harpo appeared as Benson in another DuPont Show, Silent Panic, in which he played a deaf-mute who, as a mechanical man in a department store window, witnesses a gangland murder. It's a great mime performance from Harpo, despite some unintentionally creepy make-up! 

Harpo's final two screen appearances would both come in 1962. First of all there was a Red Skelton Hour production entitled Somebody Up There Should Stay There, broadcast on September 25th, 1962, almost exactly two years before he would pass away. Harpo played a Guardian Angel. Finally, on October 20th, 1962, Harpo appeared as himself in the TV series Mr Smith Goes to Washington, starring Fess Parker, in the episode Musicale. 

Wikipedia claims Harpo's final public appearance took place on January 19th, 1963, when he was aged 74, but fails to mention where (further research on Harpo's Place reveals that it may have been Pasadena, California). It claims Harpo was in the company of singer and comedian Allan Sherman, and was there to announce his retirement from the entertainment business. 

Harpo's very last professional work was, true to form, playing the harp on Mahalia Jackson's album Let's Pray Together, released 1964, as well as a live appearance at the Palm Springs Police Charity Ball just weeks before he died. On Sunday, September 27th, 1964, he underwent open heart surgery in a West Los Angeles hospital. Sadly, he died, aged 75, the following day of a heart attack - it was he and his wife Susan's 28th wedding anniversary. 

Harpo & Family

It was the funeral of Harpo Marx that Groucho Marx's son Arthur claimed was the only time he ever saw his father cry. Harpo’s harps were donated to the State of Israel by his wife Susan. His remains were cremated and scattered over the seventh hole of the Rancho Mirage golf course in California, where he used to play the game every month.

(Edited from A Final Curtain Call, Findagrave & Wikipedia)