Wiley Barkdull born 31 December 1928

Wiley Barkdull (December 31, 1928 – August 29, 2014) was an American Country Singer and pianist whose  musical career is virtually inseparable from that of the brothers Rusty and Doug Kershaw. 

Barkdull was born in Forest Hill,Louisiana. His main instrument was the piano, but he may have played rhythm guitar as well, possibly at his live performances. A deep voiced Lefty Frizzell sound-alike, he performed over Crowley's KSIG alongside Jimmy Newman, Jim Toth and the Kershaws. Rusty, Doug and Wiley all started recording for legendary Crowley producer Jay (J.D.)Miller's Feature label in 1953 or 1954. Very few of these recordings were issued at the time, but most of them (plus some KSIG radio transcriptions) finally appeared on the UK’s Flyright label between 1981 and 1991. Barkdull's record for Feature was "I'll Give My Heart to You" (also later rerecorded for Hickory) which appeared in early 1955. It was the last release on the label, crediting the backing to Rusty & Doug and the Music Makers. 

After Feature was wound down, Rusty and Doug were signed by Hickory Records in Nashville and Barkdull was also signed as an artist in his own right. Wiley's deep bass voice contributes to many of Rusty and Doug's recordings and so much so that his name was credited on almost all of the Rusty & Doug sides on which he appeared as a vocalist. In some cases, these harmonies are downright spectacular ("Kaw-Liga", for instance). The Hickory recordings benefited from a first-class accompaniment by the Nashville A-team, sometimes enhanced by the fiddle of Rufus Thibodeaux. 

                                   

Barkdull's solo recordings for Hickory (8 singles altogether) are a mixture of country in the Lefty Frizzell style, western swing and rockabilly. Songs in the latter category include the great two-sider "Hey Honey"/"I Ain't Gonna Waste My Time" and "Too Many", which was covered by Ocie Smith (whose version got a UK release on London, while the original went unissued in the UK). "Too Many" (written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant) features a great guitar groove by Hank Garland and Ray Edenton, fine percussive sounds by Buddy Harman and Lightnin' Chance and a piano solo by Floyd Cramer. 

Most of Wiley's Hickory material was written by J.D. Miller, with just one Barkdull co-writer's credit. Rusty and Doug scored five country hits between 1955 and 1961, but for Barkdull's solo recordings there was no chart success, in spite of their quality. His final Hickory release was a nice up-tempo treatment of Melvin Endsley's "Keep A-Lovin' Me Baby". After this last Hickory session Barkdull moved to Houston, and started to record for the All Star label in 1961, gaining seven releases by the time the label closed in 1964. He then made two discs for Slick Norris, a Houston and south east Texas area promoter, producer and DJ. Wiley appeared on his Skill label alongside Warren Smith and others whose careers Norris hoped to revive. 

In the 1970s it was probably inevitable that Wiley would eventually cross paths with the larger than life music entrepreneur Huey P. Meaux. Wiley cut an LP at a studio in Pasadena, Texas for Meaux's Crazy Cajun label of Conroe, Texas. This time, though Wiley was singing gospel songs and he seems to have laid out of the country scene by then. As late as 20 June 1986 the 'Baytown Sun' was report ing on the 'Baytown Family Opry' show on North Alexander, which included "a gospel show featuring Wiley and Jessie Barkdull. 

During the 1970s, 80s and 90s the Barkdulls lived on Magnolia Street in Channelview, on the eastern edge of Houston until his wife died in 2012. After which Wiley may have moved across the bay to Pasadena, Harris County, Texas where he died on 29 August 2014, aged 85. Although he'd been in Texas for fifty years, the 'Houston Chronicle' reported that he was to be buried in Lecompte, Forest Hill, Rapides, Louisiana. 

(Edited from This Is My Story & Bear Family’s And More Bears web site)

Felix Pappalardi born 30 December 1939

Felix Albert Pappalardi Jr. (December 30, 1939 – April 17, 1983) was most famous as the producer of Cream and the bassist for one of the first American hard rock acts, Mountain; sadly, he's also remembered for the tragic shooting that claimed his life at age 43. 

Pappalardi was born in the Bronx, New York City, to an Italian family who immigrated from Gravina in Puglia. He graduated from New York City's High School of Music & Art and studied classical music at the University of Michigan. Upon returning to New York, he was unable to find work as a conductor and soon drifted into the Greenwich Village folk scene. 

Max Morath

In 1964 he joined Max Morath’s Original Rag Quartet (ORQ)in their premier engagement at New York’s Village Vanguard with several other famous musicians. Along with Felix on guitarrón (Mexican acoustic bass) were pianist/singer Morath, who revived classic ragtime played in the Scott Joplin manner, Barry Kornfeld, a well-known NYC studio folk and jazz guitarist, and Jim Tyler, a famous Baroque and Renaissance lutenist playing four string banjo and mandolin. The ORQ then toured the college and concert circuit during the following year, and opened four engagements with the Dinah Shore show in Las Vegas and elsewhere. 

Eric Clapton with Felix

He soon made a name for himself as a skilled arranger, and appeared on albums by Tom Paxton, Vince Martin and Fred Neil for Elektra Records. Thereafter he moved into record production, initially concentrating on folk and folk-rock acts for artists such as Tim Hardin, the Youngbloods, Joan Baez, Richard & Mimi Farina, Ian & Sylvia, and Fred Neil.

As a producer, Pappalardi became perhaps best known for his work with British psychedelic blues-rock power trio Cream, beginning with their second album, Disraeli Gears  in 1967. Pappalardi has been referred to in various interviews with the members of Cream as “the fourth member of the band” as he generally had a role in arranging their music. He contributed instrumentation for his imaginative studio arrangements and he and his wife, Gail, wrote the Cream hit “Strange Brew” with Eric Clapton. 

In 1968 he produced a band named, ‘The Vagrants’ who recorded on the Atlantic Record Label, and which featured a young guitarist named Leslie West. In 1969 along with West, Corky Laing, Mark Clarke, Steve Knight, David Perry, and N.D. Smart II, he founded the hard charging blues-rock group, ‘Mountain.‘ The group was formed in Long Island, New York and actively recorded and toured between 1969 and 1971. One of their first big gigs was playing at the Woodstock Music Festival in Saugerties, New York, in August 1969. Pappalardi produced the band's albums, and co-wrote and arranged a number of the band's songs with Collins and West. They disbanded in 1972 regrouping again in 1974, but disbanded again in 1975. The band’s signature song, “Mississippi Queen” is still heard regularly on classic rock radio stations. They also had a hit with the song “Nantucket Sleighride” written by Pappalardi and Collins. 

                                  

Felix generally played Gibson basses live and on Mountain’s recordings. He is most often shown with an EB-1 but there are photographs of him playing an EB-0 live. He was known for playing a Gibson EB-1 violin bass through a set of Sunn amplifiers that, he claimed, once belonged to Jimi Hendrix. 

Pappalardi was forced to retire because of partial deafness, ostensibly from his high-volume shows with Mountain. He continued producing throughout the 1970s and released a solo album and recorded with Japanese hard rock outfit Kazuo Takeda’s band The Creation (old name Blues Creation), who had opened for Mountain on their Japanese tours. Felix Pappalardi & Creation was released on A&M in 1976. 

He produced The Dead Boys album We Have Come for Your Children in 1978. He also worked on the NBC show Hot Hero Sandwich in 1979 and released his first proper solo album, Don't Worry, Ma, which reflected his growing interest in funk, jazz fusion, and reggae, and featured a large supporting cast, including bassist Chuck Rainey and drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. 

On the night of April 17, 1983, tragedy struck: Pappalardi was shot once in the neck by his wife, Gail Collins, and killed. He had been involved in a long-standing affair with a younger woman, of which Collins had knowledge; however, a jury supported Collins' claim that the shooting was accidental, occurring while Pappalardi was showing her how to use the gun. She was convicted of criminally negligent homicide rather than the far more serious charge of second-degree murder and was sentenced to four years. On April 30, 1985, she was released on parole and disappeared to Mexico where she died during December 2013. 

 (Edited from AllMusic, Rock and Roll Paradise & Wikipedia) 

 

Bobby Comstock born 29 December 1943

Robert L. Comstock (December 29, 1941 – January 9, 2020) was an American rock and roll and pop singer and musician who had success in the late 1950s and early 1960s both as a solo singer and as a member of Bobby Comstock and the Counts. His biggest hits were a version of "Tennessee Waltz" in 1959, and "Let's Stomp" in 1963. 

Comstock was born in Ithaca, New York, and began singing and playing mandolin at the age of five. By the age of seven, he started appearing regularly with his brother on a local radio station, and then on country music radio in Sayre, Pennsylvania. He performed rock versions of old country and rhythm & blues tunes in the auditorium of Ithaca's Boynton Junior High School. In 1958, after hearing rock and roll broadcasts from Nashville, he formed his own band, Bobby and the Counts. The band had Comstock on guitar and lead vocals, Fred Ciaschi (vocals & piano), Gus Eframson (rhythm guitar), Dale Sherwood (drums), Chuck Ciaschi (bass) and (initially) Bill Lucas (bongos & vocals). 

The group recorded their first single, "Too Young"/"Tra-La-La", for Marlee Records in Trumansburg, New York, and in 1959 were signed to a national deal by Triumph Records, established by Herb Abramson after he left Atlantic. The groups moderately rocked-up version of the Patti Page hit "Tennessee Waltz" was released on the subsidiary Blaze label in late 1959 - with the group now being billed as Bobby Comstock & The Counts - and rose to no.52 on the Billboard pop chart. 

As a result of its success, the group appeared on several package shows promoted by Alan Freed, toured nationally with artists such as Bobby Vinton and Freddie Cannon, and appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Their follow-up record, a version of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya", released on the Atlantic label, also made the national pop chart, reaching # 90. 

                                  

The group, with several changes of personnel over the years, continued to release singles on Abramson's label until 1962, with diminishing success, before signing with Lawn. Their first record for the label, "Let's Stomp", released as a Bobby Comstock single, reached no.57 on the US pop chart in early 1963. 

The song was written by Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, who later recorded as The Strangeloves. It was reputedly performed by the Beatles in Hamburg and was certainly performed by the Searchers and recorded by Lee Curtis and the All-Stars, a beat group featuring ex-Beatle Pete Best. The 1973 single, The Ballroom Blitz by British Glam Rock Heavy Rock band The Sweet bases its initial guitar riff and drum patterns on Comstock’s "Let's Stomp". 

Follow-ups were less successful, although the group broke into the US charts for a final time in 1963 with "Your Boyfriend's Back", an answer record to "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels, a female group recording on the same label. Comstock also played guitar on the Angels' album, along with Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer. He stayed with Lawn Records until 1964 and performed as a support act to The Rolling Stones that year. He then appeared on National Television along with Chubby Checker on Shindig- August 16, 1965.He then signed to Ascot Records, who continued to release singles by the group until 1966. Comstock also recorded a solo album, Out of Sight, in 1966. 

Then he disappeared from recording for two years until he joined Zebra who signed with Phillips Records and recorded the single "Miss Anne" in 1968. He then established another band, Comstock Ltd., which released several singles for Bell Records between 1969 and 1972. He appeared in the 1973 Columbia Pictures concert film Let the Good Times Roll hosted by Richard Nader. He also established himself as a regular member of rock and roll revival tours, especially as part of Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars", where he performed with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jackie Wilson, Gene Pitney, The Coasters, The Shirelles and many others. Comstock continued to perform on such tours, both with his own band and as a backing musician, until the late 1990s. 

In 2000, legendary guitarist Link Wray (and former Swan Records label mate) saw Bobby in the audience and called hm on stage during a performance in Buffalo, NY. Bobby Comstock returned to Central New York on June 6, 2008 and treated his fans to a performance at The Haunt in Ithaca. His band that evening consisted of Joel Warren, Al Hartland, Duke Shanahan along with singers Helen Jordan & Mabel Evans. In 2009 Bobby recorded with Stan Wycott on his cd release "Daytime Srinker." 

Comstock died on January 9, 2020, at the age of 78 at his home in Southern California. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Ron Wray’s blog)

Bob Stroger born 27 December 1930

Bob Stroger (born December 27, 1930) is an American electric blues bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has worked with many blues musicians, including Eddie King, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Eddy Clearwater, Sunnyland Slim, Louisiana Red, Buster Benton, Homesick James, Mississippi Heat, Snooky Pryor, Odie Payne, Fred Below, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, and Billy Davenport. 

Robert T. Stroger (pronounced Stro-jer) was born December 27, 1930, on a farm between Hayti and Swift in the Missouri bootheel. He only took an interest in music after he moved to Chicago, especially when he lived on the West Side so close to the legendary Silvio’s that he could look out and see Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf through the windows. In 1949 he married the sister of guitarist Johnny Ferguson, who played in J.B. Hutto’s band. With further encouragement from Calvin “Fuzz” Jones and Bob Anderson, he learned guitar with the strings tuned to provide bass accompaniment before buying a four-string electric bass. 

He formed a family-based band, the Red Tops (the band members wore black berets with a red circle daubed on top). Willie Kent was drafted to boost their proficiency, and the combo was renamed Joe Russell and the Blues Hustlers (Stroger had adopted the stage name Joe Russell, but the name did not endure). He went on to play jazz with Rufus Forman, but it was his meeting with Eddie King which started his lengthy career playing blues. At times he also did factory work, ran a confectionery store and worked as an exterminator. In the 1950 census he described his job as “Make kitchen gadgets.” Having started playing the bass guitar, His first studio recording was on King's single "Love You Baby" (1965). 

                                   

He backed King for fifteen years before King relocated, after which Stroger stopped playing for a couple of years. His interest was rekindled through Otis Rush’s drummer Jesse Green who found Stroger spot in Otis Rush’s band, which led to studio and club work and his first European tours. Rush helped Stroger hone his playing into a strong, solid blues groove. Sunnyland Slim was a regular employer, and he also played and recorded with Snooky Pryor, Pinetop Perkins, Wille “Big Eyes” Smith, Jimmy Rogers, Carey Bell, Eddie C. Campbell, the band Mississippi Heat, Bob Corritore and many others, in the U.S. and overseas. 

At the urging of Sunnyland Slim he began singing and first recorded as a vocalist in 1993 on one track of a Mississippi Heat CD and then on a German CD credited to the Big Four Blues Band (with Steve Freund, Robert Covington and Sam Burckhardt). His first CD under his own name was “In the House: Live at Lucerne, Vol. 1,” from the 1998 Lucerne Blues Festival, released by Crosscut in 2002, followed by “Bob Is Back in Town” on Airway (2006), “Keepin’ Together” on Big Eye (with Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, 2014) and “That’s My Name” on Delmark (with a Brazilian band, the Headcutters, 2022). 

He also appears on various festival CDs from Lucerne and elsewhere and has joined several all-star aggregations. He has recently toured in a Chicago Blues SuperSession package, beaming with pleasure at still being able to do what he loves onstage. Grateful for the help offered him along his path to success especially by Rush, Sunnyland, Jimmy Dawkins and Eddie Taylor, he has in turn passed his knowledge and advice along, providing instructions to young musicians at the Pinetop Perkins Foundation in Clarksdale, Mississippi, every year. 

Bob Stroger is still actively touring at the age of 94, is reaping the rewards for his decades of laying the foundation for countless blues bands. No performer has ever been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame at an older age. He was also the 2024 recipient of the Blues Music Award for Instrumentalist – Bass, the fifth time he had earned the honor. 

(Edited from High Res Audio & Wikipedia)

 

Marty Gold born 26 December 1915

                   

Martin Gold (December 26, 1915 – January 14, 2011) was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader whose career spanned more than five decades and included scores of recordings both of his own studio orchestra and of collaborations with well-known singers, instrumentalists, and pop culture icons of the 20th century. 

Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian immigrant parents, Marty spent his early musical career in regional novelty groups, including the Schnickelfritz Band and a spinoff that he co-founded called the Korn Kobblers, self-described as “America’s most nonsensical band.” He composed, arranged, and played piano for the Korn Kobblers, whose performances incorporated comic bits and odd instruments such as jugs, car horns, washboards, and mouth harps. The band played New York-area clubs from 1939 through 1954 and starred in one of the nation’s earliest weekly television shows, a 30-minute combination of music and skits called “Kobb’s Corner” that was broadcast in 1948 and 1949 by CBS. 

After working as a freelance arranger for several record companies, Marty joined RCA in the mid 50s and settled into a long period of arranging, producing, and recording under his own name. His early LPs, for RCA and its affiliate Vik, exploited the effects of stereophonic recording, which had just been developed and which record companies were eager to promote. The covers for albums such as “Higher Than Fi” and “Stereo Action Goes Hollywood” promised music “in living stereo” and “the sound your eyes can follow.” Later, the bulk of Marty’s records put the music, rather than the technology, first. 

Using orchestras staffed by many of New York’s best musicians, often including lush string sections and numbering as many as 50 or 60 players, Marty pushed the boundaries of what some called “easy listening.” His arrangements of familiar tunes featured extensive original passages, added intricate counter melodies, and applied unexpected styles and instrument combinations. He often included improvised sections, which helped distinguish his music from the more predictable sounds within the genre. This also helped him recruit leading jazz players as ad hoc members of the orchestra, including trumpeters Clark Terry and Joe Wilder, pianist Dick Hyman, and clarinetist/saxophonist Phil Bodner. 

                                   

Among his popular recordings were “Sound Power,” “Sounds Unlimited,” and “For Sounds’ Sake,” all high-octane orchestral offerings, as well as “Suddenly It’s Springtime” and “Twenty-Four Pieces of Gold.” Many of his records were organized around themes, including “Skin Tight,” which showcased percussion instruments; “Classic Bossa Nova,” a re-working of classical melodies; and “Swingin’ West.” In recent years, Marty’s music has enjoyed a resurgence among fans who label it “space age pop” or “space age lounge pop.” 

Beyond his own albums, Marty arranged, produced, and conducted for the recording sessions of singers Sarah Vaughn, Lena Horne, and Carmel Quinn, pianists Peter Nero and Marian McPartland, and many others. For a few recordings, he joined forces with partners who were popular among the children of his adult audience, writing music for recordings by the television kids’ show host Shari Lewis and author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. In addition, he worked on television and film projects, providing the musical arrangements for the Elia Kazan film “A Face in the Crowd” and composing themes for Lloyd Bridges’ TV series “Waterworld.” He even appeared on camera as part of a band of old-timers who improvised a comic musical backdrop for several scenes with Madonna in the 1985 film “Desperately Seeking Susan.” 

While at RCA, Marty also served as an “A&R man,” recruiting new talent for the label. For years after leaving that position he would occasionally invite friends and musical colleagues to listen to one of his favorite audition tapes featuring an impressive young female vocalist he had brought in whom the company’s executives ultimately rejected as “not ready.” The singer, who was quickly signed by Columbia Records, was Barbra Streisand. 

During most of his career Marty lived in suburban New Jersey, close to the recording studios and musical talent concentrated around New York City. Entering semi-retirement in the late 1980s, he and his wife moved to southern California to be near many of their children and grandchildren. Since then, he had concentrated his musical energies on educational projects, including arrangements for college and high school bands, magazine articles, and books. 

Marty Gold died from kidney failure on January 14,2011,  in Agoura Hills, California. He was 95. 

(Edited from martygold.wordpress.com)

Kid Ory born 25 December 1886

Edward "Kid" Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was an American jazz composer, trombonist and bandleader. One of the early users of the glissando technique, he helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans jazz. 

Ory was born in 1886 to a Louisiana French-speaking family of Black Creole descent, on Woodland Plantation in Laplace, now the site of the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House. Ory started playing music with homemade instruments in his childhood, and by his teens was leading a well-regarded band in southeast Louisiana. He kept LaPlace as his base of operations because of family obligations until his twenty-first birthday, when he moved his band to New Orleans. 

Ory was a banjo player during his youth, and it is said that his ability to play the banjo helped him develop "tailgate", a particular style of playing the trombone with a rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets. His use of glissando helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans Jazz. When Ory was living on Jackson Avenue, he was discovered by Buddy Bolden, playing his first new trombone, instead of an old Civil War trombone. Ory's sister said he was too young to play with Bolden. 

                                    

He moved his six-piece band to New Orleans in 1910. Ory had one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910s, hiring many of the great jazz musicians of the city, including the cornetists Joe "King" Oliver, Mutt Carey, and Louis Armstrong, who joined the band in 1919 and the clarinetists Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone. 

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles as one of several New Orleans musicians to do so at the time, and he recorded there in 1922 with a band that included Mutt Carey, the clarinetist and pianist Dink Johnson, and the string bassist Ed Garland. Garland and Carey were long-time associates who would still be playing with Ory during his 1940s comeback. While in Los Angeles, Ory and his band recorded two instrumentals, "Ory's Creole Trombone" and "Society Blues", as well as a number of songs. They were the first jazz recordings made on the West Coast by an African American jazz band from New Orleans, Louisiana. His band recorded with Nordskog Records; Ory paid Nordskog for the pressings and then sold them with his own label, "Kid Ory's Sunshine Orchestra", at Spikes Brothers Music Store in Los Angeles. 

Armstrong's Hot Five

In 1925, Ory moved to Chicago, where he was very active, working and recording with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and many others. He mentored Benny Goodman and, later, Charles Mingus. He was said to have attempted to take trombone lessons from a "German guy" who played in the Chicago symphony, but Ory was turned away after a few lessons. The Chicago symphony has three German trombonists listed as former members in 1925, Arthur Stange (principal), Arthur Gunther, and Edward Geffer. Ory was a member of the original lineup of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five which first recorded on November 12, 1925. His composition "Muskrat Ramble" was included in the Hot Five session in February 1926. 

During the Great Depression Ory retired from music and did not play again until 1943. In 1941, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of Jelly Roll Morton in Los Angeles, California. He ran a chicken farm in Los Angeles. The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1940s radio broadcasts that began with weekly spots on The Orson Welles Almanac program (from March 15, 1944). In 1944–1945, the group made a series of recordings for the Crescent label, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory's band. 

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ory and his group appeared at the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles. In 1958, he purchased the Tin Angel nightclub in San Francisco from Peggy Tolk–Watkins, and he renamed it On-The-Levee. The nightclub closed in July 1961, and in 1962 the building was demolished due to the creation of the Embarcadero Freeway. His sidemen during this period included, In addition to Carey and Garland, the trumpeters Alvin Alcorn and Teddy Buckner; the clarinetists Darnell Howard, Jimmie Noone, Albert Nicholas, Barney Bigard, and George Probert; the pianists Buster Wilson, Cedric Haywood, and Don Ewell; and the drummer Minor Hall. All but Buckner, Probert, and Ewell were originally from New Orleans. 

Ory retired from music in 1966, and spent his last years in Hawaii, with the assistance of Trummy Young. In 1971, Ory returned to New Orleans for the final time, playing in a parade at the Jazz and Heritage Festival. Gaunt and weak from ill health, the Kid sang but played only a little, yet it was enough to satisfy his fans. Ory died of pneumonia and a heart attack on January 23, 1973 in Honolulu. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Syncopated Times)

 

Ralph Marterie born 24 December 1914

Ralph Marterie (24 December 1914 - 10 October 1978, Dayton, Ohio, USA., was a musician, arranger and one of the last of the big-band leaders who was to enjoy consistent commercial success.

Marterie was born in Accerra, near Naples, Italy and whist still a child his parents emigrated to the USA, where his father joined the orchestra of the Chicago Civic Opera. Ralph was still a teenager when he started playing trumpet with Danny Russo's Oriole Orchestra. He went on to play in local theatres and with other bands in Chicago, which was at that time the country's largest musical centre outside New York. Consequently, Marterie never had to leave the city to find work, joining the NBC staff orchestra where he played under conductors such as Percy Faith and André Kostelanetz. During World War II  

Ralph formed his very first band in Chicago, in 1946. One of his earliest engagements was at the 'Melody Mill' Ballroom, where radio airtime made the band well known through-out the Midwest. His big opportunity came when Mercury Records signed him in 1951, and gave the band a big build up. It is interesting to note that Ralph formed the band at the end of the big band era. Still, other leaders were willing to give the band-leading business a try. Ralph's new band debuted in 1951; the same year that Billy May organized his big band. The following year, 1952, saw the start of the Sauter-Finegan orchestra. In 1953 Les and Larry Elgart formed their short lived band, while, in the mid 50's Maynard Ferguson brought his band to fruition. Marterie led a US Navy band, then after the war he returned to Chicago as a leader with ABC radio.

                                    

Marterie toured with his band throughout the 1950s, appearing at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook on the East Coast as well as The Hollywood Palladium on the West Coast. At times, Bill Walters, Janice Borla, and Lou Prano, were vocalists. They had a radio show sponsored by the Marlboro Cigarette Company. They appeared on WGN's "The Cavalcade of Bands" television show. After Mercury Records, the orchestra recorded for United Artists and for Musicor. Between 1952 and 1957 he had a number of big singles; "Pretend," a cover of Duke Ellington's "Caravan," and "Skokiaan" all made the Top Ten. 

Much of his material was precisely the kind of innocuous pop instrumental that rock & roll blew out of the water, yet Marterie was one of the first mainstream musicians to cover a rock & roll song. His cover of Bill Haley's "Crazy Man Crazy" (itself one of the first rock & roll records to make the Top 20) made number 13 in 1953. Earlier, Marterie actually had a small hit with a cover of a Woody Guthrie tune, "So Long (It's Been Good to Know Ya)." Isolated sides like "Bumble Boogie" proved that he could swing respectably when the mood took him, but Marterie generally stuck to a placid groove, despite the presence of electric guitar on sides like "Caravan."

As rock & roll gained steam, the trumpeter actually added some basic R&B motifs on "Tricky" in 1957, resulting in a Top 30 hit; the same year, "Shish-Kebab," with its twangy pre-surf guitar lines and snake charmer melody, gave him his last Top Ten hit. Marterie’s output for Mercury and later United Artists to which he moved in 1961 is remarkable considering the market for big band music was progressively shrinking throughout his career. He recorded over 60 singles including swing standards, novelties, Latin jazz and lush pop ballads that often spotlighted his trademark sound of trumpet twinned with guitar. 

Marterie was still touring with a band until his death in Dayton, where he had just played a one-nighter in October 1978. The daughters of Ralph Marterie held onto his music library and personal memorabilia for many years, but in late 2001 placed an ad in International Musician, offering more than 100 scores written for his band, in lots of 10 at $700 each. Then, in January 2005, scores and other personal items were listed on Ebay with a buy-it-now price of $2,500, then re-listed in March, with a starting price of $2,200. Other memorabilia is in the hands of private collectors. 

(Edited from Big Band Database, AllMusic & Discogs)