Spike Jones
| Spike Jones | |
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Jones (left) with Marilyn Monroe and Ken Murray, 1952
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| Born |
Lindley Armstrong Jones December 14, 1911 Long Beach, California, U.S. |
| Died | May 1, 1965 (aged 53) Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Years active | 1937–1964 |
| Spouse(s) |
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Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in satirical arrangements of popular songs. Ballads and classical works receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells and outlandish vocals. From the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, Jones and his band recorded under the title Spike Jones and his City Slickers and toured the United States and Canada as The Musical Depreciation Revue.
Jones' father was a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley Jones got his nickname by being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At age 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself; Jones' first band was called Spike Jones and his Five Tacks. A railroad restaurant chef taught him how to use pots and pans, forks, knives and spoons as musical instruments. Jones frequently played in theater pit orchestras. In the 1930s he joined the Victor Young orchestra and got many offers to appear on radio shows, including Al Jolson's Lifebuoy Program, Burns and Allen, and Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall.
Jones became bored playing the same music each night with the orchestras. He found other like-minded musicians and they began playing parodies of standard songs for their own entertainment. The musicians wanted their wives to share their enjoyment, so they recorded their weekly performances. One of the recordings made its way into the hands of an RCA Victor executive, who offered the musicians a recording contract. The City Slickers' first record was Der Fuehrer's Face. The record's success inspired Jones to become the band's leader. He initially thought the popularity the record brought them would fade. However, audiences kept asking for more, so Jones started working on more comic arrangements.
From 1937 to 1942, Jones was the percussionist for the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, which played on Bing Crosby's first recording of "White Christmas." He was part of a backing band for songwriter Cindy Walker during her early recording career with Decca Records and Standard Transcriptions. Her song "We're Gonna Stomp Them City Slickers Down" provided the inspiration for the name of Jones’s future band.
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