As publicity stunts go, this one was pretty good. It even had a cutesy name: Operation AstroBowl. American Airlines wanted to promote their great big Boeing 707 cargo planes, so someone came up with the idea of putting a bowling alley in one of them. Happily, a company that manufactured bowling alley equipment — American Machine and Foundry (AMF) — was keen to jump on the promotion bandwagon. They installed the regulation 79-foot lane — complete with automatic pin-setting equipment and gutters — in one of the American Airlines jet freighters. It took 4 days. Looking at the photos, it resembled a very large MRI tube.
Since they had the lane and the equipment in there, they pretty much had to get a couple of champion players on board to bowl a few mid-air frames. As luck would have it, the National All-Star Tournament (aka “The World Series of Bowling”) was — hey! — to be held in Dallas at Fair Park Coliseum a week after the stunt. Serendipity! Champions Dick Weber and Sylvia Wene were roped in to play a 5-mile-high game in the sky.
So much to promote!
Operation AstroBowl took place on January 6, 1964 at cruising altitude between New York’s Kennedy International Airport and Love Field. Sylvia won. Barely. But this story made it into countless newspapers across the country the following day, so, really, it was the publicists who won. Drinks, I’m sure, were on them.
Dick Weber bowling at 500 miles an hour
AP story which appeared all over the country, Jan. 7, 1964
***
Sources & Notes
Top photo appeared in the Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook and was brought to my attention by Steve Dirkx (thanks, Steve!).
Story and photos by the Associated Press.
If you’re on Facebook, a tiny bit of film footage can we watched here.
Hold the presses! I’ve been translated! Check out this bowling post in Portuguese (!), on a Brazilian bowling site, here.
One of Dallas’ great bibliophiles and book collectors was Everette Lee DeGolyer, petroleum geologist, Texas oil superstar, and namesake of SMU’s DeGolyer Library. He was also a notable book collector and a favored customer of many Texas rare books dealers. This article appeared in 1946, when there were very few antiquarian bookstores in Dallas. The Aldredge Book Store opened on McKinney Avenue in 1947, and Mr. DeGolyer was a steady customer until his death in 1956. (Click article for larger image.)
Texas Week magazine, Aug. 24, 1946
*
Below, the library at the newly built DeGolyer Estate at White Rock Lake, shelves waiting to be filled.
The fabulous DeGolyer Estate is now part of the Dallas Arboretum.
Photo: Dallas Arboretum
DeGolyer with Stanley Marcus, 1951:
***
Sources & Notes
Article from Texas Week magazine; accessible through UNT’s Portal to Texas History, here.
Photo of DeGolyer’s home library (not to be confused with the DeGolyer Library at SMU), is from the Dallas Municipal Archives collection, also found on the Portal to Texas History site, here. More photos of the estate from this collection are here.
Photo of DeGolyer and Stanley Marcus is from Dallas magazine, Sept. 1951, Periodicals Collection, Dallas History and Archives, Dallas Public Library.
The Handbook of Texas entry for Everette DeGolyer ishere.
That term “Texiana” used by the unnamed author of the article to describe books of Texas subject matter or interest? For anyone uncertain about whether to use that or “Texana,” use “Texana.” Always! (It rhymes with “Hannah.”)
Mouse in the center, Bugs top right (click for even larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Last Tuesday, my friend Carlos Guajardo and I were each asked to present a favorite vinyl album at the Tuesday Night Record Club, a monthly event organized by Brian McKay and held at the historic Texas Theatre. My choice was a French import called Public Execution by Mouse and the Traps, a collection of the Texas band’s singles issued during their fairly short career (roughly 1965 to 1970). I bought this at a time when all of my disposable income was going to alternative record stores Metamorphosis and VVV, and I feel fairly certain that I bought this album at Metamorphosis. ’60s garage rock may be my favorite genre of music, and Texas garage rock is, for whatever reason, usually the best.
Mouse and the Traps was a band formed in Tyler, Texas in 1965, with Ronnie Weiss (whose nickname was “Mouse”) on vocals and guitar, Bugs Henderson on lead guitar, David Stanley on bass, Ken “Nardo” Murray on drums, and Jerry Howell on keyboards. Even though most of the band members grew up in Tyler and almost all of their singles were recorded there (recordings produced by the great Robin Hood Brians, who was only a couple of years older than the band), the band pretty much moved to Dallas when they began to get a lot of airplay on local stations, notably KLIF. I actually always thought they were a Dallas band, and, damn it, I’m still considering them a Dallas band.
Mouse and the Traps toured around the state feverishly, playing clubs, colleges, parties, and even proms. There were occasional forays beyond Texas, but, for the most part, they remained a (very popular) regional band. Their first single — the unapologetically Dylan-esque “A Public Execution,” was released at the end of 1965 on the Fraternity label; it was their only record to show up on the Billboard charts, as a “bubbling under” track, not quite reaching the Top 100. After a couple of years, Bugs Henderson (who later became “guitar legend Bugs Henderson”) left the band and was replaced by Bobby Delk. Their personnel history is a little fuzzy, but I think Bugs re-joined the band briefly before the group finally disbanded sometime in 1970, after releasing a series of well-regarded singles and after almost five years of endless live dates. For most bands that had found little commercial success, that would have been the last most people would have heard of them. But most bands weren’t “Nugget” bands.
In 1972, Lenny Kaye included Mouse and the Traps on his revered (and influential) “Nuggets” compilation, propelling the band from “slowly-fading memory” to “newly-appreciated cult band” and introducing them to a whole new international audience. The band is now regarded as “proto-punk” and an important Texas garage band.
Their garage recordings are probably the most admired, but they dabbled in every ’60s style imaginable, including psychedelia, folk rock, breezy pop, and West Coast country, with hints of Dylan, The Beatles, The Yardbirds, Them, Donovan, and the Sir Douglas Quintet. There’s even a “Get Smart”-inspired novelty song in there. My favorite song of theirs, “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice,” is generally considered their finest single, assuring them a place in the pantheon of great garage songs. The stinging, electrifying guitar of Bugs Henderson is fantastic.
The band re-formed for several reunion shows over the years, but, sadly, Bugs Henderson died in 2012. No more reunion shows featuring the original line-up.
As far as the Dallas connection during the height of their career, there is precious little I’ve been able to find, as far as contemporary local photos, ads, or newspaper mentions. Despite the cultural revolution which began with the explosive arrival of the Beatles to the U.S. in 1964, “teenage” music in the ’60s was not taken seriously enough at the time to warrant much coverage in the major newspapers.
One of the few mentions of the band I found was as a support act on a Sonny and Cher show at the Fair Park Music Hall in early 1966. Also on the bill: The Outcasts from San Antonio, and Scotty McKay from Dallas (who can be seen performing two pretty good songs in a clip from one of Dallas director Larry Buchanan’s “schlock” movies, “Creature of Destruction,” here).
Feb., 1966
They also appeared on the TV music show “Sump’n Else” “Upbeat” (in 1968, post-Bugs). (Thanks to Jim for pointing out in the comments that these two color photos actually show the band on the Cleveland-based syndicated teen show “Upbeat,” hosted by Don Webster. TV listings show that the band appeared on the show in April, 1968, along with the Boxtops and several other performers.)
Photos: Robin Hood Brians
They also played a memorable show at Louanns in 1966 where they appeared on a double-bill as two separate bands. In 1966 Jimmy Rabbit, a popular DJ on KLIF who was a big supporter of the band, asked them to perform as his backing band on a (great!) recording of “Psychotic Reaction” — a very early cover (perhaps the first) of the song by the Count Five. The song was recorded in Tyler by Robin Hood Brians with Rabbit on vocals and was released under the name Positively Thirteen O’clock. Unsurprisingly, with Rabbit being a DJ on the top station in town, it became a huge local hit. Ken “Nardo” Murray talked about it in a 1988 interview (read the full interview here). Click for larger image.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 17, 1988
And here they are at Louanns, with Rabbit at the mic, backed up by Dave Stanley, Bugs Henderson (he has “Bugs” and a picture of Bugs Bunny on his guitar!), and Jerry Howell:
If anyone has any Dallas-related photos or memorabilia of Mouse and the Traps, I’d love to see them! I’d also love to hear from people who saw them perform in the ’60s.
*
Billboard, May 21, 1966
Waco Tribune Herald, Aug. 11, 1966
Grand Prairie Daily News, May 9, 1968
Weimar Mercury, Jan. 16, 1969
North Texas State University newspaper, Feb. 7, 1969
Waco Tribune Herald, Aug. 30, 1969
Waco Citizen, April 13, 1970
***
Sources & Notes
A few Mouse and the Traps tidbits:
The band was originally called “Mouse.” “The Traps” was added when the second single, “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice” came out in 1966.
The “Henderson” listed as co-writer with Ronnie Weiss of a few of the early Mouse and the Traps songs (including the first two singles) was not Bugs Henderson (who was born Harry Fisher Henderson but was known as “Buddy” in the pre-“Bugs” days) — it was Knox Henderson, a high school pal from Tyler, seen below from a 1955 John Tyler High School (Tyler, TX) yearbook.
More on the band — including photos and newspaper articles — can be found here. Also included is additional information on Robin Hood Brians who has produced artists as diverse as ZZ Top, the Five Americans, James Brown, David Houston, and John Fred and His Playboy Band (whose “Judy In Disguise” knocked the Beatles out of the #1 spot on the national charts).
Legendary sportswriter Blackie Sherrod died yesterday at the age of 96. My father was not a follower of sports, but I remember he read Blackie Sherrod’s columns because, along with other great, larger-than-life, and exceptionally talented DFW sportswriters such as Bud Shrake, Dan Jenkins, and Gary Cartwright, Blackie was — for want of a better word — a “literary” journalist whose style transcended his subject matter. His writing appealed to everyone who enjoyed and appreciated well-written and caustically funny forays into, around, over, and under the world of sports. Sports fans — and other sportswriters — loved the guy. And so did everyone else.
In the December 1975 issue of Texas Monthly, Larry L. King (forever known as the man who made more money from the best little whorehouse in Texas than any of the girls who plied their trade there) wrote a fantastic profile of Blackie (“The Best Sportswriter in Texas”), in which he described Blackie Sherrod as being “the most plagiarized man in Texas.” Sportswriters around the state routinely stole all of Blackie’s best lines and inserted them, unattributed, into their own columns. King himself admits he was one of the worst offenders. The lengthy profile is great. Great. Read it here.
*
UPDATE: Also, this is a great 9-minute film produced by KERA in the 1970s in which Blackie talks about his career, past and present.
***
Sources & Notes
Video is from the KERA Collection, G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University; the permanent link on YouTube is here.
Watch a Dallas Morning News-produced video tribute to Blackie Sherrod from 2013.
The Dallas Morning News obituary — “Legendary News Sportswriter Blackie Sherrod Dies at 96” — written by Kevin Sherrington, is here.
Several of Blackie’s Sherrod’s books can be purchased online, here.
Moments after I posted yesterday’s photo of the Dallas Times Herald lobby, I read that Blackie had died. He must have walked through that lobby thousands of times. That was an odd bit of synchronicity.
(George W. Cook Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU)
by Paula Bosse
This amazing (and amazingly gruesome) first-hand account of an unnamed McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home undertaker details the incredible amount of work required to prepare the bullet-ridden body of celebrity outlaw Bonnie Parker for burial. This odd little historical document comes from the absolutely fantastic George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection housed in SMU’s DeGolyer Library. The four-page handwritten document can be viewed in its entirety on SMU’s Central University Libraries’ website here. Below is the full account, transcribed by SMU, with a few corrections/additions made by me.
*
Tear this up please? Tear this up please?
Heres [sic] first hand on Bonnie & Clyde as we had Bonnie. She was about the size of Rose Grace, weighing a 100 pounds. (a thousand pounds of dynamite though) She was very pretty of course her skin was somewhat tan. Her nails were beautiful. Likewise her toe nails. Her toes looked like fingers. The cuticles pushed back, the nails filed to a point, and a deep coral shade polish on them, the most beautiful toes I ever saw, just perfect. Her permanent just a month old we had it waved. Her face, right side was blown off. We fixed this and you could hardly tell it. Just one bullet went through her brain, however and number grazed her head as there were 3 big holes in her scalp, but not through skull. Her left eye terribly black, however I used eye shadow on other eye to match, so that was covered up. Now, her body was just mutilated and torn to pieces from shots. Her right hand nearly blown off (known as her trigger hand) her body besides being full of bullet holes was full of buckshot, pellets all over her
[Page 2] body. We received body ten minutes of nine. Joe and I sewed on her until three that afternoon. At that time they say 25,000 people were lined up outside. It took 2 hours picking dirt, rocks etc. from her hair then to wash it and have waved. A tattoo on right leg two hearts one read Roy, the other Bonnie. Roy you know was her Husband (Roy Thornton now in Pen) All fluid the undertaker in Arcadia La. used leaked out she was torn up so she was a a [sic] mass of blood, caked & dried. Several hours in bathing her. Had to scrape some of it off, and used gold dust to remove most of it. Had skinslip that night account Fluid leaking from it, began to smell the next morning, turning dark, smelling worse. The last day was rotten so to speak The odor was awful. Her Mother thought [sic] sat in room alone with her head over casket. How she stood it Lord knows. The other children couldn’t. Mother fainted 2:30 that night I asked if she wouldn’t like to go home, she went. By then the entire house smelt. We had to keep her so Sister Billy that was in jail in Ft Worth could get out & come to Funeral. She was buried in an all steel metal casket. Paper said $1000.00 wrong about $600 maybe less. Paper said $1000.00 vault Wrong there was no vault Page 2
[Page 3] Buried in an ice Blue Neglegee [sic] (is this spelled right) She was dressed in expensive clothes when killed. About 40,000 people came to view her. Paper said $1,500.00 damages done to Funeral Home. Wrong about the extent of $2.50. They did not tear windows etc as stated. The woman next door though turned Hose on Them to keep her flowers from being walked on. We had 38 officers stationed (3 shifts) all over house and front & back yard keeping crowd in order and all of us as well. 4 operators on the 4 phones. They rang every minute for two days & nights. More people came to see Bonnie then [sic] to see Clyde. Our new Porch Furniture was damaged. We had a Rubber mat about ½ inch in thickness all over Funeral House. Officers
[Page 4] stationed to keep people on it so as not to wear rug out (Big movie Star) my picture was shown in Movies. The paper stretched their stories. She was not to become a Mother as stated. She was diseased slightly though as stated. Now you have it first hand as I worked on her. Joes [sic] & My work was praised very highly in every other line in papers. And if I do say it, It was good. And she looked swell no trace of disfigures showing. The crowd did not steal anything to take home. All paper talk. Example crowd lined up as Far as Fair Park, now judge how it looked. They brought their Lunches. Such Fools.
*
Below, two photographs of the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home, located at 1921 Forest Avenue in South Dallas, besieged by curious spectators.
**
I’m unsure who the “Rose Grace” was who was mentioned on the first page.
The “gold dust” mentioned in the account as being used to remove caked blood from Bonnie’s body was actually Gold Dust Washing Powder or Gold Dust Scouring Soap, a popular, commercially-available “all-purpose cleaning agents” — Wikipedia article ishere.
***
Sources & Notes
Top image of the handwritten account on Adolphus Hotel stationery is from the aforementioned George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, viewable here.
First photo of the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home is reproduced all over the internet; the second photo is from the files of the Dallas Police Dept., Dallas Municipal Archives, via the University of North Texas’ Portal to Texas History database, here.
Even though the identity of the person who wrote this account is not known, he (…it was probably a man) mentions that he was seen in newsreel footage of the funeral of Bonnie Parker. My wild guess is that he can be seen in this clip from a longer newsreel on the funerals and burials of Bonnie and Clyde at the 2:34 mark. I could never find who his co-worker “Joe” was.
*
Is this our man laying flowers on Bonnies casket?
If you really want to see the state of the bodies of Bonnie (and Clyde) — before and after their time with their undertakers — they’re easy to find via your favorite search engine.
More Flashback Dallas posts on Bonnie & Clyde here.
If you like what you’ve seen on Flashback Dallas, please consider supporting me on Patreon, where for as little as $5 a month, you can receive all-new updates several times a week (if not daily!). More information can be found at Patreon,here.
The great Merle Haggard died today, on his 79th birthday. My earliest music memories are hearing his songs on the radio. Even people who don’t listen to country music know who Merle Haggard is (and are probably fans).
One of his idols was Lefty Frizzell, the Corsicana-born legend whose first hits were recorded in Dallas. Merle helped raise the funds in the late ’80s and early ’90s for the wonderful statue of Lefty which now stands in Jester Park in Corsicana. The picture above shows Merle visiting the statue. (Whenever I’m in Corsicana, I always drop by Jester Park to spend some time with Lefty.)
As far as Merle and Dallas, the earliest mention I could find was from January, 1965. Country music was covered only sporadically in the pages of The Dallas Morning News back then, but his early-’65 stop at the Sportatorium may have been Merle’s first appearance in Dallas — appropriately enough, it was at the Big D Jamboree. “California country music team” Merle and Bonnie Owens were guest performers, along with Billy Grammer and James O’Gwynn of the Grand Ole Opry, and the regular Jamboree cast of thirty, for the Jan. 30, 1965 Saturday-night Big D Jamboree show.
RIP, Merle. Thanks for everything.
***
The top picture is a photo I took of an original photograph which is hanging in the Lefty Frizzell Museum, which is also in Corsicana’s Jester Park (as part of the Pioneer Village).
Merle’s obituary in Variety — which includes entertaining salty quotes from the man himself — is here.
Today is Tennessee Williams’ birthday — he was born March 26, 1911. Thanks to his personal friendship and professional relationship with energetic Dallas theater pioneer Margo Jones (to whom he gave the nickname “The Texas Tornado”), playwright Tennessee Williams was a fairly frequent visitor to Dallas in the 1940s in the early years of his celebrity. Margo was a very early supporter of Williams, and their friendship led to her co-directing The Glass Menagerie on Broadway and her directing and producing the world premiere of his play Summer and Smoke at her Theater ’47 in Fair Park (a production which she took to Broadway the following year).
Dallas historian Darwin Payne wrote an interesting profile of Williams’ time in Dallas in the Spring 2007 issue of Legacies (read it here — it begins at the bottom of the page). My favorite quote in the article is about Dallas women, from a letter Tennessee wrote to New York theater director and producer Guthrie McClintic on June 1, 1945:
***
Sources & Notes
A comprehensive chronology of the friendship and professional partnership of Tennessee Williams and Margo Jones can be found in the article “An Alignment of Stars: Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Margo Jones’s ‘Theatre ’47′” by Ralph F. Voss, here.
My previous post concerning Margo Jones’ early demise — “Margo Jones & Jim Beck: Both Legends in Their Fields, Both Victims of Carbon Tetrachloride” — is here.
Sonny James, center, with fiddle (photo: SonnyJames.com)
by Paula Bosse
Sonny James — the much-loved Country Music Hall of Fame singer — died yesterday (Feb. 22, 2016). When I was a child, his version of “Runnin’ Bear” was my favorite song, and it was played endlessly throughout the ’70s on Dallas’ classic country stations like KBOX and WBAP. I was surprised to learn a few years ago, that the Alabama-born Sonny James lived in Dallas for several years, and that Dallas was where he was performing regularly when he exploded into the national consciousness with his first #1 hit, “Young Love.”
1952
Before he made his way to Dallas, Sonny James had been making a name for himself as a performer on Shreveport’s Louisiana Hayride. One of his first appearances in Dallas was during his Hayride Days: he was a guest on the Big D Jamboree in the summer of 1952.
He must have made quite a splash, because only a month later, he had left the Hayride, moved to Dallas, and was signed to appear on the show “Saturday Nite Shindig,” the WFAA-sponsored answer to the Big D Jamboree, which debuted on October 11, 1952. (As “Saturday Night Shindig,” the radio show had been a WFAA staple since it began in 1944; Sonny James was hired to be part of a new “Shindig,” which was revamped from a folksy half-hour show to a 4-hour live music show and was broadcast from Fair Park.)
“Yeoow! More Zip than a Singed Cat!” (Click for larger image.)
Oct. 8, 1952
Oct. 10, 1952
It was an immediate hit, and Sonny became the main draw and something of a teen heart-throb. Less than a month after the announcement of his permanent gig as a “Shindigger,” he also got his own radio show on WFAA, Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 11:00 to 11:15.
Pretty soon, the Shindig revue was being simulcast on TV and radio, live from Fair Park (from the bandshell when it was warm, and from various other buildings during cold and inclement weather).
April 11, 1953
The Shindig show seems to have died away in 1954 or 1955. Sonny James headed back to the Sportatorium and the Big D Jamboree (which was run by his manager, Ed McLemore). One show of note was this one in 1955, with his old Louisiana Hayride pal Elvis Presley. (McLemore made sure that even though Elvis was the headliner, Sonny’s name was actually bigger!)
April 15, 1955
Sonny James had been recording for Capitol for several years, with some success, but it wasn’t until the end of 1956 that he had his mammoth #1 crossover hit, “Young Love,” which made him a national star. Apparently, he kept a residence in Dallas for a while (the last address I see for him in Dallas was in 1955 at 4718 Capitol, between N. Carroll and Fitzhugh). While living in Dallas, he was a steadfast member of the Church of Christ at East Side and Peak, and he frequently participated in area fishing contests (in fact, there might have been more mentions of his extracurricular fishing exploits in the local papers than there were mentions of his show-biz exploits — his fishing activities were often covered using his real name, Jimmie Loden). One person who lived in the same neighborhood Sonny did recalled on a Dallas-history message board that Sonny worked on Saturday mornings bagging groceries at a store on the corner of Capitol and Fitzhugh.
Sonny James went on to be a much-loved country performer who racked up a number of hits and was, apparently, one of the nicest guys around. He was most definitely a Southern Gentleman. Thanks, Sonny.
*
Nov. 8, 1952
1953
Sept. 12, 1953
Billboard, Oct. 3, 1953
Aug. 21, 1954
Radio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1957
Radio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1958
***
Sources & Notes
Sonny James’ obituary form the Hollywood Reporter is here. His Wikipedia page is here.
To get an idea of the absolutely HOT hillbilly and rockabilly music that was being performed in Dallas in the years that Sonny James was here, check out this fantastic sampling of recordings from the Big D Jamboree:
*
See a few photos of Sonny James in Dallas at SonnyJames.com here (click thumbnails for larger images — the photo of Sonny sitting in the wings watching Elvis on stage at the Big D Jamboree is pretty great!).
A couple of good articles about Sonny James’ time in Dallas (written while he still considered himself a resident of the city) can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives:
“Success Won’t Spoil Mr. James” by Tony Zoppi in his “Dallas After Dark” column (DMN, Feb. 10, 1957)
“Sonny Snubs That Las Vegas ‘Loot'” by, of all people, Frank X. Tolbert in his “Tolbert’s Texas” column (May 13, 1957), in which Sonny — fresh off his 2.5-million-selling “Young Love” hit — talked about having a clause in contracts saying he would not perform in places with drinking, “clinch dancing,” and gambling, mostly because he did not want to exclude his teenage fans from being able to see him perform.
A good interview with Sonny James — packed with photos — appeared in the January, 1958 issue of TV Radio Mirror, a full scan of which you can find here. Even after he had hit the mega-big-time, Sonny said he continued to keep an apartment in Dallas. In the story there is a photo of his Dallas girlfriend, Doris Farmer (née Shrode) — she and Sonny took out a marriage license in July, 1957 (seen here) — I’m not sure when they married, but Sonny and Doris were happily married until Sonny’s death, almost 60 years.
Another performer who lived in the DFW area at the same time as Sonny James and who was also on the cusp of national stardom was Pat Boone, who had his own show on WBAP while attending college in Denton. Sonny and Pat were friends and even appeared on a few bills together. They were both also members of the Church of Christ, which both no doubt felt was an important bond. I wrote about Pat Boone’s time in DFW in the Flashback Dallas post “Pat Boone, Host of Channel 5’s ‘Teen Times’ — 1954,” here.
“Best friends” Menuhin and Dorati in Dallas, Jan. 1947
by Paula Bosse
When Antal Dorati was appointed conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1945, Dallas suddenly began to see a lot of violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
In a 1954 article about Yehudi Menuhin’s close ties to Dallas, John Rosenfield — the influential arts editor of The Dallas Morning News — wrote that when Menuhin was in town for a performance for the Civic Music Association in 1945, he was “casually asked” (probably by Rosenfield himself) what he thought of Antal Dorati as a possible conductor for the then-long-dormant Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
“He’s my best friend … he’s wonderful … he’s great,” said Yehudi, who was promptly carried around town to talk to businessmen again interested in re-forming the orchestra. (DMN, Sept. 5, 1954)
A short while later, Dorati was hired as musical director of the “new” Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and, as a result, best friend Yehudi was in and out of town frequently during Dorati’s four seasons in Dallas. Not only did he perform frequently as a soloist with the DSO, but it was not unheard of for Yehudi to sometimes drop by and sit in with the orchestra during rehearsals. Menuhin often stayed with Dorati when touring the central United States or based himself at the Melrose Hotel, which he used as a sort of mid-continent pied-à-terre.
One of the great passions the two men shared was a love for the music of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. Dorati, born in Budapest, studied piano under Bartok and was a champion of his work throughout his career. Menuhin had performed Bartok’s Violin Concerto to great acclaim, and near the end of Bartok’s life, after the two men had met and bonded, Menuhin commissioned him to compose a sonata for violin.
Dorati and Menuhin often collaborated on performances featuring Bartok’s works, and when it was known that Dorati was all-but-signed to be the new DSO conductor, there was much speculation that Bartok himself might come to Dallas, but Bartok’s death in September, 1945 put an end to those hopes.
The first RCA Victor Red Seal recordings of Dorati’s Dallas Symphony Orchestra took place in January, 1946. One of the recordings featured Menuhin performing Bartok’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.
Denison Press, Jan. 4, 1946
Below, the first movement of the recording.
* The second movement is here; the third movement is here.
The recording was well-received.
Time magazine, June 16, 1947
RCA Victor ad, 1947
Of perhaps greater note, was the fact that Yehudi Menuhin conducted for the very first time in Dallas — the first orchestra he ever waved a baton at was the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, in 1946. No doubt because of their great friendship, Dorati coached the 30-year-old Menuhin on the finer points of conducting when the violin virtuoso expressed interest in learning what things were like on the other side of the podium. Menuhin first conducted the DSO on April 6 1946, for an invited audience.
Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel, Apr. 7, 1946
He was ready to go “public” on January 16, 1947, conducting the DSO for one of its regularly scheduled national broadcasts originating from WFAA.
Jan. 11, 1947
The text from the ad:
Yehudi Menuhin, one of the great violinists of modern concert history, makes his public debut as a symphony orchestra conductor, January 16. Antal Dorati, Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, lends his baton to his protégé, Menuhin, for the entire one hour program.
Protégé!
Even though Menuhin insisted at the time that this brief foray into the world of conducting was fleeting and not a signal of any sort of career change, Yehudi Menuhin did go on later to direct many of the world’s great orchestras.
**
The friendship between Dorati and Menuhin lasted (from what I can tell) until Dorati’s death in 1988 (the decade-younger Menuhin died in 1999). They were personal friends and like-minded professional equals.
Between Menuhin and Antal Dorati, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor, exists a friendship and a mutuality of musical aspiration that has resulted in outstanding musical collaborations. (John Rosenfield, DMN, Jan. 15, 1947)
Below, the only film I’ve been able to find of the two men together, filmed in 1947 during the time when Dorati was engaged in Dallas (although this was not DSO-related and was filmed in Los Angeles). The piece being performed is Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 4; Dorati accompanies Menuhin on piano (you finally see him near the end!).
Top photo of Menuhin and Dorati in preparation for Menuhin’s public debut as a conductor is from Texas Week magazine (Jan. 25, 1947), here.
The YouTube videoof Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 4 was filmed at the Charlie Chaplin studios in Hollywood in the fall of 1947 (according to consumer reviews here).
Links-a-lot:
Yehudi Menuhin Wikipedia entry is here. His obituary is here.
The news this week that the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s musical director, Jaap van Zweden, was leaving town to pursue a glitzier gig was seen as an inevitable move to many of his disappointed fans. The DSO has been something of a springboard for conductors working their way up the conductor career ladder. Another celebrated conductor who spent a few years in Big D before rising to the heights of international acclaim was Hungarian-born Antal Dorati (1906-1988).
Dallas had classical music concerts in the 19th century, but the roots of what we now know as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra reach back to about 1900, under the direction of Hans Kreissig, who had settled in Dallas in 1887.
Dallas Morning News, Jan. 13, 1897
For various reasons (lack of community interest, lack of financial support, etc.), some of these early seasons were truncated or suspended — there was a gap of several years after Kreissig’s tenure, for instance, and there were no performances during most of 1936 and 1937 because of activities surrounding the Texas Centennial and renovations to the Music Hall (the DSO performed at the Music Hall in Fair Park). The most noteworthy suspension of performances was during World War II when the symphony was “temporarily dissolved”: not only was the financial state of the organization not good at this time, but the war itself had depleted the ranks of the performers — the DSO shut down completely in 1942 because conductor Jacques Singer and several of his musicians had enlisted or were drafted. John Rosenfield, the arts editor of The Dallas Morning News and an ardent classical music lover, wrote often during this time how the loss of the DSO was a crushing cultural blow to the city.
When the war ended, Dallas’ music-lovers (and musicians) clamored for the return of the DSO. A search began for a conductor who was not only a superior musical director but who would also be able to build an orchestra from scratch; they found that man in 39-year-old Antal Dorati, a former student of Zoltan Kodaly and Bela Bartok who had made a name for himself as a musical director for ballet companies such as the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Ballet Theater — his DSO appointment was announced in the fall of 1945.
Somehow, in only two months, Dorati managed to put an orchestra together, prepare the season’s schedule, rehearse the musicians, and present the first performance of the “reborn” Dallas Symphony Orchestra on December 9, 1945.
DMN, Dec. 5, 1945
The response to that first concert was rapturous:
The crowd was somewhat stunned by the excellence of the ensemble that will bear Dallas’ name. To many, grown realistic or cynical in the years’ cultural struggles, the new orchestra was an unbelievably precious gift. Nothing so fine was expected by even the optimists. And it belonged to them with the promise that it would stay for all the time they could foresee. (John Rosenfield review, “Capacity Audience Thrills To Reborn Dallas Symphony, DMN, Dec. 10, 1945)
During the intermission of this debut performance, Dorati was interviewed on the radio and had nice things to say about Dallas:
I fell in love with Dallas not last September when I was engaged but as far back as 1937. When I visited here year after year with the Ballet Theater. I said to myself that if I ever withdrew from the ballet and became a resident conductor for an American symphony, I would like it to be the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.” (DMN, Dec. 10, 1945)
One little thing the Maestro was unable to accomplish, though, was to find a place for his family to live. The severe lack of postwar housing affected even the wealthy cultural elite!
Dec. 13, 1945
And, with that, the DSO was back. It toured. A LOT. And made recordings. And appeared on national radio broadcasts. With Dorati at the helm, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was making a name for itself and garnering a very positive national reputation.
A typical article about the young, photogenic Dorati went something like the one below, in which Dorati was described as “the wonderboy of Southwest symphonic circles.”
Texas Week, Aug. 17, 1946
After a fairly short but incredibly productive time in Dallas, Antal Dorati accepted the position of conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in January 1949. His successor, Walter Hendl (a startlingly “honest” obituary of the controversial Hendl appeared in the London Telegraphhere), was appointed a few short weeks later, and Dorati’s final concert was April 3, 1949.
April 3, 1949
John Rosenfield’s melancholy review/farewell appeared the next day in The Dallas Morning News, and one imagines it tooks weeks for his tears to dry.
The spectacularly successful musical director and conductor, whose 4-season regime ended with an emotion-laden farewell concert, modestly disclaimed the founder’s role in Dallas Symphony history. The 1945-49 period was one of high-intentioned and nobly-adventurous endeavor….” (John Rosenfield, DMN, April 4, 1949)
And with that, the Maestro headed to Minneapolis, having built the post-war Dallas Symphony Orchestra into a nationally respected organization.
**
Waco News Tribune, Dec. 6, 1946
Waco News Tribune, Dec. 13, 1946
***
Sources & Notes
Top photo and article from the Aug. 17, 1946 issue of Texas Week, the short-lived magazine that was sort of a Texas version of Life, via the Portal to Texas History, here. Text may have been written by Paul Crume.
Linksapalooza:
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra Wikipedia entry is here; the official DSO site is here; the Handbook of Texas entry is here.
The Antal Dorati Wikipedia entry is here; his official site is here.
Listen to pianist William Kapell perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Antal Dorati (recorded at the Fair Park Auditorium the same week he made his “Adios, Dallas!” announcement in Jan., 1949), here.
More on Dorati and his close friend Yehudi Menuhin in my post “Yehudi Menuhin and Antal Dorati: A Collaborative Friendship,” here.
And, yes, the correct spelling should be “Antal Doráti.”
Sylvia Wene battles Dick Weber and turbulence…
Dick Weber bowling at 500 miles an hour
Photo: Dallas Arboretum
Merle and Lefty, in Corsicana
Younger… (via
Older…
Flashback : Dallas 