Hank Jones

TIME Magazine once had a cover-story devoted to genealogy and chose to close the article and tie things together with a quote from Hank Jones, who soon after was elected a Fellow and eventually became President of The American Society Of Genealogists. That's a long way from his show-business beginnings: Hank Jones has been in the entertainment field since his days at Stanford University. He and his singing partner Dean Kay were signed by Steve Sholes, Elvis Presley's A&R producer, to an RCA recording contract and, as "Hank & Dean," recorded many singles and an album, "Arrival Time," for RCA. At the same time, they won an open audition over 1,000 other talented performers and were signed as featured singers on the old daytime daily Tennessee Ernie Ford television show on ABC, logging 400 network appearances on the program. Hank & Dean also recorded with Ernie Ford on his still-popular hymn albums on Capitol, backing Ernie up on his famous "How Great Thou Art!" track.

After his singing partner Dean Kay was drafted (and later went on to write Frank Sinatra's mega-hit "That's Life"), Hank Jones began a twenty year career as a character actor in films and television. He was a featured player in many of the now-classic Walt Disney films of the 1960's and 1970's (Walt himself cast Hank in the first of the eight movies he did at the studio, "Blackbeard's Ghost" with Peter Ustinov); he filmed over 300 network tv shows, mostly sit-coms, and 500 commercials in the course of his acting and singing career.

When it comes right down to it, it’s really all about THE PEOPLE with whom you share the journey along the way. When he first came to Hollywood, Hank was welcomed and got to know some of its real pioneers: lyricist Ira Gershwin, producer Hal Roach, and especially the great comic Stan Laurel (who became his mentor). Over the years he then had a chance to work with a myriad of show business greats - Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Bob Hope, Ringo Star, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Walter Brennan, Carrie Fisher, Henry Fonda, Patty Duke, William Frawley, Peter Lorré, Elsa Lanchester, Robin Williams, Ron Howard, Goldie Hawn, Fred MacMurray, DJ Casey Kasem, Jimmy Dean, Kurt Russell, Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Vincent Price, Dick Clark, Minnie Pearl, on and on … - and in the studio, he often recorded with Glen Campbell, Darlene Love & The Blossoms, and the fabled “Wrecking Crew” as his background.

A long-time songwriter and member of ASCAP since 1963, Hank's best known song is the cult-favorite "Midnight Swinger" recorded by Mel Tormé. In his book "Memories - The Show-Biz Part Of My Life," Hank recalls the initial ASCAP meeting he attended and what it was like:
"My first ASCAP meeting at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1963 was a thrill. The Society’s semi-official greeter at the door was an old songwriter named Wolfie Gilbert. We chatted for awhile, and he was very interested in what we had written and if we’d had any success yet. I knew his name was familiar, so I asked Wolfie what songs he had composed. He responded with an answer that made my jaw drop: “Oh I just wrote a little number called, “Waitin’ For The Robert E. Lee.” I realized that I was in the presence of history.

It was such fun to mingle with some of the greats of yesteryear. Rudolph Friml, a tall and elegant man who had written classic operettas in the 20s like “Rose Marie” and “The Vagabond King,” was there holding court. Jimmy McHugh, his head as bald as a billiard ball looking spiffy in a checkered coat with an ascot, made the rounds; he was the composer of “I’m In The Mood For Love,” “On The Sunny Side Of The Street,” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” Ned Washington, a dapper man with a tiny pencil-thin moustache, worked the room; he had written wonderful oldies like “When You Wish Upon A Star,” “The Nearness Of You,” and “I Don’t Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You.” Harry Ruby darted about swapping stories with his compatriots and touting horses running at the track; he was the subject of the MGM film biography “Three Little Words” and had composed “Who’s Sorry Now” and songs for many of the Marx Brothers pictures. Harry Richman, a huge star in the 1920s from George White’s Scandals and the Ziegfeld Follies, sat forlornly on a hard backed chair. He was all alone waiting for someone to remember him. It was so sad, as he was a huge star in his day as a singer (he introduced “The Birth Of The Blues”) and was a songwriter too (“Walking My Baby Back Home”).

Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, Sinatra’s favorite songsmiths whom we first met when we all did a tribute to them on the “Tennessee Ernie Ford Show,” were a loud and very vocal presence at the meetings. Van Heusen, known as “Chester” to the Rat Pack, was a notorious procurer of willing women - such an infamous rouè that that aspect of his life almost overshadowed his musical talent. Cahn was a frenetic type and frustrated performer himself, always on call to write his trademarked special material lyrics for Friar’s Roasts and other inside events. {Ironically, as Sammy Cahn lay dying in his home, his last words were ”Dean Kay,” saying the name of my old singing/songwriting partner. Dean was serving on the ASCAP Board of Directors with Sammy at the time). The irrepressible George Jessel often attended. He was something else! His shiny toupee was shellacked down over his forehead, and he always wore a military uniform of suspicious design bedecked with medals that made him look like an officer in search of his regiment. His foghorn voice echoed through the room like chalk on a blackboard. Jessel was one of the true survivors of the vaudeville era, starting out at the age of nine with Gus Edward’s schoolhouse act and then capping it all by headlining innumerable times at the Palace (singing his trademarked song, “My Mother’s Eyes”). It was he who named Frances Gumm, “Judy Garland.” Jessel was known for his moving eulogies at show-business funerals. It was said that he often did three eulogies in one day; at one service, fatigued from his long day at so many memorials, Jessel supposedly looked down at the coffin of the deceased and surprisingly exclaimed, “My God - I KNOW this man!”

But probably my most memorable ASCAP meeting came a few years later when the Society gave Fred Astaire a very special award for his contributions to American popular music. The press corps was salivating at the door, waiting to get a glimpse of the retired icon in one of his few public appearances. The door finally opened and out strolled a rather frail elderly gentleman wearing a bright orange-colored hairpiece. He seemed to stagger from the barrage of flashbulbs popping wildly around him as the photographers descended and practically enveloped him. He somehow reached the stage and got to the microphone, no thanks to the rude paparazzi who kept hiding his view with their cameras and blocking his path. Showing the class he demonstrated in his seventy years in the public eye, he held up his hands and asked for quiet. Mr. Astaire then firmly but politely asked all the photographers milling around in front of him to please SIT DOWN, “so that I can see and thank the songwriters of America - to whom I am so very much indebted - for making this day and my career possible.” CLASS!

Hank happily has been a member of TAXI for many years and enjoyed quite a few "Forwards" of songs from his musical trunk (which "over-floweth"). TAXI categorizes most of them as "vintage songs," which makes sense, because at 83 now - Hank Jones is "vintage" himself!