Biography

Taking "Passion" on the Road

After graduating from UNC in 1928, Kyser decided to take his act on the road, with his band, his touring car called "Passion," and Mack Riggsbee, who functioned as chef, chauffeur, personal secretary, valet, chaperone and friend.

Before the band headed out of town, Kyser asked Riggsbee to take the car and get it checked, Riggsbee recalled in a 1983 Town and Gown article. "I thought for some unknown reason that he owned a Cadillac or Packard, but it turned out to be a Model T Ford. The name ‘Passion’ was clearly written on both doors. There was an anchor on the left side, which was thrown out to ‘keep Passion from running away with you’."

Kay Kyser and Band

View a video clip of Kay Kyser and his band performing, from the 1940 movie, "You'll Find Out."

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Though eventually success would rain on Kyser and his colleagues, the band’s beginnings were not so impressive as the band traveled northward. After their first gig in Pennsylvania, the dance hall manager "slapped Kay enthusiastically on the back and insisted on an immediate return engagement the next night," the Associated Press reported years later. The band accepted.

"To their bewilderment when they arrived the next evening the dance emporium was locked and deserted," the AP reported. "After several hours they discovered the awful truth: The applause the night before had been derisory, and the proprietor’s return invitation his ultimate revenge for his chagrin."

Crushed, the band went to Cleveland for five weeks, relying on Kyser’s friend Riggsbee to cook for their survival. They returned to Chapel Hill, where Kyser persuaded four professional musicians to practice and play with them. Kyser’s band improved steadily.

The band did fairly well as a small-time professional outfit. Three solid years of engagements kept them going, as they toured from town to town looking for the "big break" and experimenting with new gimmicks. By 1932 they had exhausted nearly every venue in the midwest and, desperate to survive, trekked to California to play four weeks at the Bal Tabarin in San Francisco. The whole band had less than $10 by the time they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

Kyser credits Bal Tabarin owner Frank Martinelli with keeping their hopes alive and starting them on the path upward. He convinced Kyser to be the master of ceremonies for the whole show and allowed the musicians to wear their trademark white suits instead of more formal tuxedos. The band’s audience grew. Kyser and company moved to a Santa Monica club and returned to the Bal Tabarin in autumn 1934. It was this second visit to Martinelli’s club that would give the musicians the break they’d been looking for.

During the second stint at the Bal Tabarin, Kyser said, Martinelli installed a trapeze from his club’s ceiling. "We dressed (band member) Ish Kabibble in tights, turned-up shoes and an over-sized bathrobe, and he sang ‘The Man on the Flying Trapeze’ while sitting motionless on the trapeze. It turned out to be the biggest hit of the show for months and months," Kyser said.

From Bal Tabarin, the band was booked into the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago, where — just as he’d followed Hal Kemp’s footsteps at Chapel Hill — Kyser’s band followed Kemp’s band, which was also booked there. Jules Stein, head of MCA, signed Kyser’s band there and assured them at least three months. At first, the band drew very few customers in the restaurant, and every week Stein had to persuade management to keep Kyser signed.

"That was just about the time we hit on the idea of singing song titles," Kyser recalled in Town and Gown. "The orchestra would start each number with a short introduction followed by a member of the band singing the title of the song. This gave the band a special identity that it needed to head really bigtime."

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