Sentimental Journey Through the 1940s
Join us on a Sentimental Journey Through the 1940s featuring the music of famed Ohio native big bandleader and trumpet player Clyde McCoy and his “Sugar Blues” Orchestra.
Few musical trademarks were so instantly recognized as the first five notes played by Clyde McCoy when he stomped off Sugar Blues. McCoy (whose ancestors feuded with the Hatfield clan) started his musical career at the age of nine on the trombone in his hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio. He later mastered his golden trumpet on which he developed a unique, muted “wah-wah” style which was widely copied, but never equaled. In his teenage years, McCoy found work playing on riverboats and assembled his first jazz band in 1920. In 1930, McCoy was engaged at Chicago’s Drake Hotel where he introduced what was to become his theme song, Sugar Blues. His record of that number sold over a million copies in 1930, no small feat in the depths of the depression.
McCoy developed a special brand of Dixieland influenced big band music and originated the concept of “battle of the bands,” with two orchestras facing off on stage. McCoy toured the country with his orchestra until 1942, when he and all his musicians joined the Navy where they entertained troops and hospital patients. After the war, McCoy reorganized his band and continued touring through the 1970s.
Hear Clyde McCoy’s recently discovered original musical arrangements for the first time in decades as Joseph Rubin and his 15-piece Orchestra perform all your favorite song hits from the Fabulous Forties: Stompin’ At The Savoy, When You’re Smiling, Stardust, Opus No. 1, Sentimental Journey, and of course Sugar Blues. Don’t miss this exciting concert celebrating the centennial of Clyde McCoy’s first band!
concert song List
Length: Two hours with a fifteen minute intermission (can be altered by request)
Songs to be selected from this list
Sugar Blues
At Sundown
Basin Street Blues
Begin The Beguine
Blues In The Night
Hot Lips
How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down On The Farm
I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate
Ja-Da
Jazz Me Blues
Limehouse Blues
Memphis Blues
Mississippi Mud
Opus No. 1
Sentimental Journey
South Rampart Street Parade
Stardust
Stompin' At The Savoy
Tear It Down
Temptation
That's A Plenty
Till The End of Time
Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
When Day Is Done
When You're Smiling
When My Baby Smiles At Me
You Go To My Head
PAST PERFORMANCES
FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2022 7:30 PM
MUSICAL MEMORIES OF SUMMIT LAKE PARK
AKRON-SUMMIT COUNTY MAIN LIBRARY AUDITORIUM AKRON, OHIO
SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2022 7:30 PM
IN CLYDE MCCOY’S HOMETOWN!
VERN RIFFE CENTER FOR THE ARTS PORTSMOUTH, OHIO
SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2022 2:00 PM
PRESENTED BY THE TED LEWIS MUSEUM
OHIO CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER CIRCLEVILLE, OHIO