Howard McElroy

Drummer Howard McElroy’s profession bears evaluation to Spike Jones, without the great fame. Both males began as journeymen tempo section players in jazz combos and big rings based in LA. McElroy performed drums in the outstanding music group of Ben Pollack, through the past due ’20s evolving from the New Orleans jazz design of previous innovator Harry Bastin right into a intensifying dance music group. Jones and McElroy distributed the opinion that drumming inside a jazz music group, no real matter what design, was no chance to accumulate doolah. These were lured into musical humor, the sillier the better when making an application of so-called industrial hokum. Jones began and led his personal famed Town Slickers, while McElroy drummed his method in to the cooperative Korn Kobblers, in a few ways modeled following the likewise daft Hoosier Sizzling Shots. McElroy’s obligations overlapped what would normally be looked at music group management. As street supervisor or “transport director,” he’d have to contact each member’s accommodation, for example, to create pertinent comments such as “1 hour in the lobby” or “Obtain down right here and enter Charlie’s vehicle.” The last mentioned is a mention of the band’s bassist and honorary transport expert, Charlie Koenig, drivers and owner from the music group automobile. Saxophonist and homemade device expert Stan Fritts was the essential head of the group, energetic from the past due ’30s through 1954 using a string of strikes including “Don’t Provide Me No Goose for Xmas, Grandma” and “IF IT IS Hog Calling Amount of time in the Valley.” McElroy’s latent comic abilities thought prominently into Korn Kobbler antics. He doubled on tuned percussion keyboards, do impressions including Irish humor, and created a homemade device that a participant could theoretically actually obtain down on, the “duck quacker.”