Though many country blues artists had a revival from the 1950s on, Weaver died almost forgotten. His recordings were quite successful but in 1927 he retired and went back to Louisville until his death in 1960. Weaver often used the bottleneck-style method, playing his guitar with a knife. On some recordings from 1927 he was accompanied by Walter Beasley and the singer Helen Humes. Weaver recorded until 1927, sometimes accompanied by Sara Martin, about 50 additional songs. “Guitar Rag” (played on a Guitjo) became a blues classic and was covered in the 1930s by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys as “Steel Guitar Rag” and became a country music standard too. These recordings are the very first country-blues recordings and the first known recorded songs using the slide guitar style. Both recordings were released on Okeh Records. On October 23, 1923, he recorded in New York City with the blues singer Sara Martin“Longing for Daddy Blues” / “I’ve Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind” and two weeks later as a soloist “Guitar Blues” / “Guitar Rag”.
Spivak’s youngest son, Steven Glenn Spivak, is a public relations manager in northern California. Spivak, was a television and radio broadcaster primarily in the Philadelphia, Pa, Los Angeles, Cal, and Washington, D. Spivak continued to play and record until his death. Charlie Grubbs of “Ye Olde Fireplace”, a restaurant-nightclub in Greenville, S.C. During this time Spivak was also band leader and co-owner with Mr.
She died in 1971 after years of fighting cancer. On his recovery, he continued to lead large and small bands, first in Las Vegas, then in South Carolina in Greenville, South Carolina in 1967 he led a small group featuring his wife as vocalist. When the Spivak orchestra broke up, he went to live in Florida, where he continued to lead a band until illness led to his temporary retirement in 1963. The late Manny Albam also arranged for the Spivak band. Riddle was also responsible for many of the band’s arrangements, together with Sonny Burke. Spivak himself (known as “Cheery, Chubby Charlie”) had always been noted and used for his tone and strength for playing lead parts rather than for any improvisational ability.Ī number of the band’s musicians were to make names for themselves, including drummer Dave Tough, bassist Jimmy Middleton, trumpeters Les Elgart and Paul Fredricks, saxophonist Don Raffell, trombonist Nelson Riddle, and singers Garry Stevens, June Hutton, Tommy Mercer, Jimmy Saunders, and Irene Daye (who had sung with Gene Krupa, and whom Spivak married in 1950). Spivak’s experience playing with jazz musicians had little effect on his own band’s style, which was straight dance music, made up mainly of ballads and popular tunes. Fredricks was instrumental in the band’s success in the coming years as it reached its peak. He scouted top trumpeter Paul Fredricks (formerly of Alvino Rey‘s Orchestra) just as Fredricks left the service at the end of the War in 1946. Spivak’s band was one of the most successful in the 1940s, and survived until 1959. He spent 19 mostly working as a studio musician with Gus Arnheim, Glenn Miller, Raymond Scott‘s radio orchestra, and others, followed by periods with Bob Crosby (1938), Tommy Dorsey(1938–1939), and Jack Teagarden (1939).įinally, with the encouragement and financial backing of Glenn Miller, he formed his own band in November 1939. Though it failed within a year, he tried again shortly afterwords, this time taking over an existing band ( Bill Downer‘s) and making a success of it. He played on “ Solo Hop” in 1935 by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.
He played with Paul Specht‘s band for most of 1924 to 1930, then spent time with Ben Pollack (1931–1934), the Dorsey brothers (1934–1935), and Ray Noble (1935– 1936). What is certain is that he learned to play trumpet when he was ten years old, and played in his high school band, going on to work with local groups before joining Johnny Cavallaro‘s orchestra.
Others place his birth in New Haven two years earlier, in 1905. Some sources place it in the Ukraine in 1907, and that his family emigrated to settle in New Haven, Connecticut while he was a child. The details of Spivak’s birth are unclear.
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