Jones, Spike (actually, Lindley Armstrong Jones)

Jones, Spike (actually, Lindley Armstrong Jones), b. Long Beach, Calif., Dec. 14, 1911; d. Bel Air, Calif., May 1, 1965. Among Spike Jones’s many musical accomplishments over his 30-plus-year career, perhaps his biggest was introducing such instruments as the latriophone (a toilet seat strung with wire) and the burpaphone (self-explanatory) to the lexicon of American popular music. Much more than a novelty act, Jones was a musical visionary. “I’m the dandruff in longhair music,” Jones has said about his comical presence in the world of more serious bandleaders in the 1950s and 1960s. He began his career as a studio musician drummer, most notably playing on Bing Crosby’s monster hit “White Christmas.” Bored by conventional music, Jones began to add unusual instruments to his drum set and set out to form a band to fulfill his zany vision. In the early 1940s, he formed the City Slickers and Jones set out to turn the world of pop music on its ear with crazy parodies and bizarre musical collages. The band’s unlikely first hit was 1942’s Hitler spoof “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” on the basis of which the band successfully toured the country. By the late 1940s Jones had expanded the band’s live shows to include midgets, jugglers, and other loony acts, while scoring on the charts with song interpretations like “Cocktails for Two”—replete with a hiccuping chorus. Jones and the band appeared in several films and brought their brand of musical folly to TV in the 1950s and early 1960s with four versions of The Spike Jones Show. Jones died of emphysema in 1965, but not before establishing himself as one of the true musical pioneers of the 20th century, and easily the most hilarious.

Discography

The Nutcracker Suite (1945); Bottoms Up (1952); Spike Jones Presents a Christmas Spectacular (1956); Dinner Music for People Who Aren’t Very Hungry (1957); Spike Jones in Hi- Fi (1960); Let’s Sing a Song for Christmas (1978); Riot Squad (1989); Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones (1994); Musical Depreciation Review: The Spike Jones Anthology (1994); Louder & Funnier (1994); Corn’s a-Poppin’ (1995); Cocktails for Two (1997); Greatest Hits!!! (1999).