Al Donahue (June 12, 1904, Dorchester, Massachusetts - February 20, 1983,

Fallbrook, California Fallbrook is a CDP in northern San Diego County, California. Fallbrook had a population of 30,534 at the 2010 census, up from 29,100 at the 2000 census. Fallbrook's downtown is not on a major highway route. It is west of Interstate 15 or n ...

) was an American violinist and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...

leader. Donahue got his start playing in Boston-area campus bands and led a band at Boston's Weber Duck Inn in 1925. The ensemble attracted enough notice to obtain engagements at Florida hotels; one of these, the Bermudiana, contracted with Donahue to set up bands to play at all its hotels, as well as onboard Eastern Steamship ocean liners.Leo Walker, The Big Band Almanac. Ward Ritchie Press, 1978, p. 96. During the mid-1930s he substituted for

Ray Noble Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 2 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United ...

as leader at the Rainbow Room of

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...

. Over time he moved from playing sweet pop music to swing music and toured nationally. He took an engagement at the

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

in Hollywood immediately after Glenn Miller's departure. Paula Kelly, Dee Keating, Lynne Stevens, Phil Brito, and

Snooky Lanson Roy Landman (March 27, 1914 – July 2, 1990),DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). ''Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers, 1920 through 1960''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . P. 159. better known as Snooky Lanson, was an Ame ...

all served as vocalists in his ensemble at times. Donahue recorded copiously between 1935 and 1942, recording for Decca Records,

Vocalion Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

, and

Okeh Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

. His biggest hit was a rendition of " Jeepers Creepers", which went to #1 on the Billboard chart in 1938. He also later recorded for University Recording Company. After World War II he moved the ensemble again toward light music, playing throughout the West Coast and appearing in films such as '' Sweet Genevieve''. Later, he would return to cruise ships once more, directing music for the Furness Bermuda Line; from 1950 to 1963 he played on the ' and the '' Ocean Monarch''. He opened a record store in

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

, but the government took the store over, forcing Donahue to abandon the business. Following this, he settled in Oceanside, California, where he ran a store called Ponzi's House of Music until his death.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donahue, Al American bandleaders American violinists Musicians from Massachusetts 1904 births 1983 deaths 20th-century violinists