Jad Paul (June 16, 1916 – December 29, 2008) was an American musician, most noted for being one of the original members of

Spike Jones Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gun ...

' band "The City Slickers". He was also noted for his banjo playing.

Career

Paul began playing the banjo at an early age. He used this skill of playing the banjo came in handy when he began playing for

' band "The City Slickers" beginning in 1954. In the early 1950s, he performed with Freddy Morgan on recordings credited to The Banjo Maniacs, The Happy Harts and The Sunnysiders (including the popular "Hey, Mr. Banjo"). Paul stayed with the City Slickers group through 1958. After leaving Jones, he performed for local

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

television station

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

, on the weekly program ''Polka Parade'', which included fellow prior "Slickers" members Bernie Jones and Joe "Country" Washburn. Jad also made three

LP record The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a ...

s for

Liberty Records Liberty Records was a record label founded in the United States by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revival ...

, when stereo was a new development, featuring his multi-tracking of the banjo. Jad Paul could also play guitar and recorded at least one 10" 78 rpm record for the Northern California based Trilon label during the late 1940s. The orchestration (billed as The Jad Paul Trio) was a Piano-Bass-Guitar outfit like the King Cole Trio. The sides were "Honeysuckle Rose" and "I'm a Dreamer, Aren't We All." One unusual trait of Honeysuckle Rose was Paul playing the guitar and scatting in unison in a manner similar to George Benson at least a couple decades later.Bassist Slam Stewart had already done something similar with scatting with bowed bass fiddle about a decade earlier.

Honors

Paul was inducted into the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame in 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul, Jad 1916 births 2008 deaths