Reg Kehoe And His Marimba Queens
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Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens was a
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
-based musical group active from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s. They were based in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster, ( ; pdc, Lengeschder) is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. With a population at the 2020 census of 58,039, it ranks 11th in population amon ...
and toured extensively. The lasting legacy of Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens is in ''A Study In Brown'', a two-minute black-and-white film made in early 1940 (link below). One of hundreds of "Soundie" films, they were printed backwards (mirror image) so they could appear correct when played in a
Panoram Panoram was the trademark name of a visual jukebox that played short-filmed musicals (the effect being the equivalent of 1980s music videos) popular within the United States during the 1940s. It was conceived and produced by the Mills Novelty Co ...
machine (an early film jukebox about the size of a refrigerator) which employed a series of mirrors to reflect an image from a projector onto a 27-inch, reverse-projection, etched-glass screen in the tight, enclosed cabinet. "A Study In Brown" was also shown in movie houses as a bonus before the main feature. Reg Kehoe and His Marimba Queens played from about 1938 to 1955 and was a popular act, starting and ending each yearly tour with appearances at
Hersheypark Hersheypark (known as Hershey Park until 1970) is a family theme park located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about east of Harrisburg, and west of Philadelphia. The park was founded in 1906 by Milton S. Hershey as a leisure park for the employees of ...
in
Hershey, Pennsylvania Hershey is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is home to The Hershey Company, which was founded by candy magnate Milton S. Hershey. The community is lo ...
. In between, the troupe played along the East Coast and throughout the Midwest, traveling by bus, making the rounds of the major dance halls—including in Chicago The Aragon, Willowbrook (Oh Henry Ballroom), Melody Mill, Midway Gardens and Trianon. Stealing the show in "A Study In Brown" was 'hep-cat' bass player Frank DiNunzio, Sr., of Hershey, Pennsylvania, who played his standup–slap bass almost until his death in February 2005. The woman playing the marimba next to the maraca player, Grace Bailey, in the film is Reg's wife, Fern Marie, who died in July 2006. On the back marimba is Joyce Shaw on the upper, Ruth Hauser on the middle octave, and Janet Yonder on the lower. On the side marimba, Madee Greer is on the upper and Polly Weiser on the lower. The reappearance of a grainy copy of the haunting "A Study In Brown"—which is now in the public domain—on Internet video sites has sparked a resurgence in curiosity and interest among a new legion of fans, and has rekindled the band's fame. Most viewers notice the sound is not necessarily synched to the video. This is because when making
Soundies Soundies are three-minute American musical films, and each short displays a performance. The shorts were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos" by UCLA. Soundies exhibited a variety of musical gen ...
the artist first recorded an acceptable copy of the audio, then various camera takes were made using different camera angles and closeups as the performers lip-synched the lyrics and acted as though playing the instruments. The results were edited to create the appearance of several cameras doing the filming, when in most cases one camera was used. This films was shown at many Army Camps. No other Panoram recordings made by Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens are known to exist. Thanks to their two-minute "soundie", the legacy of the Marimba Queens lives on. The band played its last engagement at the
Bedford Springs Hotel Omni Bedford Springs Resort is a resort hotel outside of Bedford, Pennsylvania. Established in 1806, it is one of last and best-preserved of 19th-century resort hotels based around mineral springs. The hotel was documented in 2005 by the Histor ...
, Bedford, Pennsylvania in 1962. NOTE: Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens did make additional recordings in the 1940s. There are 18 "glass" records of music and two "glass" records of live interviews with Kehoe and some of the band members.


Personnel

* Madee Greer (left
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) * Polly Weiser (left
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) * Joyce Shaw (center
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) * Ruth Hauser (center marimba) * Janet Yoder (center
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) * Fern Marie Kehoe (right
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) * Grace Bailey Ivanov (
maracas A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were r ...
) * Reg Kehoe (
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
, electric
vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
) * Frank DiNunzio, Sr. (
double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
) (Note: Positions are reversed in the movie)


References


External links


''A Study in Brown'' short film''A Study in Brown'' at youtube.com''A Study in Brown'' at youtube.com - same video uncut, un-reversed and in HD
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