Weekly View » Bumps in the Night

Glen Campbell, The Wrecking Crew and Alzheimer’s

Al Hunter — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:08:19 +0000

Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936. He started playing guitar at the age of four. While still a teenager, Campbell moved to Albuquerque to join his uncle Boo’s band. By the age of 22, Campbell had formed his own band. In 1960, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. By early 1961, Campbell’s skills were in high demand and he soon became an integral part of a legendary group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. Campbell played guitar on recordings by Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas & the Papas, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, The Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, and Phil Spector.
Look at that list again. Betcha didn’t know Glen Campbell backed The King and was part of Phil Spector’s de facto house band known as The Wall of Sound. Keep reading and you’ll discover that Campbell’s guitar prowess doesn’t stop there. The Wrecking Crew were also sometimes called the Clique or the First Call Gang. They were a loose-knit circle of Los Angeles’ top studio session musicians whose services were constantly in demand by the biggest names in the business. While the musician’s roll of The Wrecking Crew changed often, the result of their work never did.
Often appearing anonymously with no credit in the liner notes, The Wrecking Crew backed dozens of popular acts on numerous top-selling hits of the era. If you needed a hit in the 60s and 70s, you called The Wrecking Crew. When you hear pop classics like “Be My Baby,” “California Girls,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” “Viva Las Vegas,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “California Dreamin’,” “I Got You Babe,” “Surf City,” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Help Me Rhonda,” “”Rainy Days and Mondays,“ or “These Boots are Made for Walking,” you’re listening to The Wrecking Crew. They were sometimes used as “ghost players” on recordings credited to rock groups such as the Byrds, the Monkees, and the Beach Boys. At one point in the 60s, the Grammy Award for Record of The Year was awarded to a song performed by The Wrecking Crew seven years in a row. They are considered the most successful session recording unit in music history.
At the height of their careers, it wasn’t uncommon for The Wrecking Crew to work 15-hour days, recording hit records in the morning, radio ads through lunch, television spots in the afternoon, and performing backup for various touring acts before bedtime. Before the decade was out, they had clocked well over 10,000 hours of studio time and worked on hundreds of hit singles, including 40 chart-toppers, nearly doubling the Beatles.
Besides Campbell, the Wrecking Crew’s ranks included keyboardist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, who is reputed to have played on over 140 top ten hits including 40 number ones. Other musicians that constituted the unit’s ranks were drummer Earl Palmer, saxophonist Steve Douglas, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, guitarist and bassist Carol Kaye, as well as keyboardist Larry Knechtel (later a member of Bread).
During 1964-65, Glen Campbell became a touring member of The Beach Boys. When Brian Wilson suffered a panic attack during a flight from L.A. to Houston on December 23, 1964, he stopped performing live to concentrate solely on songwriting and studio production. Glen Campbell was called in as his temporary stand-in for live performances, before Bruce Johnston replaced him. On tour, Glen played bass guitar and sang falsetto harmonies. As thanks, Wilson produced Campbell’s 1965 single “Guess I’m Dumb.” Campbell also played guitar on the band’s Pet Sounds 1966 album, widely considered to be one of the most influential albums in music history. In April 1966, he joined Ricky Nelson on a tour through the Far East, again playing bass.
A year later, he recorded the song “Gentle on My Mind,” which earned the Grammy for Best Country and Western Recording. Campbell’s next single, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” also earned a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance. As Campbell racked up the accolades, the Country Music Association honored him as the Entertainer of the Year and, in 1968, Campbell released his biggest hits to date: “Wichita Lineman” and “Galveston.” Campbell made history in 1967 by winning four Grammys total in the country and pop categories
In 1968, Campbell made a guest appearance on “The Joey Bishop Show.” The Smothers Brothers saw the performance and offered Campbell the opportunity to co-host “The Summer Smothers Brothers Show.” Campbell’s ease, humor and musical skill charmed audiences and impressed CBS executives, who offered Campbell his own prime time variety show.
Debuting in 1969, “The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour” was a combination of musical acts, comedy segments, and glamorous guest stars. The show, which was produced by The Smothers Brothers, became a No. 1 hit in the U.S. and the U.K., making Campbell an international star. Although the variety series was canceled in 1972, the success of his No. 1 singles, “Rhinestone Cowboy” (1975) and “Southern Nights” (1977), further cemented Campbell’s status as a crossover success. Along with his television success, Campbell starred on the big screen. He began his movie career opposite John Wayne in 1969’s True Grit. The Duke himself picked Campbell to play alongside him in the film, after his first choice, Elvis Presley, demanded top-billing over John Wayne. Campbell was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his debut performance.
During his 50 years in show business, Glen Campbell recorded and released more then 70 albums. He sold 45 million records and accumulated 12 Gold albums, four Platinum albums and one Double-platinum album. He also sang on four motion picture soundtracks. He placed a total of 82 singles on the Billboard charts, 29 made the top 10 and nine hit number one. He released 15 video albums and has been featured in 21 music videos.
And what about Glen Campbell’s connection to Indianapolis? They begin with Campbell’s August 30, 1969 appearance at the State Fair Coliseum. He returned five years later for a September 15, 1974 concert before an audience of 11,637 at Market Square Arena. It was the first ever concert held at the new venue. 37 years later Campbell was one of the first musical acts at the new Carmel Palladium. On June 4, 2011, Glen Campbell took the stage to perform a medley of his greatest hits. The audience was shocked when Campbell came across as unprepared and disoriented. Despite the assistance of three teleprompters, Campbell forgot lyrics to songs he had been singing for 40 years. He clanged countless off-key guitar notes that he could have played in his sleep back in The Wrecking Crew days. He struggled to communicate with T.J. Keunster, his music director and keyboardist since 1977 and he disconnected with the crowd of devoted fans who would have once been satisfied to hear him simply read the phone book.
It was in this atmosphere of negative publicity, fueled by rumblings of drunkenness and drug abuse, that Campbell’s wife Kim confirmed that her husband had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. According to his family, symptoms of the disease had been occurring for years, becoming more and more evident as the years progressed. As a result of this disclosure, Campbell embarked on a final “Goodbye Tour” with three of his children joining him in his backup band. This tour included a brave return to Indianapolis on June 11, 2012 when the 76-year-old Campbell played the Murat a year after he went public with his Alzheimer’s battle.
His final show was on November 30, 2012, in Napa, California. In April 2014, news reports indicated that Campbell became a patient at an Alzheimer’s long-term care and treatment facility. On March 8, 2016, Rolling Stone reported that Campbell was living in a Nashville memory care facility and that he was in the “final stages” of his disease. He was unable to communicate with people and could not understand what people said to him. However, although his family reported the Rhinestone Cowboy’s demeanor as “happy” and “cheerful,” he could no longer play the guitar. In August 2017, he passed away at the age of 81.
The Alzheimer’s Association Greater Indiana Chapter offers free education for families affected by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Topics range from the basics of Alzheimer’s and how to identify the 10 warning signs to legal and financial planning and how to communicate throughout the various stages of the disease. Contact the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline at 800-272-3900. For a full listing of education programs, meeting dates and locations of support groups in the area, visit www.alz.org/indiana or call 800-272-3900.
The Association also hosts support groups across the state for unpaid care partners, family members and friends of individuals living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Support groups are free and designed to provide emotional, educational and social support for caregivers. Attendees will develop coping methods, encourage self-care, learn about community resources and optimize care techniques. While sharing personal experiences is encouraged, it is not required. There are no fees to attend programs or support groups.
The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care, support and research. Today, more than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, including 110,000 Hoosiers. Their mission is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research; to provide and enhance care and support for all affected; and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. If you or a loved one are experiencing the early signs of dementia, please contact them immediately. If not for yourself, do it for Glen Campbell.

Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide.” and the co-author of the “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame”, “Thursdays with Doc. Recollections on Springfield & Lincoln” and “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.

Reggie Harding & The Supremes, Part 2

Al Hunter — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:08:57 +0000

Detroit 7’0″ high school phenom Reggie Harding had a brief, but hauntingly promising, stint with our Pacers fifty years ago during the team’s first season in the upstart ABA. He had recently been cut loose by the Chicago Bulls after just 14 games into that milestone season of 1967-68. Harding had been the first player in the history of pro basketball to sign a contract as a high school player. He was selected by the Detroit Pistons and played parts of four seasons in the NBA. He lasted only 25 games with the Pacers; his career was over by the age of 26. He became legendary for his “world’s dumbest criminals” style antics off the court that began well before he left high school.
Here was a man who drew guns on teammates, became addicted to heroin and repeatedly robbed stores in his own neighborhood thinking no one would ever finger him for the crimes despite being the only 7-foot tall black man in the area. He paid for his crimes with a bullet in the head fired by a man he believed was his friend and he died at the age of 30 on a trash strewn street in the Motor City on September 2, 1972. Although Reggie’s exploits are viewed somewhat comically after all these years, mainly because no one got hurt, there was at least one incident pinned on Reggie Harding that is sad and damaging in the worst way.
In 1960 Reggie Harding was a prep star for Eastern High School. They were in the second of four consecutive Detroit Public School League men’s basketball season titles from 1959-62. Reggie averaged 31 points and 20 rebounds per game while shooting an astounding 60 percent from the field for the Indians. He would earn first team high school All-American status by Parade Magazine that year. However, those sparkling hoops credentials weren’t enough to hide the tarnished image Reggie carried around with him.
While a sophomore, Reggie had been arrested in upstate Michigan in the summer of 1959 for stealing a truck and was sentenced to probation. Reggie’s size (He was 6′ 11″ as a freshman) taught him that he could intimidate adults on the streets, let alone kids in the hall. If Reggie wanted your lunch money, or your car keys, Reggie got ‘em. He didn’t even need a weapon. His most often used tactic was to simply grab his prey by the shoulders and lift them several inches off the ground.
In 1960, when Reggie was 18, he was arrested for the charge of having “carnal knowledge” of a minor in Detroit. According to court records, the victim was a 15-year-old named Jean. During his trial for statutory rape, Harding admitted to the encounter but claimed it was a consensual act. At the time, Reggie Harding was ranked as the best prep player in the state and he was acquitted. That same year, Reggie allegedly raped a 17-year-old Detroit girl named Florence Glenda Chapman, better known as Flo Ballard of the Motown super-group The Supremes.
In 1958, Florence Ballard was a junior high school student living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects in Detroit. There she met future singing partner Mary Wilson during a middle-school talent show and they became friends. Named “Blondie” and “Flo” by family and friends, Ballard attended Northeastern High School. Wilson soon enlisted another neighbor, Diana Ross, then going by “Diane” for their group named “The Primettes.” The group performed at talent showcases and at school parties before auditioning for Motown Records in 1960. Berry Gordy, head of Motown, felt the girls were too young and inexperienced and encouraged them to return after they graduated from high school. Flo dropped out of high school while her group-mates graduated.
In the summer of 1960, just weeks after meeting Berry Gordy, Flo went to a sock hop at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom. She had attended with her brother Billy, but they accidentally lost track of each other in the crowded dance hall. She began to walk home in the dark but accepted a ride home from a young man whom she thought she recognized from the newspapers, a local high-school basketball player. According to her friends and family, that man was Reggie Harding. Instead of being driven home, Ballard was taken north of Detroit to an empty parking lot off Woodward Ave. and Cantfield Blvd. where Reggie raped her at knife point.
For the next several weeks, Ballard secluded herself in her room, away from friends and family. She even hid from her bewildered band mates when they came to call. Eventually, Ballard told Wilson and Ross what happened to her. Although the girls were sympathetic, they were puzzled by Ballard’s subsequent behavior; she had always been strong and resilient, but now her personality had changed. Wilson described her friend Flo as a “generally happy if somewhat mischievous and sassy teenager.” Now she was sullen and withdrawn, prone to sudden rages and arguments with no explanation. One thing didn’t change for Flo though — she never mentioned the rape again.
The girls continued working after the assault with Florence as the group’s original lead vocalist and Diana and Mary singing lead on alternating songs. Despite Berry Gordy’s reluctance to work with underage girls and admonition to come back after their high school graduation, the group persisted on getting signed to Motown by sitting on the steps of Motown’s Hitsville USA building and flirting with Motown’s male artists and staffers as they came and went. When a staff producer would come outside looking for people to provide background vocals or handclaps, the girls were the first to volunteer. In January 1961, Gordy agreed to sign The Primettes on the condition they change their name. Flo Ballard chose the name “The Supremes.” Gordy agreed to sign them under that new name on January 15, 1961.
The group struggled in their early years with the label, releasing eight singles that failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100, giving them the nickname the “no-hit Supremes.” During this period, they provided background vocals for established Motown acts such as Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells. In the spring of 1964, the group released “Where Did Our Love Go,” which became their first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, paving the way for ten number-one hits recorded by Ross, Ballard and Wilson between 1964 and 1967.
According to Mary, Florence’s vocals were so loud that she was made to stand 17 feet away from her microphone during recording sessions. Florence’s voice (which went up three octaves) was often described as “soulful, big, rich and commanding,” ranging from deep contralto to operatic soprano. Flo was known for her trademark onstage candor (which included telling jokes), she became popular with audiences and most of the jokes were in response to Diana Ross’ comments. As Flo’s jokes became more frequent, Miss Ross was not amused. Florence acknowledged the widening gap between the trio when she told an interviewer that she, Diana and Mary now had their own hotel rooms unlike in the past when they all shared one room. To combat these issues and silence those demons from her past, Florence turned to alcohol which resulted in constant arguments with Mary and Diana. Flo’s shot clock was winding down.
Eerily, Reggie Harding’s rise in pro basketball paralleled Flo Ballard’s rise in the music industry. Reggie was signing with the hometown Pistons at the same time Flo was signing with the hometown Motown records. By 1967-68 while Reggie was struggling with the Bulls, Flo was struggling with The Supremes. As Reggie missed practices and plane rides, Flo missed rehearsals and performances. By March of 1968, Reggie was out of pro basketball and Flo had left The Supremes. Both became addicts; Harding to heroin, Ballard to alcohol. By 1972 Harding was dead and Ballard was on a slow march towards an early grave.
Mary Wilson would later attribute Ballard’s self-destructive behavior to the rape by Reggie Harding when she was a teenager. Ballard’s adult personality had turned to cynicism, pessimism and fear or mistrust of others. After Harding’s murder vacated the headlines, newspapers revealed that former Supreme Flo Ballard, with three children and no career, had now applied for public welfare relief. As a member of The Supremes, Flo sang on 16 top-40 singles (including 10 number-one hit songs). In January of 1969, Florence performed at one of President Richard Nixon’s inaugural galas. Two years later, Flo’s home was foreclosed and she was an alcoholic. Florence Ballard died at 10:05 a.m. on February 22, 1976; her official cause of death, following years of alcoholism and mental stress, was coronary thrombosis, a.k.a. a heart attack. She was only 32 years old. Florence is buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery located in Warren, Michigan. Florence Ballard’s grave is just a short walk from Reggie Harding’s.

Reggie Harding: ABA Pacers’ 1st 7-Footer, Part 1

Al Hunter — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:08:48 +0000

The Indiana Pacers are celebrating the 59th anniversary of the franchise’s start in the old ABA. It was about this time of year a half century ago that the Pacers signed one of the most infamous names to ever blot the roster — a 7-foot tall high school star from Detroit, Michigan who certainly became more famous for what he did off the court than for we he did on it.
Reggie Harding was the very first high-school basketball player drafted by the NBA. He graduated from Detroit’s Eastern High School in 1960 (re-named Martin Luther King High in 1968). The basketball talent coming out of Detroit in the 60s was astonishing. The Motor City hoops alumni back in the day included Spencer Haywood, John Brisker, Archie Clark, Dave DeBuschere, George Gervin, Ralph Simpson, and Mel Daniels to name but a few. Harding barely scraped by academically, so college was out of the question. He played briefly at a prep school in Nashville followed by two seasons on Midwest League teams in Toledo, Ohio and Holland, Michigan.
Unlike today, 7-footers were rare in 60s, and much prized by NBA teams hoping to clog the lane and blunt the likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. In 1963, the Pistons desperately needed a big man, so they drafted Reggie in the sixth round with the 48th overall pick, making him the first player ever drafted who hadn’t played in college. Harding made his NBA debut with the Pistons in the 1963-1964 season, joining the team late in the year because of a suspension on gun charges.
He played 39 games that year, averaging 11.0 ppg and 10.5 rpg. The next season, Harding averaged 34.6 minutes in 78 games and scored 12.0 ppg while pulling down 11.6 rpg for a Pistons team that finished fourth in the Western Division. When Harding joined the Pistons as a rookie in 1963, he roomed on the road with veteran 6’9” power forward Ray Scott. During an 11-year career in the NBA and ABA, Scott played for the Pistons, Baltimore Bullets, and Virginia Squires. Scott coached the Pistons from 1972 to 1976 and in 1974, he was named NBA Coach of the Year, the first African-American to be so honored. Scott was an intellectual who favored books about the civil rights struggle in America.
In 1965, Reggie Harding noticed that Scott was reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X co-written by Alex Haley and asked to read it after he finished. Turns out Reggie would have plenty of time to read it since he was suspended for the entire 1965-66 season (most likely due to ongoing gun charges because Reggie was never far from a gun). The book had a profound affect on Reggie and his views on life became more serious and his behavior more demonstrative. It didn’t help his game much though as Reggie averaged only 18.5 minutes per game during the next season, recording 6.1 rebounds and 5.5 points per game. The Pistons traded him to the Chicago Bulls for a third-round draft pick in 1967 where he lasted only 14 games. In four seasons with the Pistons and Chicago Bulls, Harding averaged 9.0 points and 9.1 rebounds per game.
It was common knowledge by all who knew him that Reggie carried a gun in his gym bag wherever he went. He was known for finishing practice and leaving without showering, pausing only to towel the sweat and spin the cylinder on his revolver. Once while playing in Detroit, Harding was said to have shot at teammate (and former Purdue All-American) Terry Dischinger’s feet to make him “dance.” During his brief tenure with the Bulls, Reggie often played one-on-one with Bulls star Flynn Robinson. Flynn would routinely beat him and Reggie would threaten to pistol-whip him. Flynn was Reggie’s roommate and recalled once being startled awake in the pitch dark to find Reggie pointing a gun at him. Flynn was averaging 16 points per game, Reggie less than 5, so it isn’t hard to figure out what happened next.
During a West Coast road trip, Harding was called home for his mother’s funeral. For the next 10 days, the Bulls didn’t hear from him. Finally he returned, saying that he had been appointed executor of his mother’s estate and needed the extra time away. A few days later, the Bulls placed Reggie Harding on waivers. Then the Pacers came calling.
During that first ABA season, the Pacers started out well, going 18-7 but started to lose ground to the rest of the league by mid-season. Bob Netolicky, a 6’9” star from Drake University, was holding down the center spot. Despite his prodigious vertical leaping ability, Neto’s game was better suited for the forward slot and with about 30 games to go, Neto caught the mumps. So the Pacers saw an opportunity when the Bulls handed Harding his walking papers. Pacers GM Mike Storen and team co-founder Dick Tinkham met Harding at the airport at 5 a.m. The duo was due to board a plane with the team for an away game at 9:30.
Reggie Harding sat down with the Pacers’ duo in an airport coffee shop booth and listened disinterestedly until the subject of money came up. The Pacers reps explained that since there was less than half the season left, the team would pay Reggie $10,000 to sign. Reggie scoffed, saying that if they signed him the Pacers were guaranteed to win the Championship. Reggie replied, “They can talk about black power and white power. I believe in green power: money, man, money.” Reggie countered with a bottom line figure of $15,000. Tinkham, true to his shrewd reputation, offered $300 per game, adding that if what Reggie said was true, the Pacers had 30 games left in the season and another 20 in the post season — $300 for 50 games adds up to Reggie’s desired number. Reggie signed and dressed for that night’s game. The deal, like Tinkham himself, became a Pacer’s legend,
Harding was a problem from the start, beginning with his refusal to wear a suit and tie on the plane to the game. Instead he wore his uniform. From there, Reggie skipped practices, arrived late for team flights and once requested leave from the team saying he had to go to his daughter’s funeral. Problem was, Reggie didn’t have a daughter. Perhaps the most famous Reggie Harding Pacers story comes from Kokomo prep star and I.U. two-time All-American Jimmy Rayl. While rooming with Reggie on the road one night, Rayl was asleep in the darkened room. He heard the door open and saw the silhouette of his 7-foot roomie walk through the door. Moments later, Reggie clicked the light on, Rayl opened his eyes and found he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Reggie accused Rayl of being a racist, which Jimmy is not, and after a long conversation, Reggie put his gun down. Jimmy Rayl slept in the lobby that night.
The Pacers finished the season 38-40 and played just three postseason games; losing each game by double digits to Connie Hawkins’ eventual ABA champion Pittsburgh Pipers team. Reggie’s game total didn’t really matter because between the fines for missed practices, suspensions and arriving late for flights, Harding ended up owing the Pacers $400. During that abbreviated 1967–68 season with the ABA Pacers, Harding averaged 13.4 points and 13.4 rebounds in 25 games. Obviously, Reggie Harding did have occasional flashes of brilliance. The Pacers’ first triple-double came courtesy of Reggie Harding when he had 30 points and 22 rebounds on March 14 against Mel Daniels and his Minnesota Muskies. Although blocked shot stats were not kept back then, the newspaper account of the game stated Harding “pounded at least 10 shots back at the stunned Muskies.” His capstone for his Pacers career came when, during a television interview, Reggie threatened to shoot Pacers’ general manager Mike Storen.
Reggie Harding’s once promising pro career was done by the time he was 26. With no other marketable skills, Harding returned to small time cons and petty larceny on the mean streets of Detroit. He quickly fell in with the wrong crowd. The sad after-basketball life of Reggie Harding is perhaps best exemplified by one oft-repeated story. Reggie walked into a neighborhood establishment (described variously as either a liquor store or gas station) with a nylon stocking over his head, brandishing a gun and demanding money. The clerk took one look at the 7-footer and reportedly said, “I know that’s you, Reggie,” to which Harding replied, “It ain’t me, man. Shut up and give me the money!” Legend has it that Harding robbed that same gas station in his own Detroit neighborhood a total of three times.
Reggie Harding’s post-basketball career was plagued by a number of personal problems. He spent time in jail and often struggled with drug addictions. But he was turning his life around. He had kicked his heroin addiction, was jogging and playing basketball every day and talking to friends about an NBA comeback. He was scheduled to start a new job in the fall. Reggie had been raised by foster parents but had recently reconnected with his mother, Lilie Mae Thomas. In August of 1972, Lillie Mae was shot and killed by her husband. Witnesses remembered Reggie standing at his mother’s graveside and telling the preacher how he wanted to be buried.
On September 2, 1972, Harding was standing on the corner of Parkview and Kercheval talking to a couple of girls. A car pulled up and parked nearby. Twenty-six-year-old Carl Scott, a former friend of Reggie’s, stepped out, walked up and pointed a gun at the former NBA player. Reggie thought he was joking (he’d just taken Scott to church with him the Sunday previous) and said, “If you shoot me, shoot me in the head. I don’t want to feel no pain.” On his way down to the ground, Reggie cried out, “Why? Why? Man you shot me.” Reggie Harding died on the litter strewn sidewalks he had grown up on. A warrant for First Degree Murder was issued for Carl Scott but the outcome of charges, if ever brought, are unknown.
Reggie Harding was dead at the age of 30, a bullet through his skull and brain. Mike Storen, the Pacers’ General Manager who Reggie had threatened to shoot four years before, was one of only three white people to attend the funeral. When the funeral party arrived at the Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church, it became apparent that the 7-foot tall Harding’s grave, like his life, was too short. The large casket had to be buried at an angle in the plot. Reggie’s body was laid to rest near the burned out shell of the old Eastern High School building where Reggie gained fame as a prep star. Seems that, even in death, Reggie Harding couldn’t catch a break.

Next week, In part II of this story, Reggie Harding’s other connection to Motown.

The Father of Notre Dame football and Mother’s Day

Al Hunter — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:08:33 +0000

Did you know that the “Mother’s Day” national holiday is connected to Indianapolis, Notre Dame Football and Monument Circle? Although others may claim to have started Mother’s Day, it was Frank E. Hering, former Notre Dame Football coach, who created the holiday. While Frank Hering’s name has been dwarfed by the shadows of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz, it cannot be denied that he had a profound influence at Notre Dame — and around the country. Hering is considered to be the grandfather of Notre Dame Football, the father of Mother’s Day and the guardian of the dispossessed.
Hering made the first known public plea for “a national day to honor our mothers” in 1904 at a ceremony in the old English Hotel on Monument Circle. The English Opera House was demolished to make room for the J. C. Penney Building which became home to Blue Cross-Blue Shield and headquarters for Wellpoint.
Hering, Notre Dame’s first full-time football coach and editor of the Fraternal Order of Eagles magazine, was a principal speaker at a convention of the F.O.E. gathering at the English Hotel and Opera House. The event was commemorated by the Eagles organization with a plaque that read: “On this site, Sunday February 7, 1904, the first known public plea for a nation-wide observance of Mothers’ Day was made by Frank E. Hering, teacher, orator, humanitarian, in commemoration of Mothers’ Day and in honor of its beloved founder the Fraternal Order of Eagles erects this tablet May 10, 1931.” Later Blue Cross-Blue Shield had the Fraternal Order of Eagles remove the monument, and it now rests in the clubhouse of Indianapolis Aerie #211 at 4220 East 10th Street.
In 1925, the “Society of War Mothers” invited Hering to participate in a special Mother’s Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. There, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before a large audience that included many congressmen and senators, Hering was introduced as “the Father of Mother’s Day.” But that was over 21 years after Hering’s first public plea, and 11 years after President Woodrow Wilson officially made Mother’s Day the second Sunday in May.
The idea first occurred to Hering while he was still a faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Walking into a classroom of a fellow instructor, Hering watched as his colleague distributed penny postcards to his students. They addressed the cards and began to scribble messages on them. “What are they writing?” asked Hering of his fellow teacher. “Anything at all as long as it is to their mothers,” replied his colleague. A light bulb went on in Frank Hering’s head and the idea for a special day to provide formal recognition of mothers was born.
Hering became the F.O.E.’s “Grand Worthy President” in 1909 and began to travel across the country speaking to clubs, making his plea for a national Mother’s Day a standard feature of his appearances at Eagle functions and occasions. In 1912, he recommended that his beloved Eagles hold Mother’s Day exercises “on any Sunday during the year.” Approval was swift, and the F.O.E. was the first to begin a tradition of Mother’s Day. Legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress by 1914, requesting a presidential proclamation making the second Sunday in May the official date for the holiday. President Woodrow Wilson went along with the idea, and May 10, 1914 became the first official Mother’s Day.
Hering’s dream of a national holiday honoring mothers won widespread acceptance all over the country and several of the groups which had been late in joining the Mother’s Day parade suddenly tried to take credit for the whole idea. The misinformation prompted the Society Of American War Mothers to conduct their own impartial investigation into the matter. After sifting through the divergent claims, the group’s findings were published in the February 1925 issue of its national magazine.
“We have been thoroughly convinced by documented evidence,” it said in the two page article, “that the inspiration for the present Mother’s Day came from a man — Frank E. Hering of South Bend, Indiana — and that the medium through which he carried his campaign over the number of years was the Fraternal Order of Eagles.” The article went on to trace the holiday’s origins to Hering’s first public talks on the subject in 1904 and 1905, and found that “Mr. Hering’s activities and addresses in favor of Mother’s Day antedated by three years, the first observance of Mother’s Day in the city of Philadelphia, which was in May 1908.” So ended the controversy.

The Paramount Music Palace

Al Hunter — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:08:17 +0000

While rummaging through a couple old boxes the other day I ran across a couple things that activated the launch sequence of my way back machine. One was a brochure and the other an old pinback button. Both were from the old Paramount Music Palace once located 7560 Old Trails Road; a fancy term for Washington Street. The brochure pictures a movie marquee sign hovering above an old fashioned pipe organ and the pin features a distinctly Pac-Man like design picturing that same organ. Not just any organ, the Mighty Wurlitzer organ.
In case you don’t remember, the Paramount Music Palace (a.k.a. the Paramount Pizza Palace) was a massive Art Deco theatre building located at the southwest quarter of the Washington Street and I-465 interchange. The Palace operated on Indy’s eastside from 1979 to 1995 and although the official name was the Paramount Music Palace Family Pizza Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlour, it wasn’t about the food. Make no mistake, it was about the music flowing out of that Mighty Wurlitzer.
Officially, the organ was an 4/42, meaning it had four keyboards and 42 sets of pipes, making it one of the largest organs in the United States. It was made by the Cincinnati, Ohio based Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. Wurlitzer originally imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the U.S. The company parlayed exclusive defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military into one of the largest suppliers of musical equipment in the country. In time, Wurlitzer began manufacturing pianos which quickly expanded to band organs, nickelodeons and theatre organs. The most famous instruments Wurlitzer ever built were its pipe organs (produced from 1914 until 1943). They were installed in theatres, homes, churches, and other venues all across the country.
The Mighty Wurlitzer was the brainchild of Englishman Robert Hope-Jones, who created an organ that functioned as a “one man orchestra” to accompany silent movies. Hope-Jones’ had two big ideas: That a pipe organ should be able to imitate the instruments of an orchestra and that the console should be detachable from the organ. Hope-Jones’ organ innovations included stop-keys instead of draw-knobs and high wind pressures of 10″–50″ designed to imitate orchestral instruments. Theatre organs were in high demand during the “silent movie era” (1894–1929). The Mighty Wurlitzer perfectly complimented silent movie houses, allowing a single organist to function as a one person orchestra complete with percussion and sound effects.
Between 1887 and 1911 Hope-Jones’ company produced 246 organs, only a handful of which survive. In 1914, shortly after merging with the Wurlitzer company, 55-year-old Hope-Jones committed suicide by inhaling gas fumes in a hotel in Rochester, New York. He left a rambling incoherent suicide note and the coroner declared his death as “suicide while insane.” Wurlitzer however, marched on. From 1914 to 1942, Wurlitzer built and sold over 2,243 pipe organs all over the world: 30 times the rate of Hope-Jones company, and more theatre organs than the rest of the theatre organ manufacturers combined. The largest Wurlitzer organ ever built is the four-manual/58-rank (set of pipes) instrument at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The Mighty Wurlitzer that once graced the south side of the Historic National Road was originally the property of the Paramount Theatre, an Art Deco masterpiece in Oakland, California. When it was built in 1931, at a price of $20,000 (Roughly $300,000 today), it was the largest multi-purpose theater on the West Coast, seating 3,476. However, Oakland’s Paramount opened in 1931 during the Great Depression some four years after the release of The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture. So rather than accompany the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino on the big screen, the Paramount organ, called the Publix I (Opus 2164), led a very brief, under-utilized life as a solo performer. The Paramount opened and closed during the succeeding decades.
By the late 1950s, The Mighty Wurlitzer was removed and placed in cold storage. In 1960, it was sold to Edward and Steve Restivo who installed it as the focal point of Ken’s Melody Inn, Pizza and Pipes in Los Altos, California, where it stayed for nearly two decades until being purchased for use at Indianapolis’ Paramount Music Palace. Prior to installation, the pipe organ was sent to the Crome Organ Company in Los Angeles where it was enlarged and rebuilt into the gilded Art Deco beauty most patrons of the Music Palace remember to this day.
Virtually anyone who grew up in Indianapolis in the 1980s has at least a vague recollection of the Paramount Music Palace. Despite it’s lofty name, the palace was not built for comfort. Patrons were seated uncomfortably on benches, often elbow-to-elbow with total strangers. On long picnic style tables, diners were served sparsely topped pizza ($14.95 for the 12 slice large Palace Combo pizza) and high school cafeteria quality lasagna at $5.15 a pop. You could get beer, wine and ice cream too. It didn’t take long to realize that you were here for the music, not the food.
For those of us who experienced it firsthand, over two decades after the establishment closed, some memories remain crystal clear. As mentioned above, the pin I found had a Pac-Man game grid design and the slogan “I survived the line at PMP.” That is a misnomer because there were actually TWO lines at PMP. After navigating the snakelike line to enter the place (which often began well outside the building) you then found yourself in another line to order the pizza. All the while, patrons inched along the interior wall nervously hoping that they would not miss the start of the show.
And what a show it was. The giant 14-ton black and gold organ rose from a pit and shot bubbles into the air on it’s ascent. Houselights dimmed and a spotlight lit up the Mighty Wurlitzer and its keyboard captain manning the impressive “waterfall” style console. A wall of glass shutters and dozens of instruments — marimbas, xylophones, a full horn section — whirred into action linked by 26 miles of wires. The music exploded immediately; surrounding the pizza munching, soda pop swigging, beer sipping patrons with orchestral sounds and automated instruments that chimed in at the organist’s practiced touch. With the subtle tilt of a floor pedal, the organist could produce an almost sub-sonic bass note that would today probably set off every car alarm in the massive PMP parking lot. The largest of the PMP’s pipes was 16 feet high and 14 inches in diameter and it screamed low with six w’s.
The music, an eclectic mix of patriotic standards and pop songs, literally rattled the plates on the tables. On any given night, the Palace was filled to the rafters with families, church groups, office parties and scores upon scores of birthday parties. The Palace was open on weekdays 11:00 to 2:00 for lunch, closed from 2:00 to 5:30 before reopening for dinner until 11:00 p.m. They closed on Monday evenings and only stayed open until 9:00 on Sundays. No video or audio recordings were allowed but a few bootleg performances can still be found on YouTube.
During the 16 years of the Paramount Music Palace’s existence, many noteworthy musicians tickled the ivories of that Mighty Wurlitzer, not the least of which was Donna Parker, who became the first Official Organist for the Los Angeles Dodgers at age 16 and was the first featured organist at the PMP at it’s grand opening in January of 1979. She achieved pop culture immortality by performing the Star Wars theme on the Mighty Wurlitzer during a CBS morning news appearance in December of 1980.
Other keymasters included Bill Vlasak, who recorded six albums in the Paramount Music Palace, 7-year old Martin Ellis who went on the become the Hilbert Circle Theatre house organist, Ohioan Clark Wilson, and Patti Davidson of Beech Grove. Patti was so proud of her service at the Palace that she insisted the information be placed in her 2013 obituary.
For most people, they had never seen anything like the Mighty Wurlitzer. For some, hearing that pipe organ, watching the organist at the helm and seeing the faces of those astonished guests sparked a life long interest in music. Princeton University Chapel organist Eric Plutz and International concert organist Jelani Eddington both credit a childhood visit to the Paramount Music Palace for launching their careers.

The Great One

Al Hunter — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:08:33 +0000

Jackie Gleason, alongside Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Hoosier Red Skelton, dominated, and to some degree invented, early television. An accomplished actor, writer, composer, orchestra leader and comedian, Gleason was truly the last of the big spenders. Always meticulously dressed with a flower in his lapel, Gleason was a consummate professional. He was quick with a story, even quicker with a comeback and a lot deeper than he looked. Gleason devoured books the same way he devoured steaks. Raised an Irish Catholic, Gleason was not devout by any means, but he could debate religion competently with theologians from all fields.
Physically, comedically and even mythically, he was larger than life. He dressed extravagantly, smoked and drank to excess, picked up every tab and exploited every luxury he could enjoy. Gleason knew the potential consequences to his health — physically and financially — he just didn’t care. The truth is, if you’d grown up as Jackie did, you too may not have cared much about consequences.
Gleason’s only brother died when Jackie was three years old and his dad abandoned the family five years later. His mother died when Jackie was still a teenager and he never graduated from high school. All that combined to drive Jackie Gleason’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Religion, spirituality, and questions of the unknown would haunt Jackie Gleason for the rest of his life. And oh, what a life it was!
Jackie was the talk of show business in 1955 when his $11 million deal with Buick and CBS to make two years of The Honeymooners (78 episodes that would run over 39 weeks) was announced. One of the perks Gleason received from CBS was the network’s picking up the tab for his Peekskill, New York Round Rock Hill mansion. Set atop a hill on six acres, the complex was a post-modern shrine to all things round. Gleason planned the design of the house for two years; it was completed in 1959.
The roundness continued on the interior with round rugs, round chairs, round couches, round beds. Everything was round, except the pool table of course. The donut-shaped main floor — which doubled as his broadcasting studio — featured a 40-foot-tall, three-headed round marble fireplace suspended from the center of the room. The property included a guest house and a round storage building that looked exactly like a UFO. (Google it and see for yourself.) The precious wood interior required custom crafting by Swedish carpenters who were brought to the U.S. for a year to work on the house. It also contained a basement disco and one of the very first in-home video projection systems. Ironically, despite state-of-the-art design work, the house was continuously plagued with a leaky wooden roof.
Gleason was greatly interested in the paranormal , buying and reading numerous books on the topic, as well as on parapsychology and UFOs. Gleason purportedly built the round house to acknowledge his interest in UFOs. He called the house “The Mother Ship” and referred to the garage as the “Scout Ship.” He also claimed a spiritualist had once told him that ghosts could not hide in corners and, leaky roof notwithstanding, the house had no corners. Gleason rarely spoke about his interest in ghosts mostly because he was too busy pursuing his interest in UFOs. During the 1950s he was a semi-regular guest on a paranormal-themed overnight radio show hosted by John Nebel on New York City’s WOR radio.
Gleason was a well known insomniac; a habit developed during his nightclub days. He often stayed up all night reading (or re-reading) some of the hundreds of UFO and paranormal phenomena volumes in his library. Nebel’s show was popular among New York’s night-owls and early risers. Unidentified flying objects were discussed almost daily, alongside topics like voodoo, witchcraft, parapsychology, hypnotism, conspiracy theories, and ghosts. Nebel’s radio show is unique in that it was the first to use a 7-second tape delay system, giving engineers a chance to edit unacceptable language before it was broadcast — perhaps owing more to the colorful listeners phoning in than to Nebel’s personal ingenuity. When Nebel died in 1978, his time slot was taken over by Larry King.
Jackie was a frequent show guest. On one show, Gleason famously offered $100,000 to anyone who could offer physical proof of aliens visiting Earth. Gleason later upped the amount to $1 million. The reward was never claimed. Gleason wrote the introduction to Donald Bain’s biography of Nebel. Jackie wrote: “Why is [Nebel] so strangely entertaining?… because the best entertainment is entertainment that opens your mind and tells you the world is bigger than you thought it was.”
He was a subscriber to the newsletter of the group Just Cause (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) and made no attempt to hide his fascination on the subject of UFOs. Gleason spent small fortunes on everything from financing psychic research to buying a sealed box said to contain actual ectoplasm, the spirit of life itself. He corresponded with everyone from back-alley mediums to serious researchers like J.B. Rhine of Duke University, treating them all pretty much the same way. All this is very interesting in a “Waiting for Godot” sort of way, but the capstone to Gleason’s interest in UFOs comes in an alleged meeting he had with President Richard Nixon in 1973 where Nixon took his pal Jackie to a secret location to look at the bodies of dead aliens.
By the time of the alleged meeting with the President, Gleason had sold the round house and relocated to Miami, in favor of a more conventional house on three large lots adjoining the country club of a Miami golf course. The 6,000-square-foot lakefront home (named Glea Manor by the Great One himself) featured 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. Besides the choice golf course location, the home included waterfalls, a sauna, a library and an exercise room. Nixon’s oft-used “Florida White House” Presidential retreat was located in Key Biscayne, a short drive from Gleason’s home. Rumors persist that aside from Nixon’s shared celebrity and love of golf, the unlikely duo shared an interest in UFOs.
What is known is that on February 19, 1973, according to White House records, the President met Jackie on the 18th green at the Inverness Golf and Country Club. The president had come to help to open a charity golf tournament run by Gleason. Jackie was a well-known supporter of the Republican party and a longtime Nixon ally.
Legend claims that Nixon returned to Florida in 1973 to show Jackie Gleason the alien bodies. Gleason’s second wife, Beverly McKittrick, stated that one night Gleason had returned home very shaken. She said that President Nixon had taken Jackie to a top secret area at Homestead Air Force Base where he had viewed the remains of small aliens. McKittrick related this story in an unpublished manuscript called “The Great One.” The story is unconfirmed and likely to remain so but it continues to fuel a fire among “Ufologists” to this day.
After his death, his large book collection was donated to the University of Miami library. The collection includes approximately 1,700 volumes of books, journals, proceedings, pamphlets, and publications in the field of parapsychology. The collection offers materials on such topics as witchcraft, folklore, extrasensory perception (ESP), unidentified flying objects (UFOs), reincarnation, mysticism, spiritualism, mental telepathy, the occult, clairvoyance, cosmology, demons, hypnosis, life after death, mediums, psychical research, voodooism, and ghosts.
The bulk of the ghost books in the Gleason collection are simply assemblages of ghost tales, both popular and personal. Some limit themselves to recounting the tales, while others seek to explain them, either by upholding their veracity or seeking to provide rational interpretations. Others represent a serious-minded and vigorous argument for the existence of ghosts. Others are more fanciful and tend to romanticize the idea of ghosts and occult beings. You can find the complete list of titles online.
But my favorite Jackie Gleason “leftover” story comes shortly after his death in 1987. When Jackie died, he apparently left two of the original “Ralph Kramden” bus driver uniforms he wore on The Honeymooners TV show hanging in the closet as a gift for whomever ended up with his beloved house. In 1999, Kramden’s 1955 bus driver’s uniform, consisting of a blue wool jacket with matching pants, fetched $64,100 at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City. What would Jackie have thought of that? Well, I think he would have gotten a giggle out of it. After all, the inscription on his Miami tomb sums it all up pretty nicely. It reads: “And away we go.”

The Lyric Theatre & Sinatra

Al Hunter — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:08:41 +0000

Located at 135 N. Illinois Street there once stood a theatre with as rich a pop-culture history as any in Indianapolis. When the Lyric Theatre opened in February of 1906, it was basically a room filled with about 200 folding chairs arranged in rows. A carbon arc light projector rested on a tripod in the rear of the theatre. Early projectors simply dumped the projected film into a basket on the floor. Projectors were hand cranked, and the projectionist could speed up or slow down the action on the screen by “over-cranking” or “under-cranking.”
The film stock itself was made from nitrocellulose, a chemical cousin to explosives used by the military in World War I. The highly flammable film and the extremely hot light source meant that fire was a very real threat. In fact, the incidence of projector-related fires over the first ten years of movie houses produced some of the worst tragedies in our country’s history. It was for this reason that six years later a larger 1,400 seat Lyric Theatre was built on the property.
The new Lyric was constructed by the Central Amusement Co. for $75.000, built by the Halstead-Moore Co. and designed by architect Herman L. Bass, who designed Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James A. Allison’s mansion, now on the campus of Marian University. This upgrade included fireproof materials inside and exterior walls of concrete, steel and artistic brick accented by white terra-cotta trim.
On April 20, 1919, the Lyric was again closed for remodeling, this design courtesy architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., a name that still resonates through town to this day. This facelift left only three original walls standing and created a new lobby on the south. The stage that originally faced west now faced south. It had its grand reopening on September 1, 1919.
The Lyric underwent its last major remodel in 1926, adding state-of-the art air conditioning and modern stage lighting systems. This remodel cost $185,000 and included construction of a new four-story building featuring a new main entrance, and a lobby with executive offices above.
The new Lyric, with its shiny marble and gold lobby lined with French mirrors and six French crystal chandeliers, was considered to be one of the finest theaters in Indiana. Three hundred more seats were added as was a new basement that housed rehearsal areas and dressing rooms named for cities on its doors. A new marquee was added above the front door. At 10 feet high, 50 feet long and 16 feet deep, it held up to 440 letters and was said to be the largest of its kind in the state. The following year, a new Marr-Colton pipe organ was added at a cost of $30,000, which, like the marquee, was the largest in the state.
The Lyric began life showing films scored with music provided by live musicians. Then came vaudeville, talkies and finally big screen epics. World War I led to the Roaring Twenties, then to the Great Depression and into the gangster era — and Hoosier outlaw roots extended to the doorway of the Lyric itself. The Lyric survived the Depression by featuring an eclectic mix of movies, vaudeville acts, stage shows and live musicals.
A week after the death of Hoosier Public Enemy # 1 John Dillinger on July 2, 1934, his family signed a 5-month vaudeville contract at the Lyric theatre that expired on New Years Eve. Crowds mobbed the theatre to hear stories from, and ask questions of, John Dillinger, Sr. about his famous outlaw son. The 15-minute show was billed as “Crime doesn’t pay” despite the fact that it cost patrons an extra 15 cents to see it. Dillinger Sr. and his sister Audrey fielded questions from the crowd. The show traveled to the Great Lakes, Texas Centennial and San Diego Expositions and the Chicago World’s Fair, which gangster Dillinger had famously visited while alive. Rumor persists that the Lyric was also a favorite hangout for John Dillinger. After all, everyone knows that Dillinger died outside of a Chicago movie theatre.
Edgar Bergen (only weeks before he introduced his “dummy” Charlie McCarthy) played the Lyric in 1934 in a vaudeville act that included a trio of sisters calling themselves the “Queens of Harmony” who later became known as The Andrews Sisters. Red Skelton was a 1930s performer at the Lyric known as “The Canadian Comic” despite the fact that he was a Hoosier born in Vincennes. Hoagy Carmichael was a regular. The standard 1930s Era Lyric theatre contract awarded “Fifty percent (50%) of gross receipts after first dollar.” Ticket prices in 1936 were “25 cents to 6 p.m.- 40 cents on lower floor at night and 30 cents in balcony week days, and Saturday. On Sunday, 30 cents in balcony and 40 cents on lower floor all day.”
The Lyric’s next step towards pop culture immortality came on February 2, 1940 when the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra came to town. Dorsey began his career in a Big Band with his brother Jimmy in the late 1920s. That band also included Glenn Miller. Dorsey had a reputation for being a micromanaging perfectionist with a volatile temper. He often fired musicians based on his mood, only to rehire them a short time later. Dorsey had a well-deserved reputation for raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician or arranger, he thought nothing of taking over their contracts and careers.
In November 1939 a relatively unknown “skinny kid with big ears” from Hoboken, New Jersey signed on as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Frank Sinatra signed a contract with Dorsey for $125 a week at Palmer House in Chicago, where Ole Blue Eyes was appearing with the Harry James Orchestra. Mysteriously, but not unsurprisingly, Harry James agreed to release Sinatra from his contract — an event that would come back to haunt Dorsey a couple years later.
Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and quickly became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey’s mannerisms and often claimed that he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. He made Dorsey the godfather of his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that “The only two people I’ve ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey”.
From February 2-8, 1940, when the Dorsey band opened at the Lyric, the theater’s ad in the Indianapolis Star listed Tommy’s name in inch-high letters. At the bottom, in 1/8-inch type, was a listing for “Frank Sinatra, Romantic Virtuoso.” The songs he sang during that week of shows on the eve of World War II are lost to the pages of history. But we do know that Frank Sinatra made 80 recordings in 2 years with the Dorsey band.
By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in Billboard and Down Beat magazines, becoming the world’s first rock star. His appeal to bobby-soxers created pop music and opened up a whole new market for record companies, which had been marketing primarily to adults. The phenomenon would become officially known as “Sinatramania.” Manic female fans often wrote Sinatra’s song titles on their clothing, bribed hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and chased the young star, often stealing clothing he was wearing, usually his bow-tie.
By 1942, Sinatra believed he needed to go solo, with an insatiable desire to compete with Bing Crosby, his childhood idol. Sinatra grew up with a picture of Crosby in his bedroom, and in 1935 young Frankie met his idol briefly backstage at a Newark club. Within a decade, Sinatra would be contending for Crosby’s throne. A series of appearances at New York’s Paramount Theatre in December 1942 established Sinatra as the hot new star. When Sinatra sang, young girls in the audience swooned, screaming so loud that it drowned out the orchestra. The girls never swooned and screamed when Bing Crosby sang.
Sinatra decided early not merely to imitate Crosby, but to develop his own style. In a 1965 article, Sinatra explained: “When I started singing in the mid-1930s everybody was trying to copy the Crosby style — the casual kind of raspy sound in the throat. Bing was on top, and a bunch of us … were trying to break in. It occurred to me that maybe the world didn’t need another Crosby. I decided to experiment a little and come up with something different.”
Frank’s singing evoked frailty, innocence and vulnerability and inflamed the passions of his young female fans. Some older listeners, however, rejected Sinatra’s gentle sighing, moaning and cooing as not real singing. Crosby joked: “Frank Sinatra is the kind of singer who comes along once in a lifetime — but why did it have to be my lifetime!”
Sinatra was hamstrung by his contract with the Dorsey band, which gave Dorsey 43 percent of Frank’s lifetime earnings in the entertainment industry. On September 3, 1942, Dorsey famously bid farewell to Sinatra by telling Frankie, “I hope you fall on your ass.” Rumors began spreading in newspapers that Sinatra’s mobster godfather, Willie Moretti, coerced Dorsey to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars by holding a gun to Tommy’s head and telling him that “either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.” Apparently, Sinatra made him an “offer he could not refuse.” Yes, that famous scene in the Godfather is based on this encounter.
Dorsey died in 1956, but not before telling the press this of his one time protege: “He’s the most fascinating man in the world, but don’t put your hand in the cage.” Regardless of the way it ended between the duo, it all began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis.
If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.

John Mathews, Lincoln, Booth and Six Degrees of Separation

Al Hunter — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:08:52 +0000

Remember the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” that was so popular a few years back? It was a parlor game based on the concept that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. The winner is determined by the person able to use the least links to get to Kevin Bacon. Example: Someone draws the name Elvis Presley. Elvis was in the 1969 film Change Of Habit with Ed Asner. Asner was in the 1991 movie JFK with Kevin Bacon. Next player gets Will Smith. Smith and Jon Voight starred in Enemy Of The State . . . Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds starred in Deliverance . . . Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore starred in Strip Tease . . . Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon starred in A Few Good Men . . . So Elvis wins.
I sometimes find myself playing six degrees with two of my favorite subjects: Abraham Lincoln and Indiana. I also love historical trivia. This article involves both. John Mathews was an actor and childhood friend of Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Mathews grew up with Booth in Baltimore, Maryland and remained a close friend right up to that fateful night in April of 1865. They had the same jet black hair and classic features, but Mathew lacked the style and charisma that made Booth the superstar who many considered the most handsome man in America at the time. In fact, Mathews was acting on stage at Ford’s Theatre the night his friend killed the President.
Sometime around 11:00 a.m. on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth left the National Hotel and went to Ford’s Theatre to pick up his mail. At Ford’s he learned that President Abraham Lincoln would be attending the evening performance of Our American Cousin. Booth paced around the theater in a trance for some time before he decided that this would be the perfect time to assassinate the president.
That afternoon, Booth sat down and wrote a letter to the editor of a Washington D.C. newspaper called the National Intelligencer. In it, he explained that his plans had changed from kidnapping Lincoln to assassinating Lincoln. He signed the letter not only with his own name but also three of his co-conspirators: Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold. Then he got up and walked his rented horse down Fourteenth Street.
Around 4:00 p.m., Booth ran into his old friend Mathews on the street near Willard’s Hotel. As it happened, Mathews was playing the role of Richard Coyle in Our American Cousin that night. Booth greeted his friend with an excited handshake, Mathews later recalled that Booth squeezed his hand so tightly that his nails left marks in his flesh. He gave Mathews the letter and asked him to deliver it to the National Intelligencer the next day. Booth got on his horse and rode off, passing General Ulysses S. Grant’s carriage along the way. Mathews, used to his friend’s odd behavior, tucked the letter into his coat pocket and thought no more about it.
Six hours later, Booth entered Ford’s Theatre lobby around 10:07 p.m. He walked in the shadows along the curved back wall of the theatre up to the President’s box. Within minutes, Booth mortally wounded the President, jumped from the box 12 feet to the stage (breaking his leg in the process) and vanished into the night. Inside the theatre, chaos ruled. Mathews and many of his fellow actors decided fairly quickly that the best thing they could do was to get out of there quick. Back then, actors were considered in the same vein as pickpockets, confidence men, rat catchers, and prostitutes and they wanted nothing to do with the police. Those few actors who remained were quickly rounded up and jailed by the police. Harry Hawk, the actor who had been on stage at the moment of the shooting, wandered the streets of Washington aimlessly all night, too afraid to go home.
In the chaos following the shot, Mathews retreated to his nearby boardinghouse. The streets were choked with people and soldiers guarded the entrance to every building. Mathews climbed the gutter to the open window of his upstairs room totally unaware that Booth’s letter was still secreted away in his overcoat pocket. As he removed his coat, the envelope dropped out with a pop onto the hardwood floor. Time stood still as a terrified Mathews stared at the unopened letter laying at his feet. “Great God,” he surely thought, “this could be the instrument of my doom.”
Thirty-year-old Mathews picked up the envelope with the care and concern of a surgeon. He slowly turned it over in his hands, unsure of what to do. Finally, he decided to open the letter. While the true contents of the letter were known only by Mathews and Booth, Mathews claimed it was a detailed confession to the assassination. Mathews quickly destroyed the letter by throwing it into the fireplace after reading it. After all, no one wanted the authorities to believe that they were associated with the assassin, childhood friendships notwithstanding.
After watching the fires consume the murderous edict, Mathews climbed back out the window and nervously walked back to the place he knew best: Ford’s Theatre. John Mathews almost got himself hanged twice on assassination night. Two separate crowds tried to hang him based on his resemblance to Booth and because he was in the theatre that night. He escaped the first unscathed. The second time, the rope had already been placed around his neck when some soldiers rescued him. Eventually, Mathews was detained by the authorities; partly for his own safety and partly for interrogation.
In time, Mathews revealed his long association with Booth and the details of the mysterious letter. He tried to reconstruct the letter for authorities but strenuously proclaimed his innocence and complete ignorance of his friend’s murderous intentions. Despite his protestations, he was detained for several days as an accomplice. Luckily for Mathews, Booth read newspaper accounts smuggled to him while hiding in the pine thicket of the southern Maryland woods. He discovered that Mathews had not delivered his manifesto to the newspaper as promised. Booth recreated it for posterity in his diary and it would match, nearly word for word, Mathews account of the letter.
After his release, Mathews was so frightened that he thought briefly of changing his name, but relented. Although risky and unpopular, Mathews remained faithful to his friend Booth for the rest of his life. He told friends and fellow actors, his sole reason for burning the letter was to erase any evidence against his friend. Even three decades later, he referred to the country’s first presidential assassination as “the great mistake.”
Interesting to be sure, but what about the trivia and the six degrees? John Mathews lived upstairs at Petersen’s Boardinghouse, the house directly across the street from Ford’s Theatre where President Lincoln was taken after he was shot. Petersen often rented rooms to the stock actors playing at Ford’s. During the 1864-65 season both John Mathews and fellow actor Charles Warwick had previously rented the room Willie Clark was renting on April 14. It was in private Willie Clark’s room where Abraham Lincoln died at 8:22 am on April 15, 1865.
Booth knew both actors well enough that he often stopped and chatted with each of them there. A few accounts go so far as to claim that Booth himself spent the night in the Petersen house, possibly even in the room in which Lincoln died. What historians know for sure is that Mathews was boarding at the Petersen House on March 16th when he returned to find Booth stretched out on the bed, hands clasped behind his head calmly smoking a cigar while waiting for him. It was the very same bed in which Lincoln died less than a month later.
Apparently Booth visited Mathews and Warwick at the Petersen house and both rented the Lincoln death room on numerous occasions. Both actors recalled Booth visiting them there, stretching out on the bed, laughing and telling stories, chomping on a cigar or with his pipe hooked in his mouth. There are several unconfirmed claims that Mathews was actually staying in an upstairs room at the Petersen House on the night of Lincoln’s assassination. The accounts are speculative at best but tantalizing to be sure. If that were the case, then Mathews burned Booth’s confessional letter in a fireplace just feet away from the dying President.
As for the six degrees? John Mathews is buried in the Actors Fund plot of Kensico cemetery in Valhalla, New York a few feet away from vaudevillian actor Pat Harrington, Sr. His son Pat, Jr. played handyman Dwayne Schneider in the TV show “One Day at a Time” that also starred Bonnie Franklin, Valerie Bertinelli and MacKenzie Phillips. The sitcom was based in Indianapolis. I win!

John Lennon’s Tooth and Doodles

Al Hunter — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:08:40 +0000

This article was published in February 2012.

The last couple of months have witnessed yet another sign of the staying power of the Beatles as a couple of items hit the auction block at two different auction houses in Great Britain. One of them is historically significant while the other is slightly creepy.
On November 5th, the tooth fairy was denied when a tooth belonging to former Beatle John Lennon was sold by Omega Auction House in Cheshire England. The thought of actually paying money for the tooth of anyone, let alone a Beatle, may repulse you. However, 49-year-old dentist Michael Zuk from Calgary, Alberta, Canada thought enough of the relic to plunk down $31,200 to own it.
Zuk, a crusading whistle-blowing dentist and author of the 2010 book, Confessions of a Former Cosmetic Dentist, has practiced dentistry in Red Deer for 25 years. He admitted he hoped the high profile tooth purchase might draw attention to his book. He said Lennon’s tooth is another example of how even celebrity’s teeth can be imperfect. “It’s visibly rotten and contains a large hole, Zuk said, adding it’s likely a second or third molar from the lower part of Lennon’s mouth. I’m guessing Lennon may have had an acid reflux problem caused by the rock star lifestyle,” said Dr. Zuk.
The molar, slightly yellowed with heavy coffee stains and a large cavity, was given to Dorothy “Dot” Jarlett, John Lennon’s housekeeper for five years. The story goes that one day Lennon encountered the housekeeper in the kitchen of his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey. John, having just returned home from a trip to the dentist, gave Dot the tooth wrapped in a piece of paper and asked her to dispose of it for him. Then John paused for a moment and suggested that Dot give it to her daughter as a souvenir, since she was such a huge Beatles fan. Dot Jarlett’s daughter cherished the sacred relic and when she married a Canadian, she brought her Beatle biting bicuspid into the marital union. The tooth has been “living” in Canada for all but a couple of the last 45 years.
Dot Jarlett, who was employed by Lennon from 1964 to 1968, developed a warm relationship with John. Undoubtedly, Dot filled a void in Lennon’s life as a much needed maternal figure during her employ. Dot’s son Barry told BBC News, “He treated her like family because he didn’t really have a very big family and he really looked after my mum. He used to call her Aunty Dot.”
Lennon gave the Jarlett family many gifts over the years. A few years ago, Dot sold the jacket worn by John on the Rubber Soul album cover, also given to her by Lennon. Dot, who is now 90 years old, said it was the right time to pass it on rather than to risk the tooth getting lost. Auction house experts have determined that the tooth is too fragile to conduct a DNA test but they have no doubt about its authenticity.
Of course, this isn’t the first rock-n-roll body part to be sold at auction. In 2009, a clump of hair trimmed from Elvis Presley’s head after he famously joined the Army in 1958 sold for $18,300 at Chicago’s Leslie Hindman auction house.
Less sensational, but undoubtedly more historically significant, 10 days later on November 16, 2011, a placard for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 “Bed-In for Peace” sold for $155,892 by Christie’s International auction house in London. The winning bid for this anti-Vietnam War movement relic came from an unidentified phone bidder. The handwritten cardboard rectangular sign featured the slogan: “BED PEACE” and could be seen behind John and Yoko in the window directly behind them when they spent seven days occupying rooms in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
The Montreal bed-in came two months after the couple’s honeymoon bed-in in Amsterdam and was their take on a sit-in. The couple opened their hotel room door to the world’s media and spoke to journalists, politicians and artists trying to promote the idea of peace in the world. They also found time to record the anthem “Give Peace a Chance.”
The placard, signed and dated by the couple, was acquired by a sound engineer who attended the event. He passed it on to a colleague, whose family kept the relic safe ever since. John and Yoko produced many artworks during the event but this was one of only two kept prominently above the bed (The other was a sign that read “Hair Peace”). It can be seen in nearly every picture taken of the pajama-bathrobe clad couple as they called for an end to the Vietnam War. The sign includes John’s self doodled mini-portrait of the newlyweds and is signed by both Lennon and Ono.
The sign is not the only item from the Montreal “Bed-In” to be auctioned by the famed auction house recently. On July 10, 2008, Lennon’s hand-written lyrics for “Give Peace a Chance” sold for $800,000 at Christie’s. When Lennon gave teenager Gail Renard his scribbled lyrics to “Give Peace a Chance” in 1969, he told her to hold on to the cue card. “It will be worth something someday,” predicted Lennon. She did, and it was.
Who’d have thought that a cue card, a sign or a tooth could be worth so much money? There was no such thing as rock memorabilia back in 1969. Who could have predicted what a big business rock-n-roll would become?

The Buck Jones Ranger Club, Part 2

Al Hunter — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 06:08:32 +0000

Last week I told you about Vincennes, Indiana native Buck Jones. One of the best known cowboy stars in Hollywood history, Buck died tragically in a nightclub fire during World War II. Not just any fire, but the Cocoanut Grove inferno in Boston, Massachusetts; the worst nightclub disaster in world history. Four hundred ninety two people perished while another 166 were injured.
Sadly, Buck Jones and the story of the Cocoanut Grove are largely forgotten nowadays. Buck Jones was one of the greatest of the “B” western stars and “The Grove” was THE place to be in Boston in 1942. The Cocoanut Grove was designated as a “Restaurant/Supper Club” because nightclubs did not officially exist in Boston. It was built in 1927 and located at 17 Piedmont Street, a narrow cobblestoned street near the Park Square theater district in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.
Ironically, the history of The Grove eerily parallels the career of Buck Jones. Prohibition made the Cocoanut Grove very popular in the late 1920s, but it had fallen on hard times during the 1930s. Buck Jones was one of the greatest stars of the Silent film era in the 1920s but the coming of talking pictures in 1927 hurt his career and the Great Depression brought Buck’s career to a grinding halt. Boston was a major port of debarkation for troops shipping out for Europe in World War II and The Grove was riding a wave of resurgence in the early 1940s. Buck’s career took off again after signing a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1940. Soon the fates of Buck Jones and the Cocoanut Grove would be entwined once more. And this time it would be forever.
It was November 28, 1942, two days after Thanksgiving, Buck Jones was in Boston on a combination war bond selling tour and promotional junket for his latest movie, White Eagle Riders of Death Valley. The day before, Buck phoned his wife, Odille, to tell her he’d caught a cold on his cross-country tour. Although not feeling well, upon arriving in Boston, Buck refused to cancel his appearances for fear that he would disappoint the children who expected to see him that Saturday.
Buck visited a children’s hospital that morning and went from there to Boston Garden for a rally of about 12,000 children. In a drizzling rain that afternoon Buck and a his group watched the Boston College-Holy Cross football game from the Mayor’s box. The schedule called for Buck and his entourage to meet at the Buddies’ Club USO on Boston Common at 9:30 p.m. to mix and mingle with the servicemen for a couple of hours. Buck begged off due to his cold. An impromptu testimonial dinner had been arranged for Buck at the Cocoanut Grove by a local theatre. Although ill, Buck attended out of courtesy to the distributors honoring him.
The Cocoanut Grove was a squat one-and-a-half-story block long building with a basement. The basement contained a bar, called the Melody Lounge, along with the kitchen, freezers, and storage areas. The first floor contained a large dining room area and ballroom with a bandstand, along with several bar areas separate from the ballroom. The dining room also had a retractable roof for use during warm weather to allow a view of the moon and stars. The main entrance to the Cocoanut Grove was via a revolving door on the Piedmont Street side of the building. The club featured a Polynesian motif with fake palm trees. Its walls and ceiling were bedecked with colored cloth. In the main room, rope braiding ran up several poles, topped with artificial palm leaves and coconuts.
Buck Jones and his group entered the Cocoanut Grove amid applause and fanfare from the guests. After accommodating the many handshakes and autograph requests, the celebrity entourage finally settled at tables on the mezzanine overlooking the dance floor. It was 10 p.m., and a band was playing in the lounge downstairs. The lounge was unusually dark after a bulb had been pulled from its socket, allegedly by an amorous couple desiring privacy. A 16-year-old bar boy named Stanley Tomaszewski, was ordered by his bartender boss to replace the bulb. While awkwardly standing atop a chair in the darkness, Stanley lit a match to screw in the bulb.
Within seconds, the open flame jumped to a nearby palm tree and ignited the palm fronds above the tables. The bartenders tried in vain to extinguish the fire with water and seltzer bottles. The cloth ceiling quickly caught fire and flames exploded upstairs almost instantaneously, spreading choking smoke and heat everywhere. It was a textbook flash fire.
At first, no one panicked as the crowd made their way slowly up the wide stairs. That is, until they saw the main entrance, a single revolving door jammed shut by bodies pressed against it. Just then a girl, her hair ablaze, ran from the Melody Lounge in the basement where the fire had begun, screaming ‘Fire!’ Panic set in. Flames flashed with incredible swiftness and smoke was thick as fog in the hallways. Blazing draperies fell, setting clothes and hair on fire. Soldiers in uniform called on everyone to remain calm, but they were drowned out by the screams of the patrons. Flames moved upstairs to the main bar, dance floor and dining room within 5 minutes.
In a strange twist of fate, at 10:15 p.m., the Boston Fire Department received a call about a car fire at Stuart and Carver Streets, about three blocks from the Cocoanut Grove. The firefighters responded and quickly extinguished the automobile fire. One of the firefighters saw smoke coming from the direction of the Cocoanut Grove. As they walked towards the club to investigate, panicked bystanders ran towards them screaming “Fire, Fire.” The firefighters saw fire and heavy smoke pouring from the building and patrons and employees fleeing from the building. By 10:25 p.m., the entire Boston Fire department was on the way to the scene.
Fire Department officials told of body-clogged doorways when they arrived on the scene. The dead and injured were piled in heaps. Nearly 200 people died in one ghastly mound behind the revolving door. The Grove had other exits, but most were locked to prevent patrons from leaving without paying while others, which only opened inward, were blocked by the panicked crowd. Reports persisted that some doors were locked to prevent entry/exit by non-paying customers. Sadly, the locked door element has been repeated in succeeding nightclub fires, including the most recent fire in Brazil.
Some escaped through the kitchen, but the toxic smoke became so thick that patrons couldn’t breathe, let alone see, and most simply died where they fell. Many patrons huddled under tables and dozens were trampled to death. Their bodies blocked the six-foot-wide stairway up from the lounge. A plate-glass window that might have provided egress was found to be boarded up. There were an estimated 800 to 1,000 people in the Grove that night (25 percent beyond capacity), all of whom were thrown into a hellish bedlam attempting to get out of the flaming, choking inferno.
The first firemen on scene were forced to crawl over the bodies of trapped victims before they could get inside. Police investigators found evidence that a terrific fight had taken place in the panicking darkness; the police chief stating, “Many of the bodies were actually torn apart.” Outside there were bodies piled everywhere, living and dead. The firemen doused them with freezing water to quench the flames.
When the magnitude of the disaster was realized, an urgent call for help was issued. Navy, Army, Coast Guard and National Guard personnel were called in to assist in the evacuation and removal of the injured. Newspaper delivery trucks, taxis, and city buses were used to transport the injured. In an interesting twist of fate, area hospitals had practiced a disaster drill the week before the fire. Although this practice is common today, it was quite innovative for 1942. A temporary morgue was established in a film distribution garage near the Grove. Several of those presumed dead were sent directly to the local morgue only to spring up from the table very much alive. They were moved to the hospital and survived with a whopper of a story to tell for the rest of their charmed lives.
Ironically, some good did come out of the tragedy. The survivors, most of whom suffered every type and size of burns on their bodies, offered doctors the opportunity to treat and study their burns. The techniques learned from treating the victims of the Cocoanut Grove fire were adapted by troops overseas and are still used in triage hospitals to this day. Perhaps the single most important result of the tragedy was that, thereafter, revolving doors had to be flanked by side doors that opened outward — an architectural element that can be found in buildings to this very day. The fire also led to the enactment of requirements for sprinkler systems and accessible exits with emergency lights not linked to the regular lighting system.
Where was Buck Jones in this fiery melee? What is known is that Buck’s badly burned body was found by a Coast Guardsman and a taxi driver on the floor inside the club. The rescuers had no idea who they had found, though. Survivors lost their identities while recuperating in Mass General hospital, and doctors took to referring to them instead as “Patient 28” or “Case 36.” Most of them would not have been recognizable, even by their closest friends and family members, because their head, hands and eyes were covered in bandages. What is unknown are Buck’s actions during the fire. In Buck’s case, his body had been so badly burned in the fire that skin from his fingers had been pulled off and fused onto the fingerprint card sent to the FBI for positive Identification. It took nearly 48 hours to identify the prints.
Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate that Buck Jones, the battle-scarred Army veteran, 101 Ranch Cowboy, Indianapolis Motor Speedway riding mechanic, Hollywood stuntman and cowboy hero of the silver screen, received his grievous burns while repeatedly returning into the burning building to save lives. No one can say for certain exactly what transpired in the bedlam of the 12-15 minute disaster. Although we’ll probably never know the truth, in the ensuing years many reports and stories have survived testifying to Buck’s heroism while leading trapped victims to safety and returning at least twice to the raging inferno to help others.
Buck was horribly burned and transferred to Mass General hospital where he died a few days later on Monday November 30th, the 481st person of 492 victims of that inferno. The autopsy noted that Buck Jones died of critical second and third degree burns to the face, mouth, neck and throat and smoke inhalation. He would have been 51 years old 2 weeks later on December 12th. Jones had more than 160 film credits to his name, but was a hero in real life as well as on screen. As long as the public still appreciates a rugged, principled, and noble cowboy, Buck Jones will never be forgotten. Buck Jones, idol of millions of movie fans, Patient 224 died alone in an upstairs room at Massachusetts General Hospital while his wife Dell rushed to his bedside. She did not arrive in time to say goodbye. Buck Jones remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean, near Catalina Island. Another lost legend in the pantheon of Hoosier heroes.