640 MUSIC Tenkotte, Paul A. “Rival Cities to Suburbs: Covington and Newport, Kentucky, 1790–1890,” PhD diss., Univ. of Cincinnati, 1989. Wessling, Jack. Early History of Campbell County Kentucky. Alexandria, Ky.: Privately published, 1997.
Jack Wessling
MUSIC. The first professional musician known to reside in Northern Kentucky was Mexico-born Joseph Tosso, who was of Italian descent. He arrived in Cincinnati in time to play for Gen. Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Northern Kentucky in 1825 and performed regularly at Mrs. Trollope’s bazaar, located along E. Fourth St. in the Queen City. The music professor, as Tosso was called, soon moved his family to Covington, and later to Latonia, and played at concerts and important events in both Newport and Covington. He was well trained in classical music and also was a talented fiddle player. He often played his own compositions, including “The Arkansas Traveler,” which became a popular fiddle tune. Tosso died in Covington in 1887, having performed locally for more than 60 years. He was a founder of the first school of music in Cincinnati. Religious music played a large role in Northern Kentucky. Several musicians were associated with Mother of God Catholic Church in Covington. Bernard H. F. Hellebusch was a teacher and the principal at the Mother of God School beginning around 1850. As a musician, he practiced the German singmesse tradition of church music, emphasizing the folk song in contrast to the traditional classical Latin style. He wrote and published some 34 singmesse hymns, as well as a popu lar hymnal entitled Gesang und Gebetbuch, before his death in 1885. Henry Tappert (see William and Henry Tappert) replaced Hellebusch’s singmesse style with newer Cecilian reform music, stressing polyphony and chant. He published his compositions in his St. Cecilia Hymnal. In 1895 Tappert hired Edward Strubel as an organist at the church. Strubel, a virtuoso on the organ and a talented composer, served in that capacity for 55 years. Ecclesiastical music was a much larger part of parish life in the early years of Catholicism in Northern Kentucky, and it was played in all parish churches, not just Mother of God Church in Covington. Two new types of secular music appeared in America at the turn of the 20th century. Ragtime was popu lar for the first 20 years of the new century, and the Gasdorf Music Publishing Company of Newport helped to popu larize ragtime, including an occasional piece written by a young composer from Covington, Haven Gillespie. The blues soon followed, brought up the Ohio River on the riverboats; it prospered in Covington and Newport, as well as in the west side of downtown Cincinnati. Longtime area blues-players such as James “Pigmeat” Jarrett and “H. Bomb” Ferguson performed regularly at Northern Kentucky entertainment venues. Currently, the Mansion Hill Tavern in Newport is a prominent gathering spot for performances of the blues. Country music arrived with the Appalachian migration into the area during the 1920s.
Barn dances held in Grant Co. and the Boone County Jamboree (later to become both a radio and a television show) provided a venue for this new musical style. Early country music performers from the area included Grant Co.’s singer-composer Pop Eckler, the Bird Family from Covington; fiddler Bill Livers from Owen Co., and Blanche Coldiron, who had family ties to Grant Co. Radio station WLW in Cincinnati and L. B. Wilson’s WCKY in Covington regularly played country music for their listeners. Today, in Nashville, Tenn., the top-rated country music disc jockey is Gerry House, a native of Kenton Co. Later in his career, Pop Eckler performed bluegrass music. The 1920s also saw the beginning of swing-era dancing music. A popu lar Northern Kentuckian involved in this type of music was Covington’s Justin Huber, whose bands and orchestras, from the early 1920s through the late 1940s, played at ballrooms regionally. His groups were booked at company gatherings and parties, as well as at the Horseshoe Gardens in Bellevue. It was at the Horseshoe Gardens that the famous Mills Brothers got their start. In that same era, Newport native Tommy Ryan went from steel-mill worker in his hometown to major national band leader during the 1940s and 1950s. Club musicians playing piano lounge music locally included Larry Vincent, who died in 1977, just months before the fire that destroyed the Beverly Hills Supper Club, where he often performed. Vincent’s good friend Haven Gillespie was the lyricist who produced the most famous song written by a native of Northern Kentucky, the best-selling “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” Gillespie, who died in 1975, wrote lyrics to more than 1,000 works in his life, including several that became popu lar hits. Also around the turn of the 20th century, several Northern Kentucky women excelled as musical performers. Local voice teachers such as Patia Power trained students who made it to the Broadway stage. Vocalist Clara Loring from Covington wowed the New York crowds for several years in the second decade of the century. Mary Hissem DeMoss, from California, Ky., sang at prestigious Protestant churches in New York City and throughout New England. She taught voice well into the 1950s at her home in New Jersey. Katherine Hall Poock, a descendant of a family of Covington educators, spent years singing and teaching voice around Greater Cincinnati. Elizabeth Parks, also from Covington, sang for the troops in Europe during World War I. In the 1920s, Eugene Ysaye wrote music and produced musical concerts for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra while living in Fort Thomas. In recent years, Lee Roy Reams, a 1960 graduate of Covington’s Holmes High School, has shared top billing with the greats of the musical theater in New York City, such as Hello Dolly! and with road companies throughout the United States, such as the Fantastics. Along with the Beverly Hills Supper Club, which booked nationally known entertainers, there were other high-caliber musical venues in Northern Kentucky. Kenton Co. had its similarly famous Lookout House, where Larry Vincent
also performed as well as top-name entertainers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Ted Lewis, Frank Sinatra, and the like. Some of these entertainers even performed for free at the Devou Park Band Shell (amphitheater) before thousands of appreciative fans. In Campbell Co., gambling spots such as Glenn Schmidt’s, the Latin Quarters, and the Tropicana booked topflight entertainers, some of whom were seen gambling or “bar hopping” after their performances. Maysville’s historic Washington Opera House, located in that city’s downtown area, also hosted shows by several famous performers. Military band music has long been popu lar in Northern Kentucky. In the 19th century, the presence of the U.S. Army at the Newport Barracks gave the area the Army Band for musical entertainment at important events. The musical Gasdorf family of Newport sponsored the popu lar Gasdorf Military Band, which performed in the decade beginning 1910, and John Philip Sousa’s Naval Band performed before large crowds in Covington in 1918. Later, after the army relocated to the Fort Thomas Military Reservation, the Army Band performed at parades and on Decoration Day at Evergreen Cemetery and, during the 1920s, gave free public concerts on the fort’s grounds. Other types of bands that performed or now perform locally include the Newport Jug Band at the turn of the 20th century, today’s Florence Community Band, and several bands that have had modern rock connections. The area’s bestknown rock band is Pure Prairie League, a musical group that includes several members raised in Northern Kentucky. High schools such as Beechwood, Highlands, and Covington Holmes have won statewide band competitions. Local groups like the McCormick Fiddlers were featured on the Boone County Jamboree and later regional television’s Midwestern Hayride. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the Harvard Piano Company of Dayton, Ky., manufactured almost 30,000 pianos for use nationwide. The academic world has also contributed to music in Northern Kentucky. Since it opened in 1970, Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has been developing its music department. Internationally renowned Russian immigrant Sergei Polusmiak teaches piano there; Robert Knauf, the longtime choral director of the Cincinnati Symphony’s May Festival, taught choral music and also served as the music department’s first chairman; and a number of students and performing groups who have studied music at NKU have performed with distinction nationally and internationally. Herschel Linstaedt of Fort Thomas had a distinguished career as a music teacher at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, and jazz musician Roger Schueler (see Dixie Heights High School) founded and directed a highly successful high school jazz band during the 1960s; several of his students became professional jazz musicians. The foremost recording artist from Northern Kentucky is Maysville’s Rosemary Clooney. Her successful musical and movie career spanned more