HORACE HEIDT - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 76906

HORACE HEIDT
Rare b/w band photo taken at the 1974 reunion on Horace Heidt's band the Musical Knights, signed "Sincerely" by Heidt in blue ink
Photograph signed "1974 Reunion of the/'Musical Knights'/Sincerely/Horace Heidt in blue ink.B/w, 9¾x8 overall, 9¼x7½ image, one surface. Probably the most successful band led by Heidt was Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights, which recorded and performed during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Heidt (1901-1986, born in Alameda, California), who had a childhood stammer and a seeming lack of interest in music, seemed an unlikely candidate for one of the most successful big band leaders of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He preferred football, but a back injury in college ended any football dreams that he might have had. To make a living, Heidt organized his first band, Horace Heidt and the Californians, in 1923. The band got bigger, went through some name changes and finally hit it big in 1936, when they got their first radio broadcast from the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois as Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights. The show, Heidt's Pot O' Gold, ran for nine years and included an on-air cash giveaway that helped the show retain its popularity. Heidt's hits include Gone with the Wind (1937), Little Heaven of the Seven Seas (1937) Ti-Pi-Tin (1938), The Man with the Mandolin (1939) and The Hut-Hut Song (1941). A number of important musicians and singers got their start with Heidt's band, including singers the King Sisters, Gordon MacRae and Art Carney, composer Frank DeVol, guitarist Alvino Rey, pianist Frankie Carle and Jess Stacy and trumpeter Bobby Hackett. Heidt turned his attention from big band music as musical tastes changed and started investing in hotels and other property, making him one of the wealthiest men in the entertainment business by the 1950s. Lightly toned, soiled, creased and bowed. Light scratches and impressions on photo (not visible head-on). Tack holes in upper left corner. Otherwise in fine condition.