Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Clown Bands #1


Scan13396, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Cashins "clownalley" blog included this picture of him linking it to the 1897-1902 Barnum & Bailey European tour. He seemed to suggest it was from an English language publication. Any ideas which one? (a US one probably?)

Fred Neill

Buckles said...

I lifted it from my 1897 Ringling Bros. route book.

The B&B European tour was 1898-02.

Eric said...

Is this Spader Johnson in some sort of put-on of an Italian musician.

Unknown said...

Thanks for info - I hadn't thought to link it to the 1897 Ringling tour. THat makes most of the other Clownalley pics likely to be from the same publication (1 is from "Four Years in").

Yes, a number of the clowns were got up as European/Italian musicians that tour. Here, from December 1897 Spader led the clown band. Initially as Sousa - how long that lasted, indeed if is lasted, is questionable as - at that time - we had no real idea as to who Sousa was, what he looked like or how he acted. Certainly a number of early reviews were not enthusiastic and I suspect any Sousa references/connections were soon softened or dropped

Fred Neill

Anonymous said...

Clown band concepts endured, as did references to Sousa into the early 1900s [1902--five years]. Sousa was quite well known. Look for Paul Bierley's biography of Sousa for more knowledge.

Anonymous said...

I never thought I would agree with this option.