Saturday, September 30, 2017

#4 Showfolks!


Posted by Buckles at 9/30/2017 03:59:00 AM

6 comments:

Chic Silber said...


William "Boom Boom" Browning

30 September, 2017 08:19
Chic Silber said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
30 September, 2017 08:26
Eric said...

“Boom Boom” Browning and Izzy Cervone. Compared to Merle Evans, there is not too much information available on circus bandleader Izzy Cervone, who led the Ringling band from 1956 to 1960. During World War I, he played first trumpet in John Philip Sousa’s Great Lakes Naval Training Station Band. He was also a staff musician at radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh and played with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Fritz Reiner. He had his own band (Cervone’s Redcoats), which played at Pittsburgh’s Kennywood Amusement Park. As bandleader for Orrin Davenport, he did all the major indoor circus dates and worked with all the big stars like Clyde Beatty, the Hannefords, Victor Julian, the Wallendas, the Woodcock Elephants, etc. It was his misfortune to take over the Ringling band immediately after Merle Evans departed and right when it was decided to replace the traditional circus band with a Broadway-type theater pit orchestra that included violins. The fact that the show folded in mid-season didn’t do much to enhance his resume either. (Ironically, on the day of Ringling’s last under-canvas performance, Izzy was off doing a fair date and it was his nephew Jack Cervone who was at the helm.) Bill Pruyn (another classically-trained musician) always had good things to say about Izzy’s musical ability, which is about the best compliment that any circus musician could hope for.

30 September, 2017 11:19
Roger Smith said...

Boom was a great pal of mine on the Beatty show. He loved jackpots and knew every detail of everything happening on the lot. With this, his wry observations were hilarious. It was also funny, and very telling, that he got kicked out of college in his senior year for telling his percussion professor to go to hell. We hit it off as fellow Texans, and I still have 2 sets of drumsticks he gave me right off the bandstand. When Boom left the show, he went on tour demonstrating for Slingerland drums, and everyone agreed no one could do it better. I last saw him on a few of the big indoor dates, when he had an address in Poland, Ohio. It was a great sadness when word came that he had died.

01 October, 2017 02:59
Chic Silber said...


Of my wonderful opportunities

the good folks of Toledo asked

me to assemble a circus event

for the grand opening of their

SeaGate Convention Center many

years ago so I put together what

I called a Circus Showcase with

many of my friends Dolly Jacobs

Delilah Wallenda The Fairchilds

Bertinis Zamperlas Mike Ashton

Margarita Ayala & Kenny Dodd

Jamie Farr was guest ringmaster

Out of retirement Boom Boom was

the Musical Director & we all

had the very best of times

The Sesquicentennial Commitee

threw us a fantastic party

01 October, 2017 10:02
Roger Smith said...

The name Jamie Farr caught my eye. Fans of M*A*S*H remember him as the zany Klinger, who cross-dressed hoping to get drummed out of the Army. My friend G.W. Bailey had a recurring role as the company mechanic, Sgt. Rizzo. It was known Farr was widely respected as a character actor, and loved by the production company as one of the true good guys. Not so with Alan Alda, who let his stardom turn him into a jerk on the set, whom eventually no one liked. Farr's Klinger, Father Mulcahy, and Harry Morgan's crusty veteran surgeon gave it a go with a spin-off, but once the original show closed, the audience had moved on, and this 2nd shot fizzled.

01 October, 2017 18:23

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