Lombardo, Guy

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Guy Lombardo

Bandleader, violinist

Canadian-born bandleader Guy Lombardo contributed to North American culture a New Year's Eve tradition that has become practically universal: the singing of the old Scottish song "Auld Lang Syne" on New Year's Eve. In their heyday, however, Lombardo and his band, the Royal Canadians, were popular year-round, and not just during their annual New Year's Eve radio and television broadcasts from New York City. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians reportedly sold more recordings than any other group among the big bands popular in the middle decades of the twentieth century, with total sales estimated at between 100 million and 300 million discs.

Guy Lombardo was born Gaetano Alberto Lombardo to Italian-Canadian immigrants in London, Ontario, Canada, on June 19, 1902. His father, Gaetano Sr., worked as a tailor but loved music and had a fine baritone voice. All of the seven Lombardo children were given the chance to take music lessons, and five would eventually pursue music professionally. Guy also inherited a love for boating from his father, who owned a rowboat that Guy would paddle along the city's Thames River. As the oldest child, Guy studied the orchestra leader's instrument—the violin. His early lessons from an Italian teacher named Pasquale Venuta were strictly limited to classical music, and once, when his father caught him improvising, he broke a small violin over his son's head.

This conflict did not discourage young Lombardo, who made his performing debut along with his brother Carmen at a local women's club in 1914. With another brother, Lebert, and pianist friend Freddie Kreitzer on board, the group started playing for local dances. The area around London was heavily populated with Canadians of Scottish descent, and the young Italian group quickly learned that a sing-along to "Auld Lang Syne" provided the perfect way to wind things down with the crowd after an evening of partying. "Auld Lang Syne," originally written (or adapted from earlier folk songs) by Scottish poet Robert Burns, was not in itself a song of New Year's celebration but a meditation on loss and the passage of time—the words "auld lang syne" mean "old long since," or "in times long gone by" in Scots dialect. By the early 1920s the Lombardo Brothers Orchestra had graduated to choice performing dates, playing at the resort hotels that lined the shores of lakes Erie and Huron.

In 1923, realizing that their talents were outstripping what southwestern Ontario had to offer, the group headed for Cleveland, Ohio, the nearest large American city. Their first gig, at an Elks Club, was modest, and at one early show they occupied a slot on the bill below a trained seal. But playing up their unusual Canadian background helped set them apart from the crowd. Their agent, Mike Shea, suggested dressing the musicians in Canadian Mountie uniforms, but the name "Royal Canadians" was agreed upon as a more dignified compromise. In 1924 Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians settled in for what would become a two-year stint at the Claremont Tent nightclub.

The band also made its first recordings that year, for the Richmond label in Gennett, Indiana. Early Lombardo discs showed the band members experimenting with the hot new jazz rhythms and improvisations that were sweeping the country, but soon the band took another step that set them apart. Partly at the urging of Claremont Tent owner Louis Bleet, the band toned down its volume levels and hot tempos. They began playing medleys of hits of the day, with all the tunes fitted to easily danceable schottisch or two-step rhythms. The saxophone section, led by Carmen Lombardo, perfected a seamless blend, inspiring critical praise that soon coalesced into the band's "Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven" tag line.

Some of the more jazz-oriented musicians, Lombardo was quoted as saying by documentary filmmaker Christopher Doty, "looked at me like I was an idiot. I was restricting their creative ability." Lombardo's instincts proved correct, however, as the band's popularity grew. Even though their music completely avoided the improvisational element of jazz and presented a song's melody in unadorned form, Lombardo and His Royal Canadians numbered the fiery trumpeter Louis Armstrong and other jazz greats among their fans. They once had a successful engagement at the citadel of African-American jazz, the Savoy Ballroom in New York's Harlem neighborhood. With his fortunes on the rise, Lombardo married Lilliebelle Glenn in 1926.

In 1927 the band moved to Chicago and began performing at the Granada Café. Lombardo was quick to sense the power of the emerging radio medium, and steered the band toward unpaid appearances on Cleveland radio station WTAM. After establishing himself in Chicago, Lombardo persuaded a ballroom owner to permit the broadcast of the Royal Canadians' evening show on the city's mighty clear-channel radio station WBBM. Heard all over the Midwest, the program vaulted the Royal Canadians to national popularity. "At 5 p.m. in the afternoon we were absolutely unknown," Lombardo recalled in the Cincinnati Post, "and the next morning we were like the Beatles."

New York's swank Roosevelt Hotel on MadisonAvenue booked the sensational new band with the sweet sound for the 1929 New Year's Eve show at its Roosevelt Grill restaurant, and the CBS radio network signed on to broadcast the show. As the countdown to the new year reached its end, Lombardo signaled the musicians for "Auld Lang Syne," a tune they had often included in shows before. But it had never before gone out to an audience of millions. From that day forward, its association with New Year's Eve was solid—as was that of Lombardo and the Royal Canadians. They remained America's all-but-official New Year's Eve band until Lombardo's death in 1977, moving to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in 1962.

Lombardo parlayed this exposure into a steady stream of hits that lasted well into the 1950s, placing a record on the pop charts every year between 1929 and 1952. After recording for Columbia and Brunswick, they signed with the Decca label in 1934 and remained there until 1957. The Royal Canadians continued to record hits of the day like "Stars Fell on Alabama" and "The Last Round-Up," but they also introduced originals penned by Carmen Lombardo: such songs as "Coquette" and "Sweethearts on Parade" (often performed and recorded by Louis Armstrong) became integral to the jazz repertory, even as jazz hipsters derided Lombardo as "Gooey Lumbago." Younger sister Rose Marie Lombardo joined the band as a female vocalist in 1942, helping the group adapt to the new vocal-centered styles that grew after World War II. Lombardo appeared in the films Many Happy Returns (1934), Stage Door Canteen (1943), and No Leave, No Love (1946). On the side, he was an avid hydroplane racer who won numerous U.S. championships and was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.

For the Record …

Born June 19, 1902, in London, Ontario, Canada; married Lilliebell Glenn, 1926; became U.S. citizen, 1938; died November 5, 1977, in Houston, TX. Education: Attended schools in London, Ontario, Canada.

Began performing with siblings in London, Ontario, Canada, area, 1914; moved group to Cleveland, OH, 1923; leader, Lombardo Brothers Orchestra and Concert Company, renamed Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, ca. 1924; performed at Claremont Tent Club, Cleveland, 1924–26; began recording (for Gennett label, Richmond, IN), 1924; performed at Granada Café and made broadcasts on radio station WBBM, Chicago, IL, 1927–29; performed at Roosevelt Grill, New York, 1929–62; annual New Year's Eve performances at Roosevelt Grill (and later at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel) featured song "Auld Lang Syne," beginning 1929; won numerous hydroplane racing championships, beginning 1940; produced musical theater presentations at Jones Beach Marine Theater, Long Island, NY; toured U.S. and Canada, 1962–75.

The rise of rock and roll in the mid-1950s finally relegated Lombardo and His Royal Canadians to the status of nostalgia act, but Lombardo chose new projects wisely in later life. At the invitation of New York State Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, he began producing musical shows at the Jones Beach Theater on Long Island (near his home in Freeport, New York), an activity he continued until the end of his life. He also renewed his ties with audiences in London, where he had rarely appeared during his years of stardom.

The Royal Canadians' band survived Lombardo's death from coronary problems on November 5, 1977, in Houston, Texas. A long tradition of Royal Canadians performances at U.S. presidential inaugurations was revived at the beginning of President Ronald Reagan's second term in 1985. In 1990 Cleveland musician Al Pierson was selected by surviving members of the Lombardo family to assume the directorship of the band, which continued to tour. A small museum honoring Lombardo and containing memorabilia related to his career stands in a park in London, near the Thames River. And subsequent generations of rock-oriented New Year's Eve shows on television have done nothing to break the American habit of singing "Auld Lang Syne" to mark the turning of the calendar.

Selected discography

Your Guy Lombardo Medley, 1957.
Berlin by Lombardo, 1958.
The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven (4 vols.), Decca, 1961–65.
Sing the Songs of Christmas, 1967.
Golden Medleys, MCA, 1976.
Uncollected Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians, Hindsight, 1982.
Greatest Hits, MCA, 1983.
Dancing in the Dark, MCA 1985.
16 Most Requested Songs, Columbia/Legacy, 1989.
Best of Guy Lombardo, Capitol, 1990.
Auld Lang Syne, Pro Arte, 1993.
Enjoy Yourself: The Hits of Guy Lombardo, MCA, 1996.
The V-Disc Recordings, Collectors' Choice, 1998.
Take It Easy, Vocalion, 2001.
The Band Played On: 25 Number One Hits, Living Era, 2002.
Best of Guy Lombardo: The Early Years, Collectors' Choice, 2003.
20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection, Universal, 2005.
Live Jazz from Club 15, Request, 2006.
Lombardo Goes Latin/Bells Are Ringing, Dutton, 2006.
Drifting and Dreaming/Dancing Room Only, Dutton, 2006.