Harry James

Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1983.

His son, Tim James, was an attorney working with the attorney general of Texas and was one of those responsible for enticing TV personality Marvin Zindler to investigate the famous Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange, Texas - eventually leading to its closure. The story became the basis of the Broadway and movie musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 421-422. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

In 1963 his band was featured at Disneyland, still known as the Music Makers.

He and Betty Grable had two daughters: Victoria Elizabeth James (born 3 March 1944), and Jessica James (born 20 May 1947).

In 1943 he married pinup queen Betty Grable, his second of four wives. He had earlier married and divorced Louise Tobin, a singer. Grable kept appearing in movies and Harry kept playing while they raised horses. He made his debut in Philadelphia at the Ben Franklin Hotel and soon was a nationwide favorite of dance lovers and jazz addicts, rocking the rafters at the Hollywood Paladium, Chicago's famous College Inn at the Hotel Sherman, Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook in Cedar Cove, NJ, and then onto New York City.

It was the Lincoln Hotel in NYC that the Music Makers called home, but James also starred at the Paramount Theater in the spring of 1943, with thousands of teenagers flocking to see him. His version of You Made Me Love You was a big hit and a favorite of many through the war years. James was a great discoverer of talent, finding Frank Sinatra working as a waiter in a New Jersey restaurant and giving him a job singing in his band. Dick Haymes, Kitty Kallen, Connie Haines and Helen Forrest can all thank James for giving them their first real break.

Harry James was born in a rundown hotel next to the city jail in Albany, Georgia. His mother and father were members of a circus - she as a trapeze artist and he a band leader - with the Mighty Haag Circus. At seven, they settled in Beaumont, Texas where Harry learned to play drums. By twelve, he was playing trumpet in the Christy Brothers circus band. In 1936 James joined Ben Pollack's band, soon leaving to lead the brass section of Benny Goodman's band. He even once applied to Lawrence Welk's band but was turned down because they said he played too loud and it was not Welk's style. After three years with Goodman, he wanted to leave, and with Goodman's backing, he formed the Music Makers.