BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE Atlanta, GA 30355 PAID Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAUD JUMP NEWSLETTER VOLUME XL BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1995 A conversation with the German bandleader Thilo Wolf was schedided for this issue, but overseas logistics and a Thilo Wolf marriage and honeymoon delayed the interview. It'sour hope we canfeature him in a future issue. MARILYN KING INTERVIEW The Background Marilyn King is the youngest of the KING SISTERS, taking over when one of the older sisters was temporarily out of the group for some reason. She’s been brought into the spotlight this time with the Capitol release of a KING SISTERS album, an event that’s long overdue. Marilyn King is a solo performer now, working such outstanding locations as the Rockefeller Center Rainbow Room, the New Orleans, San Francisco and Dallas Fairmont Hotels, the Las Vegas and Tahoe rooms and Hollywood’s Vine Street Grill. She’s in demand on cruise ships, as co-hostess for telethons across the nation and as the star of such stage hits as HELLO DOLLY, GUYS & DOLLS and SOUTH PACIFIC. We first met Marilyn King at a Big Band Academy of Marilyn King smiles America dinner at Studio City a couple of years ago. Not knowing she is nearly three decades younger than warm and friendly. the oldest King Sister, it was difficult to reconcile her youthful appearance with the King Sisters of the late There w as seemingly no question we could ask her that 30’s and early 40’s, but she’s a genuine King Sister and she w'ouldn’t or couldn’t answer, for she’s not a shy possesses the bouncy ebullience that was one of the key person. We got the impression she’s: 1) Instantly ingredients of the sister singing act. comfortable with nearly everyone she meets, and 2) She can take care of herself. The Scene Our first question had to do with her youthful appearance. Marilyn had just had breakfast and a dip in the pool on one of those extremely hot Los Angeles days. It was BBJ: You’re a King Sister, but you appear so young. a late breakfast, for she’d been working a Los Angeles area club into the wee hours of the night before. No MK: I come from a big family; I’m the baby of eight. matter, Marilyn King was bubbly and cooperative, The seven were two years apart, and dad thought VOLUME XL BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1995 that was a nice little family, but twelve years after my MK: Not directly. My sister Yvonne who lives youngest sister, I was born. I was called a “mistake”. in San Francisco put on a big fund-raiser for her church, and she suggested that the King Sisters and BBJ: Were you a genuine King Sister? Alvino and the whole family do a variety show. Now, the family w'ere not professionals; we just sang at M K : Yes, but I substituted for each sister when they parties and picnics....we sang all our lives. The fund­ got pregnant or got married.... getting married first, raiser was such a success that w'e started raising funds I should say.... in that order. One of my sisters had for all these churches and we went up to B.Y.U. and the five children and we put her out to pasture and I took her TV crew at Brigham Young filmed it for us and Vonnie place. sent it to ABC and they just fell in love with it. They pre­ empted a Hollywood Palace program one night and we After I graduated from high school I went on the road with got so much fan mail that they put us on as a series Alvino Rey’s Orchestra as a soloist. Then I went to college. without doing a pilot; we also followed Lawrence Welk It was then the King Sisters decided to start singing again; on ABC, so it w'as kind of like a family night. they had gone into retirement to raise their little kids. BBJ: How long did the TV prominence last for the BBJ: How did the now famous KING FAMILY TV King Family? SHOWS come about? MK: Our network TV shows were on for about ten MK: We began with a local NBC TV show with years; we did a lot of specials. Harry Von Zell and Alvino Rey’s big orchestra. It was a smash out here but it was just in Los Angeles, BBJ: You’re doing a single now. so we started doing night clubs again in Tahoe and Vegas and we went back east and did the Copa and MK : I never thought of myself as being a vocal started doing a lot of the variety shows that were on in group. Daddy was a music teacher, and he those days. That’s when we started recording with taught each child how to play an instrument and how to Capitol. Iw'as with the sisters at the time. I replaced sing, and before I was bom they toured around the west Donna. That was when we did our IMAGINATION as a vaudeville troup when daddy wasn’t teaching album, and Playboy Magazine nominated us as an “up school. They’d get in this old Dodge touring car and go and coming new vocal group” not realizing that my from small city to small city. He’d put a poster up on sisters had recorded for RCA VICTOR in the 40’s and telephone poles and say “Concert tonight at the old had a lot of hits like MAIRZY DOATS and IN THE church down the street!” Mother made the costumes. MOOD and all those things. It was kind of amusing that That’s how they really got started. Playboy said “up and coming new vocal group.” BBJ: The King Sisters sang first with Horace Heidt. Also we were up for the Grammy Awards, but that was when they first started and they didn’t have the MK: Yes. They first went professionally with categories neatly organized yet, so the only two vocal Horace Heidt when they were discovered and groups that were nominated were the King Sisters and started broadcasting and recording. Les Paul and Mary Ford. She’s not a vocal group. .. she over-dubbed her voice, but they won. We laughed BBJ: Meantime, you were home. about it because Les Paul and Alvino Rey are such close friends. Because we were nominated we started MK: Daddy taught me opera; I was going to be a big doing all the variety shows like Steve Allen, Ed opera star.... a Broadway type thing. He was Sullivan and George Gobcl. very disappointed when I left high school to go on the road and began singing jazz. BBJ: Did those guest appearances lead to a perma­ nent TV slot? B BJ: What did you do when you weren’t singing with the King Sisters? 2 VOLUME XL BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1995 MK: Between singing with the King Sisters I had my back into my acting career. I’m having a ball. I’m own career. I sang with a lot of bands.... Freddy single; I’m a widow. My sw'eet husband passed away Martin and Les Brown.... and 1 had my own TV show up with cancer. He aid, “Honey, you just get yourself in San Francisco. We won our own Emmy Award up in shape and go back and stay in show business.” there. I’m a grandma; I’ve got five grandchildren and one on And then I studied drama all my life, so I got to really do the w'ay. I feel like I’m thirty years old. some musical comedy. I’ve had my own night club act and I’ve been in some TV show's as an actor. I’m the Nice, confident lady who knows where she’s going and only King sister that’s performing now. has the talent to get there. Parts o f the interview will be heard on the September 9-10, 1995 BIG BAND BBJ: How did the current King Sisters album come JUMP program, along with comments from an earlier about? interview withAlvino Rey and his wife, Marilyn’s sister Luise. MK: The young people that work in the catalog department at Capitol decided to resurrect some The King Sister's Capitol release referred to in the of the masters of the great artists that had w'orked interview should be available at any good record store. there; we’ve got some things on the new King Sisters album that’ve never been released. It’s called the (D.K.) Spotlight Scries, and this is part of the continuing series of the Great Ladies of Song. They’ve had such great EARLY BBJ NEWSLETTER INTERVIEWS reaction from the record stores and the deejays around the country. Our current subscribers missed some o f the earlier interviews with outstanding musical celebrities. Last BBJ: Is there anything special about the new King issue we capsulized Shaw’s pre-bandleader days. In Sisters album release? this issue, Artie Shaw comments on moments that led to the organization o f his own band and the moment o f MK: We decided to go with more of a fresh sound success. when the IMAGINATION album was origi­ nally made, kind of like the Four Freshmen or the HiLos.