Del Porter

Del Porter, born April 13, 1902, in Newberg, Oregon, was an American jazz vocalist, saxophonist, and clarinetist whose career spanned Broadway, radio, recording studios, and wartime entertainment. He died October 4, 1977, in Los Angeles.

Porter joined the vocal quartet the Foursome in 1928, brought in by Ray Johnson, whom he had met at Oregon State Agriculture College. The group had been founded in 1926 by Marshall Smith and Dwight Snyder, and prior to Porter's arrival had already recorded for Columbia Records. The four members — Porter, Johnson, Smith, and Snyder — distinguished themselves from other vocal quartets of the era by performing ocarinas in harmony alongside their singing. Porter became the best-known member of the group.

The Foursome made their Broadway debut in the two-act musical Ripples, which opened February 11, 1930, at the New Amsterdam Theatre and ran for 55 performances through March 29. The show featured music by Oscar Levant and Albert Sirmay, a book by William Anthony McGuire, and lyrics by Irving Caesar and Graham John. The four members appeared in the production as state troopers. Their next Broadway engagement was the George and Ira Gershwin production Girl Crazy, which ran for 272 performances. The Foursome were featured in the opening number "The Lonesome Cowboy Won't Be Lonesome Now!" and performed "Bidin' My Time," which was reprised twice during the first act. They also participated in the production number "I Got Rhythm" alongside Ethel Merman. The Foursome's final Broadway appearance came in 1934 with Cole Porter's Anything Goes at the Alvin Theatre, where they were again reunited with Merman. Their featured numbers in that production included "Sailors' Chantey (There'll Always Be a Lady Fair)" and the title song, performed with Merman.

Beyond Broadway, the Foursome's recording career produced their biggest commercial hit, "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," in 1932. While filming Born to Dance in Hollywood in 1936, Porter reconnected with Bing Crosby, whom he and Johnson had first encountered in Spokane in the 1920s while playing in a dance band. Crosby invited the Foursome to appear on his radio program The Kraft Music Hall and brought them into the recording studio for Decca, where they backed him on tracks including "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider," "My Honey's Loving Arms," and "Chinatown, My Chinatown" in 1937. In 1938 and 1939 the group also backed Dick Powell, Pinky Tomlin, and Shirley Ross on recordings. One of their collaborations with Crosby was "Sweet Potato Piper," a Johnny Burke and James V. Monaco song written for the 1940 film The Road to Singapore and inspired by the Foursome. Porter also toured with Glenn Miller and recorded with Red Nichols during the 1930s, and in the 1940s led his own big band.

Spike Jones, who had played drums on some Foursome recordings, encouraged Porter to form his own ensemble. Porter assembled the Feather Merchants, a six-piece comedy band, with Jones initially managing the group for ten dollars a week. After the band achieved limited success, Jones joined as a member, and the ensemble eventually evolved into Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Within the Slickers, Porter served as lead vocalist, clarinetist, arranger, and songwriter. Two of his compositions, "Siam" and "Pass the Biscuits Mirandy," entered the band's regular repertoire, and his arrangements "Hotcha Cornia" and "Der Fuehrer's Face" were among the group's early recordings, with "Der Fuehrer's Face" reaching number three on the pop charts. That success brought the Slickers appearances on three national radio programs, including Furlough Fun on NBC's West Coast Network, where they performed on Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. and delivered musical advertisements for Gilmore Gas. The Slickers also made more than a dozen appearances on Command Performance, broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Network between September 19, 1942, and Christmas Eve 1944, sharing the program with performers including Tommy Dorsey, Cary Grant, Lionel Hampton, Bob Hope, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, and Ethel Waters. In 1943 they began regular appearances on The Bob Burns Show, continuing until the Slickers secured their own Chase and Sanborn Coffee-sponsored radio program in 1945.

Among the rarest documents of the Slickers' early work are Cinamatone discs — twelve-inch records with ten tunes on one side, recorded in 1940 under the name the Penny Funnies for a penny-per-song jukebox format, a year before the band signed with RCA Victor. Porter sang on those sides, and radio host Dr. Demento played one of the recordings, "Runnin' Wild," on a Spike Jones tribute broadcast in 2015.

In 1944 Porter traveled with the Slickers to entertain Allied troops in Europe, flying first to Scotland and then traveling by train toward London until a buzz bomb strike on the tracks forced the group to complete the journey by bus. After performing in England, they moved on to France shortly after D-Day, appearing on a hillside above the beach alongside Dinah Shore and Edward G. Robinson. The Slickers subsequently toured independently through France with the Ninth Air Corps, performing at multiple landing strips in a single day.

After the Feather Merchants disbanded, Porter co-founded the City Slickers with Jones. Around 1946, working with Johnson — the Foursome's arranger and his lifelong friend — Porter reorganized a new quartet called the Sweet Potato Tooters, the name referencing the ocarina, an instrument whose nickname is "sweet potato."