In the style of Mike Rowe’s “The Way I Heard It” and Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” this episode of the Piano Parent Podcast brings you the backstory of a musical group who had an unexpected interruption during their performance at the Opera House in the oldest town in Texas.
Listen to the full episode here
This story is about a mother’s desire to give her young sons something productive to do to keep them from getting mixed up with the wrong crowd on the streets of New York. While her plan worked, it didn’t turn out exactly the way she might have imagined.
Happy Birthday, Minnie!
In true Piano Parent fashion, our story today begins with the mother of a group of entertainers. On this day, November 9, 1864, Minnie Shoenberg was born in Germany. Her family moved to the United States when she was 15 and settled in New York City.
About this same time, another family moved to the U. S. from France. Their son, Simon, was a dance instructor among other occupations.
Simon and Minnie met on the dance floor where there was an instant attraction. Soon after, they were married at the age of 24 and 20 respectively. Ultimately, they had six sons, though their firstborn, Manfred, died in infancy.
Mother knows best
As Minnie watched her sons growing up, she noticed that they were beginning to use their strengths and their smarts in negative ways.
For example, her oldest, Leonard, was a wonderful mathematician but instead of applying his knowledge to school and worthwhile pursuits, he used it to help his gambling game. Her next son, Arthur, was bullied in school and opted to drop out and spend his time doing other things.
Her third son, Julius, enjoyed reading books and the praise he received at school. Unfortunately, he, too, left school at a very early age to work a job in a wig factory to help support his large family.
Because of the strong pull the streets and the temptation to get into trouble had on her boys, Minnie knew they needed some kind of activity that would keep them occupied and spending time together. Since her mother played the harp and her older brother, Al, was an entertainer, she decided music would be the perfect skill to teach her boys.
Leonard learned to play piano.
Arthur learned the harp like his grandmother, Fanny.
Julius had a lovely singing voice and was invited to sing, not only with his church choir, but also with a touring group.
It was those touring groups that gave Minnie the idea to bring her sons together for their own family act.
Hit the road
Julius and his younger brother, Milton, along with a female singer, Mabel O’Donnell started the family entertainment business as the Three Nightingales.
Minnie, ever the businesswomen, realized that a quartet could get paid more than a trio so she soon enlisted Julius’ older brother Arthur to join the act. The problem was the Arthur was terrified of singing in front of an audience! Even with Arthur’s terrible stage fright, the newly named Four Nightingales were a hit and were booking engagements around the country.
If you're going to play in Texas...
It was during one such engagement that our singing family’s career went off on a brand new trajectory.
To begin with, the Four Nightingales performances focused on music. With a pianist, a harpist, and a guitarist and singers, this makes perfect sense. They could combine into a wide variety of ensembles to produce a very entertaining show. Sprinkled into the music, the family threw in some of their sarcastic humor to keep their audience on the edge of their seats.
Their act was mostly music with a little humor thrown in.
That is until their tour brought them to the oldest town in Texas. According to legend, the Four Nightingales were performing in concert at the Old Opera House on the corner of Main Street and Church Street a few blocks south of the town square.
During the middle of their performance, a loud ruckus started taking place outside on the street. Someone came into the auditorium and yelled, “There’s a mule on the loose!” A lot of the audience left their seats to go check out the commotion (which we know is a big NO-NO in the live performance world!). Once things settled down, the audience came back into the auditorium, ready for the concert to resume.
The Four Nightingales, particularly Julius, were a bit miffed over the interruption and decided to heckle the audience. Julius said, “Nacogdoches is full of roaches!” along with some other colorful wordplay. Instead of being insulted, the crowd of hearty Texans laughed at the joke. In fact, they responded better to the group’s comedy than they did to their serious music.
That event, along with other instances on that tour gave the group pause and caused them to rethink their ratio of music to comedy.
They began to present more comedy in their performances with some fun music thrown in.
The Four Nightingales sing a different tune, with different names
By now, you’ve probably guessed that I’m talking about the Marx Brothers, Leonard, Arthur, Julius, Milton, and Herbert. If you still don’t recognize those names, this might help.
During a card game in Illinois with their friend, and fellow comedian, Art Fisher, they were knighted with their now-famous nicknames. Art tossed out names as he dealt the cards. Leonard was given the name Chick-o because he had a fondness for the opposite sex, who were affectionately called ‘chicks’. Julius received the nickname, Groucho, maybe because of his occasional moody demeanor, maybe because of the grouch bag in which he carried his personal belongings.
Arthur was easy – just call him Harpo, since he played the harp. Milton, who was one of the original Three Nightingales, liked the fashionable gumshoes that detectives wore. He was also a pretty sneaky guy, so he got the name Gummo.
Their new catchy nicknames gave them a boost in their fame. With the help of their Uncle Al, they further developed their stage personas. Since Arthur, Harpo, was not comfortable to talk or sing in front of an audience, he decided to pantomime his actions; his character never spoke. He wore a long, over-sized trench coat and carried a clown horn. He could communicate more with that horn that most people can with words. His harp playing was often masked by the comedy sketches but it is certainly there.
Julius, who was known for being a bit moody, was Groucho and added that facet of himself to his stage persona. His quick-witted sarcasm could blast insults at the other actors before they knew what hit them. He wore a fancy tuxedo with tails but his funny, iconic walk made him less sophisticated than he would hope.
Leonard, Chico, developed a fake Italian accent and played the piano with such humor; he is one of my all-time favorite pianists.
And now you know what happened, “One Night at the Opera.”
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