Red Ingle
Ernest Jansen "Red" Ingle (November 7, 1906 – September 6, 1965) was an American musician, singer and songwriter, arranger, cartoonist and caricaturist. He is best known for his comedy records with Spike Jones and his own Natural Seven sides for Capitol. Personal life Ingle was born in Toledo, Ohio, on November 7, 1906. He was taught basic violin from age five by Fritz Kreisler, a family friend. However at 13, he took up the saxophone, and that instrument later became his main instrument. Ingle received a music scholarship and studied at the Toledo American College of Music, playing classical music on a concert level. Ingle was also influenced by the country fiddlers he had heard; he was able to play their songs in their style as well as the classics in a traditional pose. At 15 he was playing professionally with Al Amato, and by his late teens, Ingle was touring steadily with the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, along with future jazz legends Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. A graduate of Toledo's Scott High School, at one time he intended to become a teacher. Ingle left the College of Music in 1926 to become a full-time musician when he married Edwina Alice Smith. He joined Ted Weems' Orchestra in 1931, after briefly being a bandleader himself, and working under Maurice Sherman. His work with Weems was such a success that they worked together into the 1940s. Singer Perry Como later called Ingle 'one of the most talented men I've ever met.' A pilot since 1924, Ingle wrote the Army Air Forces "I've Got Wings" manual as part of his wartime work at the Civil Aeronautics Administration. A talented leather carver whose saddles were in demand by celebrities, he also taught the skill in Veterans' hospitals during this time. One of Ingle's carved saddles was on exhibit at the Golden Gate International Exposition World's fair in San Francisco in 1939: a saddle carved with images illustrating the history of the state of California. Ingle's son, Don, followed his father into the music business in 1949. The City Slickers After he failed an eye test for the Air Force, he returned to music with Spike Jones & His City Slickers, where his comedic talents and flair for vocal effects found a welcoming home. Jones started featuring him as a frontman immediately, and Ingle's stage presence helped transform the City Slickers' stage act into something more visual than before. With Ingle's input, the band gradually became a complete stage package that would eventually peak (after his departure in 1946) in the late 1940s and early 1950s with the successful Musical Depreciation Revue. "There was nobody in the band as funny as Red," said Zep Meissner, the band's clarinetist; "guys like him were funny in themselves, they didn't need material." An example of his routine appears in the film Bring on the Girls, where he takes off the vaudeville song "Chloe." He would run on in a frightwig, combat boots and a nightgown, while waving