KARL KING
“Mister, can you tell me where the circus lot is?” asked the tall lanky eighteen-year-old Karl King.
“Yep, it’s right down that road, son. But if you’re looking for the show, it left a week ago—where it went I don’t know,” answered the old man as he walked on down the street.
Karl, laying his baritone horn carefully on the ground, sank wearily to the curb. Taking a crumpled letter from his pocket, he read it again. “Yes, the Yankee Robinson Show bandmaster did say that I was to report here in Emporia, Kansas, today for a job,” he said to himself. “And here I am with just eighty-seven cents in my pocket, and the circus has left town.”
Fortunately for him a circus follower, who had been left behind, came along the street and stopped to question the dejected-looking young man:
“The Yankee Robinson Shows? Come on with me. I’m following them too. They went off without me, but we’ll catch them.”
With his help Karl caught up with the circus a few days later and began a career that has made history.
Karl King, a true Midwesterner, was born in Paintersville, Ohio, February 21, 1891 to Sandusky L. and Anna King. Before he could walk, Karl’s parents noticed his fascination for music, and when very young he began to study music. He sold papers on the streets of Canton to make money to buy his first horn.
Karl’s urge for writing and composing was the talk of the neighborhood. His first march written at fourteen was sold three years later for ten dollars. Shortly after this a road show piano player gave him a lesson in harmony and taught him to play chords on the piano, and that was the only technical instruction he was to have outside of his own study. Like Herbert Clarke, Karl King is a self-educated musician.
He became baritone soloist with Thayer Military Academy Band of Canton, Ohio, at sixteen. Other similar jobs followed with such organizations as Weddemeyer’s Band of Columbus, Ohio, and the Soldier’s Home Band of Danville, Illinois.
This was work he enjoyed, but it was necessary for him to help support himself. At the age of thirteen he began setting type and doing other odd jobs for the newspaper, the Canton, Ohio, Repository, even trying his hand at reporting.
Then at eighteen came the exciting letter offering him a job with the Yankee Robinson Circus. That changed the pattern of his life and he began trouping.
The combined Sells-Floto and Buffalo Bill Wild West Show owner soon heard about this young musician and hired him for their bandmaster. His fame spread, and at the age of twenty-three he was directing the Barnum and Bailey Circus Band, the youngest man ever to hold that position.
As the circus traveled from one place to another, Karl would find a quiet corner where he could compose music. He knew that better music was needed for the circus, and he wrote original and catchy marches and waltzes which were very popular with the performers.
While the circus was at Madison Garden in New York City, Lillian Leitzel, the great woman aerialist, asked him to write some special music for her act as she had never liked her music. King, inspired by her beauty and grace, wrote a special waltz for her act. The melody and rhythm gave her wings she insisted, and for the rest of her life she refused to have any change made in her musical accompaniment.
“In 1918,” said King, “I thought I should settle down and devote more time to my composing.” So he left the circus life and returned to Canton, Ohio, where he became the conductor of the famous Grand Army Band.
Two years later Karl King went to Fort Dodge, Iowa, to lead their municipal band, “the premier concert band of Iowa.” He established there the Karl King Publishing Company which he still owns and manages.
In spite of his colorful career, Karl King, a handsome, six-foot-four-inch giant with piercing dark eyes, is noted for his modesty and unassuming manners.
But he has reason to boast about many things. He has numerous devoted friends in the musical world who realize what he has done. He is past president of the American Bandmasters’ Association and of the Iowa Bandmasters’ Association. For years this militant and enthusiastic champion of bands and band music has been a guest conductor of massed band festivals in nearly every state in the Union.
Karl King has written more than 200 compositions, some of which most people have heard in various places or over the radio. Among the college marches he wrote are: Hawkeye Glory for the University of Iowa; Mighty Minnesota for the University of Minnesota; The War March of the Tartars for Wayne University; and Pride of the Illini for the University of Illinois; and Michigan on Parade for University of Michigan. Ponderoso, Barnum and Bailey Favorite March and Moonlight on the Nile waltz are also favorites.
Maestro King is married and has one son, Karl Jr. Their home and business is in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and he is proud to direct the hometown band. Fort Dodge is proud of Karl King who, since 1920, has advertised their town the country over with one of the few big bands that has had a continuous existence of many years.
