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.