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Pee Wee Hunt
Hunt in 1941
Background information
Birth name	Walter Gerhardt Hunt
Born	(1907-05-10)May 10, 1907 Mount Healthy, Ohio, U.S.
Died	June 22, 1979(1979-06-22) (aged 72) Plymouth, Massachusetts, U.S.
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Trombonist, vocalist, bandleader
Instrument	Trombone

Walter Gerhardt "Pee Wee" Hunt (May 10, 1907 – June 22, 1979) was an American jazz trombonist, vocalist, and bandleader. Hunt was born in Mount Healthy, Ohio. He developed a musical interest at an early age, as his mother, Sadie, played the banjo and his father, Edgar C., played violin. He had a younger sister, Marian, and younger brother, Raymond. The teenage Hunt was a banjoist with a local band while he was attending college at Ohio State University, where he majored in Electrical Engineering, and during his college years he switched from banjo to trombone. He graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He joined Jean Goldkette's Orchestra in 1928.

Hunt was the co-founder and featured trombonist with the Casa Loma Orchestra, but he left the group in 1943 to work as a Hollywood radio disc jockey, before joining the Merchant Marine near the end of World War II. He returned to the West Coast music scene in 1946. His "Twelfth Street Rag" was a three-million-selling number-one hit in September 1948. He was satirized as Pee Wee Runt and his All-Flea Dixieland Band in Tex Avery's animated MGM cartoon Dixieland Droopy (1954). His second major hit was "Oh!" (1953), his second million-selling disc, which reached number three in the Billboard chart.

At age 72, Hunt died after a long illness in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Hunt and his wife, Ruth, had a daughter, Holly, and a son, Lawrence.

References

1. ^ Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 1209x. ISBN 0-85112-939-0.
2. ^ "Pee Wee Hunt - Hollywood Star Walk - Los Angeles Times". Projects.latimes.com. 1979-06-24. Retrieved 2015-08-17.
3. ^ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 44. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
4. ^ Biographical notes by Roger St. Peirre on LP record MFP1151 Twelfth Street Rag
5. Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 65. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.

External links

• Famous King players: Pee Wee Hunt
• Allmusic
• Outlet.historicimages.com : 1959 Press Photo Pee Wee Hunt
• Pee Wee Hunt recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

• American jazz trombonists
• American male trombonists
• Capitol Records artists
• 1907 births
• 1979 deaths
• People from Plymouth, Massachusetts
• Ohio State University College of Engineering alumni
• 20th-century American trombonists
• People from Mount Healthy, Ohio
• Jazz musicians from Massachusetts
• Jazz musicians from Ohio
• 20th-century American male musicians
• American male jazz musicians
• Casa Loma Orchestra members