Anson Weeks (February 14, 1896,

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

– February 7, 1969,

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

) was an American pianist and the leader of a popular west coast dance band from the late 1920s through the 1960s, primarily in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He made his first recording in Oakland on February 7, 1925, but it was not issued. He formed his first band in 1924 and had key hotel jobs in Oakland and Sacramento. By the late 1920s he led a popular regional orchestra and started recording for Columbia in 1928. He garnerered favorable attention in late 1931 on the " Lucky Strike Magic Carpet" radio program. His vocalists included Art Wilson, Harriet Lee,

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Bob Crosby George Robert Crosby (August 23, 1913 – March 9, 1993) was an American jazz singer and bandleader, best known for his group the Bob-Cats, which formed around 1935. The Bob-Cats were a New Orleans Dixieland-style jazz octet. He was the young ...

Carl Ravazza Carl Ravazza (July 21, 1910 – July 28, 1968), also known professionally as Carl Ravell, was an American violinist, vocalist and bandleader. Born in Alameda, California, Ravazza was a violinist who also started singing when he was in the Anson ...

, Kay St. Germaine, and Bob Gage. In 1932, he signed with Brunswick and recorded prolifically for them through 1935. During this time, his was one of Brunswick's premier bands and was nationally popular. He later did a session for

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...

in 1937. Weeks was involved in an auto accident in 1941 and was out of the band business for several years, starting up again in the late 1940s. He signed with the local

Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

label in the early 1950s and did a series of dance albums (''Dancin' With Anson'') that were quite popular regionally (and were still in the catalog through the 1970s). His songs include "I'm Writing You This Little Melody" (theme song), "I'm Sorry Dear", "Senorita", "That Same Old Dream", and "We'll Get A Bang Out Of Life".

Death

He died in

, in 1969, one week before his 73rd birthday.

References

Bibliography

*''American Dance Bands on Record and Film (1915-1942)'', first edition, Compiled by Richard J. Johnson & Bernard H. Shirley, Rustbooks, 2009

External links

* * ,

Harriet Lee (singer) Harriet Lee was an American radio singer during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1920s–1930s. She was best known as a blues contralto on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and, later, NBC Radio Networks. Called the "Songbird of the Air", ...

with Anson Weeks and his Orchestra (

Brunswick Records Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916. History From 1916 Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing prod ...

#6569, 1933). {{DEFAULTSORT:Weeks, Anson 1896 births 1969 deaths American bandleaders Musicians from Oakland, California 20th-century American conductors (music)