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Frank Crowley Band

Frank Crowley, whose career started at De La Salle High School in London began his professional life by playing in Archie Cunningham's Royal Marines in the early thirties. He then must have made the journey to play in England since Jack Fallon in his autobiography "From The Top" writes

"Frank Crowley had recently returned from London England where he had been playing at the Kit Kat club with the Canadian band led by Billy Bissett . The trio for the new club was Frank on Alto, Jack Burrows on piano and me on base, the gig was super. Frank was a real charmer with a great personality, which made the date a pleasure. Being the new boy he made it very easy for me. Jack Burrows also a real gentleman was very quiet and just got on with the job.

The following spring Franks band was booked for the summer season at the new open-air dance spot at Port Stanley on Lake Erie. The Trio were augmented to a 10 piece band. The new band was quite successful and between seasons we had bookings for a two weeks spot, including a broadcast, at the Palais Royal, Sunnyside, Toronto, followed by one nighters at the Jubilee Pavilion Oshawa, and Mohawk Park, Brantford. The winter season we played the Masonic Temple in London and the following summer, we opened at Springbank Pavilion amusement park which was located on Springbank Drive, just outside the village of Byron 7 miles west of London.

This was a big success, the place was packed six nights a week. Jitney dancing was in operation. This is the type of dancing, where the man has to pay for every dance he has. This was followed by a winter season for Herbert Paine at Rye’s Pavilion on the Otonabee River in Peterborough. It was a winter wonderland a great experience and I met some truly wonderful people that winter."

Frank Crowley's Band was stacked with talent including Doug Baker trombone, a future bandleader, Reg Saville sax, a prolific arranger, Jack Fallon bass, who was to become a world-famous player and of course lead sax Archie Cunningham who was both playing with groups and leading his own band when required. The band became known as London's finest in the late thirties

Unfortunately Frank's health became more and more of a problem and in the early 1940's he had to disband. Doug Baker took over the remnants of the group and was very successful as described elsewhere on this website.

Frank Crowley died on December 12th 1943, age 34, at Hotel Dieu in Windsor where his brother lived. The London Free Press recorded his obituary and funeral details and they are shown in the slideshow (thanks to the research by James Reaney of the London Free press)