It's not a very comfortable day here in the beloved commonwealth. As of this writing, our air quality is in code orange status, meaning that I'm not looking forward to going outside. Just as it was two years ago this week, our air is again being a bit clogged by smoke drifting down from the Canadian wildfires.
Things are busy here. Last week, my mother's last surviving aunt, my very dear Great-Aunt Gene, celebrated her 100th birthday! Naturally, we've been very caught up in preparing for that. One of her sons even arranged for her picture to appear on the Jumbotron at a Phillies game (she loves the Phillies). She's not a reader of the blog, but she's always been interested in hearing about the things I learn while researching my posts, so I thought it was fitting to mention her here.
This week's post is a bit of an odd one, because the Pennsylvania connection feels to me like a little bit of a stretch. The subject itself, however, is quite interesting.
The story begins in Bellefonte, that charming riverside community in Centre County, where William Mills owned a barbershop on High Street. He was a local Jubilee Singer, which means that he was part of a group which specialized in religious African-American songs. These usually referred to a time of future happiness - hence the term 'jubilee.' The Mills family was very musical, as a general rule, and that became more and more evident as time marched forward.
William and his wife, the former Agnes Simms, had five children, with quite a bit of an age gap between some. Their oldest child, son Quinn, was born in 1869; the youngest, John, was born twenty years later. John is the one whose legacy formed the basis of this blog post. As a young man, he moved west to Piqua, Ohio, where he and his wife Eathel became the parents of seven children - Pauline, Margaret, Dorothea, John Jr., Herbert, Harry, and Donald. Like his father, John Sr. was a barber with his own shop, and also like his father, he was a singer. He created his own barbershop quartet known as the Four Kings of Harmony. As his children grew up, they likewise demonstrated the family musical talent and would sing in church choirs.
The four boys in particular liked to sing together. After school they would perform on street corners or in front of their father's shop, eventually coming to greater public notice when they entered an amateur competition at the local opera house. It was there that Harry, realizing he had misplaced the kazoo he was supposed to play as part of their performance, instead used his own voice to imitate a trumpet. He and his brothers were so amused by the result that they used it in subsequent performances, with Herbert pretending to be a second trumpet and Donald a trombone. I can't find a confirmation of whether or not they won that contest at the opera house, but it's known that they did afterward perform there between movie showings.
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| The Mills Brothers in 1944; photographer unknown, courtesy of WikiCommons. Upper left is Harry, upper right is John Jr., lower left is Donald, lower right is Herbert. |
From there, the brothers' fame quite simply skyrocketed. Their first recording for Brunswick Records, "Tiger Rag," reached number one on the charts. In 1932 they made their screen debut in The Big Broadcast, with Cab Calloway and Bing Crosby; they would go on to appear in a total of twenty films. They recorded many times with Louis Armstrong and performed 27 times on Bing Crosby's CBS radio show. And in 1934, they made world history by becoming the first Black artists to give a command performance for British royalty; they sang at the Regal Theatre for King George V and Queen Mary (the grandparents of Elizabeth II). Their mother was even allowed to sit in the royal box with the monarchs.
Tragedy struck the family not long after this, sadly. John Jr. was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and died in January of 1936. He was only 25 years old. Rather than dissolve the group, Eathel suggested that John Sr. step in to take his place as the band's guitarist and bass singer. He did so, and they spent a couple years in Europe performing for the soldiers in World War II; brother Harry was drafted for the Army, so a non-relative, Gene Smith, was invited to step in and provide the necessary harmonies for a while. He participated in some of the group's film appearances as well.
The family continued to record many hits, including "Lazy River," "Ain't Misbehavin'," and the classic "It Don't Mean a Thing." As rock and roll came onto the scene and replaced the Big Band era, they shifted their own repertoire to reflect this. Of particular note, their 1952 hit "Glow Worm" did extremely well on the charts and became their fifth record to sell one million copies. John Sr., now in his seventies, decided to retire in 1956, but his sons continued to perform as a trio, as well as making guest appearances on various television programs. Their final hit, "Cab Driver," was released in 1968. Their success broke barriers in the racially charged and frequently segregated first half of the 20th century, and they weren't always treated with the respect they deserved, but it was remembered of them later that they didn't complain. Sammy Davis Jr. once remarked that he could not have done what he did without the Mills Brothers having first paved the way.
In 1976, the brothers celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in show business with a tribute hosed by their old friend Bing Crosby. All three of them were beginning to decline in health, however; Harry, who had diabetes, was going blind. They continued to play until his death in 1982, after which Herbert and Donald performed as a duo until Herbert died in 1989. Donald, the last surviving brother, took to performing alongside his son John; he lived long enough to accept the family's Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1998, passing away from pneumonia the following year.
Today, John Mills (Donald's son) continues to tour under the name of the Mills Brothers. He performed alongside Elmer Hopper, formerly of The Platters, and sometimes John's brother, Donald Jr., would join them as well. Since Hopper's death in 2019, John has performed with Randy Taylor. In his own words, he continues to perform so that the Mills Brothers will have their legacy protected and receive the respect they didn't always get when they were alive.
"The Mills Brothers," he said in one interview, "is a brand name. My father and my uncles took a great deal of time to imbue it with a tremendous amount of value. There are all sorts of people out there now who are exploiting and cheapening the names of great bands and family groups; you're lucky if a cousin or a second cousin of the original members is involved. I felt there was a real danger of that happening to the Mills Brothers."
Meanwhile, back in the Pennsylvania birthplace of John Mills Sr., a historical marker identifies the place where William Mills had his barbershop and sang Jubilee. Today it's an eatery called the Governors' Pub, named for the four Pennsylvania governors who also called Bellefonte home at one time or another, but it's a significant spot in the history of music and the breaking down of racial barriers in the industry.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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