Les’ Boyhood
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Les was born in March of 1912 and raised in Tower City, Pennsylvania, the son of R.W. Brown, a baker and musician. “My father’s love was music,” said Les, during an interview conducted in April of 1996, “but he was a baker so we could eat.” R.W.’s instrument of choice was the trombone, but with his three brothers he played soprano sax in a sax quartet that performed the most popular music of the day, the marches written by John Phillips Sousa. And since Sousa was known as the “March King,” R.W. Brown earned the sobriquet, “March Prince.”
As the son of the March Prince, young Les Brown was playing music almost as soon as he could walk. His father, who taught music to all his sons as well as to other people in the neighborhood, introduced him first to the cornet. But Les preferred the smooth sound of his dad’s soprano sax, and it was on that instrument that he excelled. “I took to it right away,” he said, “like fleas to a dog.” By the age of nine, Les joined his pro band, hindered only by his lack of proper attire: “The only problem was that I didn’t have any long pants at the time,” he recalled. “A guy who lived next door to us who was 16 and very short, and I borrowed his pants so I didn’t have to play in short pants.”
By the age of 14, Les Brown was already a seasoned professional, and he started what would be the first of many bands, The Royal Serenaders. Playing the pop hits of the day, like “Barney Google,” the seven-piece ensemble would perform mostly at school dances. Les was inspired by the music to make it his living, and also by his desire to escape the drudgery of his father’s bakery, where he toiled from 5:30 am to 7:30 am before school, and then for many more hours after.
Recognizing Les’ abundant musical gifts, father asked son if, rather than going to the public high school, he’d like to study music at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. “I said ‘Yes’ right away,” Les remembered, “because I loved music, but I wanted to get out of that bake shop, too.”
