Music Man

This is the biography, written with the full cooperation of his family and of leading personalities in the world of marching bands, of one of the most significant figures in the American band movement: Frank Simon. Frank Simon was John Philip Sousa's assistant conductor and cornet soloist. In the 1930s and 1940s, he took over Sousa's mantle and became one of America's most popular radio personalities and then one of its principal musical educators, honored by his profession and by universities all over the nation. Frank Simon was a charming, funny, sometimes difficult personality whose worst fault, according to his son Joseph, was 'He didn't live long enough.' This is his story: the warm, homespun story of the son of poor immigrant parents from Middletown, Ohio who became one of the most important names in American music.