Henry Halstead

Henry Halstead (November 16, 1897 – March 19, 1984) was an American bandleader.

Henry Halstead was born November 16, 1897, in El Paso, Texas, and died on March 19, 1984, in California.

As a young boy, he learned to play violin.

After studying the violin for ten years, he turned professional when at 19, playing clubs and hotels.

In 1919, he played violin Abe Lyman and Gus Arnheim.

They were in a band at the Sunset Inn in Santa Monica, California, with Lyman on drums Gus Arnheim on piano.

Roy Fox played the trumpet on occasion with them.

The early Henry Halstead Orchestra during the early 1920s was enormously successful at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco for about three years.

He broadcast on KGO in San Francisco for about an hour a night, six nights a week.

His band became the best known organization in the western United States and Hawaii.

His orchestra began in early 1922 and over the next twenty years had regular engagements at hotels in New York and California.

Halstead had from 15 to 20 band members at any given time.

His orchestra appeared in numerous short subjects on the screen and made over 100 records, mainly with Victor Records.

He appeared in short films released by RKO Radio.

After rising to fame on radio and on the west coast, his orchestra was named the Favorite Band of Movieland.

His fans included Marion Davies, Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Kay Francis, Rudolph Valentino, Roscoe Arbuckle, Maurice Chevalier, Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Clive Brook, Gary Cooper, Marian Nixon, Jack Oakie, Buddy Rogers, and Ruth Chatterton.

In 1923 Halstead, then director of the Palais Royal Orchestra, predicted for the coming year that even though dance steps may change, the tempo and rhythm will remain about the same as in 1922.

And jazz, minus the shrieking and wailing, toned down with even a touch more of the classical than the case in the year now coming to a close, will continue to reign supreme in the popularity of dance fans.

"Balance of harmony is the secret," Mr. Halstead said.

"Careful selection of instruments and musicians are next in importance, but unless harmony is perfectly balanced, that soft, dreamy effect so necessary in the modern fox trot is lost."

The Buescher phone, an unusual instrument for a dance orchestra, is featured in the Palais Royal Orchestra.

This band broke up in the late summer of 1925.

Halstead decided that he would go out on his own and form a band.

The band consisted of Abe Maule, Chuck Moll, Craig Leach, Ernie Reed, Glenn Hopkins, Hal Chanslor, Phil Harris, Ross Dugat, Ted Schilling, and Zebe Mann.

When they joined Halstead in Seattle, the band was a huge success.

In the spring of 1926, the Halstead band went to Los Angeles to play Miller's Lafayette.

Red Nichols joined the band for this opening.

While Halstead and his family were living in San Bernardino, California, he and his band were playing at some of the local night spots in town.

He needed to live close due to his ailing parents.

In March 1944 he was making visits to one of the local mountain communities by the name of Big Bear.

He enjoyed the area and was losing many of his band members to the draft.

He himself was beyond the draft age and did not serve in World War II.

It was a time for change and he moved his family to Big Bear Lake where he bought into a partnership on one of the local night spots known as Navajo Ballroom.

By May 1946 Halstead sold his interest in the Navajo Ballroom and entered into a partnership with Etienne Noir in the local airport.

While at the airport he met an old Hollywood acquaintance by the name of Andy Devine who was active in making western films and TV shows.

Devine had a partnership in a pilot school with a Hollywood stunt pilot by the name of Dick Probert.

The three of them entered into a partnership in the airport and a local restaurant by the name of the Sportsman's Tavern.

Upon leaving the Big Bear area, Halstead and his family moved to San Francisco, where he booked talent at the St. Francis Hotel for a couple of years.

For a short time they were in Los Angeles and then by 1953 he was working at the Westward Ho Talent Booking in Phoenix, Arizona.

From February 1955 to November 1958 he was owner and operating broker of a real estate company in the Phoenix area.