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Almost Famous
(A Parody Diversion)
Almost Famous :
Wingy Malone |
Born in New Orleans to Irish immigrants, Joe Malone played trumpet and cornet with various local bands before he started to travel around the U.S.A. in the 1920s and 1930s picking up work in a variety of cities. He occasionally sat in with well known bands of the time and admired the style of Miff Mole, Bud Freeman, Ben Pollock and Joe Venuti.
Joe settled in Chicago for a while and to pay his rent, worked during the day at KFC where he acquired his nickname, 'Wingy'. Unfortunately he was eventually fired for constantly getting too close to the deep fat fryer. She was fired too for encouraging him.
He was obliged to move on through California and Canada and in the 1940s tried to break into the BeBop scene, again working days at a KFC in New York where he became addicted to the Boneless Banquet and was admitted for treatment at the Battery Food Clinic in Kentucky. Sadly, he never played again.
'Who was it that gave Wingy one cufflink as a Christmas present?'
I think you are referring to Joe Venuti who used to send trumpeter Wingy Manone a single cufflink. Wingy Malone never wore cufflinks, he used chicken wishbones to secure his cuffs when he was playing but when he was working at KFC he simply wore a T-shirt that said 'Bird Lives'. This got him into quite a few problems with customers who thought that KFC used dead chickens for their popcorn chicken and boneless dips.
Wingy's favourite tune : Charlie Parker playing Chasin' The Bird
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