Biography
Known as the "whispering pianist," Art Gillham launched his recording career in the early 1920s and sustained it without interruption until the middle of the 1950s. The sheer volume of achievements, commercial discs, and published sheet music that resulted forms an imposing pile; a hushed delivery might indeed be advisable to avoid overwhelming any listener. Long before most entertainers considered widespread visibility essential, Gillham pioneered the notion of broad public exposure by performing across roughly 300 separate radio outlets during an era without national networks, highlighted by an innovative 1924 election-night hookup that linked eighteen stations.
He participated in some of the earliest commercial releases made with the new electric recording process and joined one of the first public demonstrations of television in 1939. Among vocalists, he ranked as one of the initial recipients of the “crooner” designation.
Although his birthplace was St. Louis, Gillham’s family roots lay in Atlanta; the delivery occurred during a family trip. His father had served as a Texas Ranger, while his mother supplied the household’s chief musical guidance through her piano playing. She placed her son at the keyboard at age five, and by 1900 the family had settled permanently in St. Louis, where the local ragtime tradition left a clear mark on him. In 1914 he left school and began working with dance bands on the West Coast, among them his own Art Gillham & His Society Syncopators. The following year he returned to the Midwest and issued his first original composition, “Hesitation Blues,” though credit for the piece was taken by others at Mills Music for more than ten years. Both Gillham’s melody and a comparable piece issued around the same time by W.C. Handy drew on identical traditional sources.
During the First World War Gillham enlisted and qualified as a marksman. After the armistice he took employment as a song plugger and sales manager for Chicago publisher Ted Browne, a role that involved traveling nationwide to demonstrate new numbers at variety stores and similar venues. He frequently accompanied vocalists, one of whom became his wife. He also began cutting piano rolls and appeared on radio by 1922. When challenged to sing during a WBBM broadcast in Chicago, his subdued delivery prompted the “whispering pianist” nickname.
Gillham adopted “Whispering” as his theme for live and broadcast work yet never committed it to disc. He did, however, record hundreds of other titles, starting with an unreleased 1924 Gennett session and extending through a decade-long association with Columbia. Additional sides appeared on labels such as Pathe under assumed names including Fred Thomas, and he made blues recordings as Barrelhouse Pete. His own composition “You May Be Lonesome” was among the first numbers captured with the Western Electric electrical system that soon became standard.
Gillham cultivated a deliberately comic stage persona that contradicted nearly every aspect of his actual life, including his technical accomplishments. He presented himself as an overweight, balding, dim-witted Georgia farm boy perpetually unlucky in romance, whereas he was in fact tall, slender, attractive, quick-witted, and contentedly married. Many observers regard 1927 as the height of his popularity, when his performance calendar remained full and each appearance generated extensive press coverage. Attendance figures he set at Atlanta’s Grand Theater stood until the premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.
Although most of his discs were made alone or with minimal violin support, he occasionally recorded with the Southland Syncopators, a studio ensemble drawn from Columbia’s regular musicians that included trumpeter Red Nichols, multi-instrumentalist Andy Sannella, drummer Miff Mole, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Throughout the late 1920s Gillham continued touring theaters, often using the device of an onstage telephone to converse with an imaginary sweetheart who had supposedly just rejected him. After the 1929 stock-market crash he lost nearly his entire savings; subsequent bank failures and the broader economic downturn further damaged his finances, yet he maintained several CBS programs, among them Syncopated Pessimism, which typically ended with the question “Have you got a cup of coffee in your pocket?”
During the 1930s he tried various locales, including Texas, where he received an honorary Texas Ranger commission in honor of his father. In 1937 he returned to Atlanta, combining broadcasting with a sales-manager position at a local business school. While such business duties occupied much of his time through the 1940s and 1950s, he kept recording at home, again keeping pace with technology by experimenting with early reel-to-reel tape machines. He also maintained regional radio and television appearances. A heart attack in 1955 curtailed his playing, and a second attack followed several years later. A third heart attack ended his life one summer morning in 1961 as he rose from bed.
He participated in some of the earliest commercial releases made with the new electric recording process and joined one of the first public demonstrations of television in 1939. Among vocalists, he ranked as one of the initial recipients of the “crooner” designation.
Although his birthplace was St. Louis, Gillham’s family roots lay in Atlanta; the delivery occurred during a family trip. His father had served as a Texas Ranger, while his mother supplied the household’s chief musical guidance through her piano playing. She placed her son at the keyboard at age five, and by 1900 the family had settled permanently in St. Louis, where the local ragtime tradition left a clear mark on him. In 1914 he left school and began working with dance bands on the West Coast, among them his own Art Gillham & His Society Syncopators. The following year he returned to the Midwest and issued his first original composition, “Hesitation Blues,” though credit for the piece was taken by others at Mills Music for more than ten years. Both Gillham’s melody and a comparable piece issued around the same time by W.C. Handy drew on identical traditional sources.
During the First World War Gillham enlisted and qualified as a marksman. After the armistice he took employment as a song plugger and sales manager for Chicago publisher Ted Browne, a role that involved traveling nationwide to demonstrate new numbers at variety stores and similar venues. He frequently accompanied vocalists, one of whom became his wife. He also began cutting piano rolls and appeared on radio by 1922. When challenged to sing during a WBBM broadcast in Chicago, his subdued delivery prompted the “whispering pianist” nickname.
Gillham adopted “Whispering” as his theme for live and broadcast work yet never committed it to disc. He did, however, record hundreds of other titles, starting with an unreleased 1924 Gennett session and extending through a decade-long association with Columbia. Additional sides appeared on labels such as Pathe under assumed names including Fred Thomas, and he made blues recordings as Barrelhouse Pete. His own composition “You May Be Lonesome” was among the first numbers captured with the Western Electric electrical system that soon became standard.
Gillham cultivated a deliberately comic stage persona that contradicted nearly every aspect of his actual life, including his technical accomplishments. He presented himself as an overweight, balding, dim-witted Georgia farm boy perpetually unlucky in romance, whereas he was in fact tall, slender, attractive, quick-witted, and contentedly married. Many observers regard 1927 as the height of his popularity, when his performance calendar remained full and each appearance generated extensive press coverage. Attendance figures he set at Atlanta’s Grand Theater stood until the premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.
Although most of his discs were made alone or with minimal violin support, he occasionally recorded with the Southland Syncopators, a studio ensemble drawn from Columbia’s regular musicians that included trumpeter Red Nichols, multi-instrumentalist Andy Sannella, drummer Miff Mole, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Throughout the late 1920s Gillham continued touring theaters, often using the device of an onstage telephone to converse with an imaginary sweetheart who had supposedly just rejected him. After the 1929 stock-market crash he lost nearly his entire savings; subsequent bank failures and the broader economic downturn further damaged his finances, yet he maintained several CBS programs, among them Syncopated Pessimism, which typically ended with the question “Have you got a cup of coffee in your pocket?”
During the 1930s he tried various locales, including Texas, where he received an honorary Texas Ranger commission in honor of his father. In 1937 he returned to Atlanta, combining broadcasting with a sales-manager position at a local business school. While such business duties occupied much of his time through the 1940s and 1950s, he kept recording at home, again keeping pace with technology by experimenting with early reel-to-reel tape machines. He also maintained regional radio and television appearances. A heart attack in 1955 curtailed his playing, and a second attack followed several years later. A third heart attack ended his life one summer morning in 1961 as he rose from bed.