Home » Santa Clarita News » ‘Bronze Buckaroo’ Herb Jeffries, Walk Of Western Stars Honoree, Dead At 100

‘Bronze Buckaroo’ Herb Jeffries, Walk Of Western Stars Honoree, Dead At 100

Jeffries Starred in B-Westerns as First Black Singing Cowboy Hero; Crooned with Duke Ellington Orchestra in late 1930s-early 1940s

By Stephen K. Peeples

Pioneering jazz singer-Western actor Herb Jeffries, who scored hits with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the 1940s and on his own after riding to fame as “the Bronze Buckaroo,” the first black singing cowboy hero in Western movies, died Sunday, May 25, in West Hills, Calif. He was 100.


Don’t miss a thing. Get breaking Santa Clarita news alerts delivered right to your inbox.


Herb Jeffries in 2008. Photo: Stephen K. Peeples.Honored in March 2001 with a bronze saddle on the city of Santa Clarita’s Walk of Western Stars, which salutes Western performers who worked in the Santa Clarita Valley during their careers, Jeffries was the oldest surviving honoree, and the last of the silver screen’s singing cowboys inducted.

Jeffries (pictured in 2008) had been in declining health, and died of heart failure, his widow, Sarah Lee “Savannah” Jeffries, said Tuesday. After many years residing in Idyllwild, Calif., the couple had moved to Woodland Hills about a year ago, she said.

“About five days earlier, he said he wasn’t feeling well,” she said. He hadn’t improved after two days, as he usually did, she said, so she took him to nearby West Hills Hospital. Three days later, on Sunday at 10:29 a.m., his heart gave out.

“It was fast, thankfully,” Savannah Jeffries said.

A memorial service is set for Saturday, July 12, at the Self Realization Fellowship’s Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades. The family has set up a fundraising Web page to help pay funeral expenses. Details are at the end of this article.

Jeffries Celebrated 100th Birthday in 2013

Herb Jeffries hit the century mark on Sept. 24, 2013, and Café Aroma in Idyllwild threw its annual birthday party for him in his dedicated room, the Herb Jeffries Room.

A few days later, cowboy pal Marsha Taylor and friends threw another birthday celebration at the Roy Rogers Ranch in Victorville.

In November, Marvin and Teresa O’Dell and the Western Music Association honored Jeffries with a huge party.

“They called him ‘The Century Cowboy,’” Savannah Jeffries said.

He had retired from performing only a few years earlier, at age 97.

The blue-eyed Jeffries was born Umberto Alessandro Balentino in Detroit on Sept. 24, 1913.

His mother was of Irish descent, his father Sicilian, and one of his great-grandparents was from Ethiopia.

Young Herbert, who took his stepfather’s last name, Jeffrey, learned how to ride horses on his grandfather’s dairy farm in rural Michigan, and was a big fan of early cowboy movie stars like Tom Mix.

“So I’m an Italian-looking mongrel with a percentage of Ethiopian blood, which enabled me to get work with black orchestras,” Jeffries told The Oklahoman in 1974.

Herb Jeffries in the 1930sJeffries’ First Career: Jazz Singer, Discovered by Louis Armstrong, Hired by Hines

Jeffries was a noted jazz singer before he ever walked onto a movie set.

Gifted with a four-and-a-half-octave voice and a singularly smooth phrasing style, as a teen he sang with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers from 1929-1930. Two years later, jazz legend Louis Armstrong is credited with discovering the 19-year-old Jeffries, and urging him to pursue his singing career.

Armstrong gave Jeffries a note on a napkin to deliver to bandleader Irskin Tate at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. “You gotta hear this guy! — Pops,” Armstrong wrote. But then bandleader Earl “Fatha” Hines heard Jeffries sing, and promptly stole him from Tate, offering him more money. Jeffries first earned fame singing with the Hines Orchestra at Chicago’s Grand Terrace, a ballroom run by notorious gangster Al Capone.

Jeffries’ Second Career: Bronze Buckaroo, First Black Singing Cowboy Hero

Touring the South with Hines during the ‘30s, Jeffries noted how movie theaters were packed with dark-skinned people watching Hollywood Westerns starring all-white casts.

He shopped an idea for making Westerns with non-white casts and decent scripts targeting non-white audiences, but got nowhere with the major Hollywood studios or wealthy black financiers.

Finally, in 1937, Jeffries found a willing partner in B-movie producer Jed Buell, whose claim to fame was “Terror of Tinytown,” a Western musical starring little people. Buell, who was white, didn’t think Jeffries looked dark-skinned enough, and insisted the actor wear darker makeup, just to be sure black audiences weren’t confused.

The Bronze Buckaroo starring Herb Jeffries, 1939

The tall, handsome and even darker Jeffries made his big screen debut in 1937’s “Harlem on the Prairie,” casting himself as the star of the film billed as “the first all-colored Western musical.”

Directed by Sam Newfield, the film was the first of a handful of no-to-low-budget oaters Jeffries made with non-white casts and characters in roles that weren’t subservient to whites, as most roles for people of color in mainstream Hollywood films were then.

Decked out in all-black duds with silver studs and signature white Stetson, Jeffries typically played a hero named Bob Blake who rode a white steed named Stardusk, and was as handy with a pair of six-guns or a lariat as he was with a song.

“Little children of dark skin — not just Negroes, but Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, everybody of color — had no heroes in the movies,” Jeffries told The Los Angeles Times in 1998. “I was so glad to give them something to identify with.”

The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Tall in the Saddle

Sometimes billed Herbert Jeffrey, he followed “Harlem on the Prairie” with “Two-Gun Man from Harlem” in 1938, and 1939’s “The Bronze Buckaroo,” which featured a classic plot, songs like “I’m a Happy Cowboy,” and earned him the nickname he would celebrate the rest of his life. (Some would also refer to Jeffries as the “black Gene Autry,” which was fine with both of them; they were great friends, Savannah Jeffries said.)

Jeffries’ filmography also includes “Harlem Rides the Range” (1939); “Disk Jockey” (1951, co-starring with Sarah Vaughan and Tommy Dorsey); “Calypso Joe” (1957, playing the title role opposite Angie Dickinson and composing the score for his Calypsomaniacs); “Mundo Depravados” (1967 cult classic starring then-wife Tempest Storm); and the TV movie “The Cherokee Kid” (1996, playing himself in a comedy-Western opposite Sinbad, James Coburn and Gregory Hines).

In the late ‘30s, to promote his Westerns, Jeffries often hit the road with his vocal backing group, The Four Tones, driving a Cadillac with steer longhorns mounted on the hood and his name emblazoned on the doors in gold rope. His swift six-gun moves and rope tricks wowed audiences of all ages and colors.

Jeffries’ Encounter with The Duke; ‘Flamingo’ and ‘Jump for Joy’ Revue

As his Western film career took off, Jeffries was performing at the Apollo in Harlem, in his full Bronze Buckaroo getup. Bandleader Duke Ellington caught a show, and then at an Ellington gig in Detroit, invited Jeffries onstage to swing with the Orchestra. Ellington hired him as featured vocalist, and Jeffries swapped his Stetson for a dinner jacket.

Herb Jeffries and bassist Jimmy Blanton, with Duke Ellington peeking, 1941

Ellington arranger Billy Strayhorn convinced the tenor to sing baritone instead, which brought out even more of Jeffries’ naturally mellifluous tones, and, shall we say, enthusiastic response from the ladies.

The Orchestra’s 1941 recording of “Flamingo” was Jeffries’ biggest hit as a recording artist, and became his signature song. The same year, Jeffries co-headlined Ellington’s historic all-black “Jump for Joy” musical revue with Ivie Anderson, “Big” Joe Turner and new kid Dorothy Dandridge. The production ran 12 weeks at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles.

Herb Jeffries and bassist Jimmy Blanton, with Duke Ellington peeking over Jeffries’ shoulder, in the studio in 1941.

Drafted in 1942 after the U.S. entered World War II, Jeffries served in the Army assigned to a USO Special Services company that entertained U.S. troops around the world.

Jeffries’ Postwar Solo Crooning Career and Life-Changing Plane Crash

After World War II, Jeffries picked up his recording career and released singles like “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” and “Basin Street Blues.”

His biggest postwar chart hits were “When I Write My Song” (a single on the Exclusive label that charted July 12, 1947, and peaked at No. 21; check out the “soundie”) and “The Four Winds and the Seven Seas” (on Columbia, charting July 16, 1949 and peaking at No. 18).

In 1948, Jeffries was in a small plane crash that severely injured his back, but also led to a lifelong change in his spiritual path and physical health.

Jeffries was based in the Los Angeles area but performing in Las Vegas a lot at the time, so he earned a pilot’s license and bought his own plane to fly back and forth.

On one quick trip home to visit his family, his plane wasn’t serviced and ready in time for the scheduled return trip. So Jeffries’ pal Mickey Rooney, who had the same kind of plane, loaned Jeffries his aircraft. Jeffries didn’t want to fly himself, so he hired a local pilot, and after takeoff, took a nap.

Herb Jeffries and Paramahansa Yogananda, Jan. 5, 1952The pilot made a navigation error (he’d put a magnetic ashtray on the dash, which messed up the compass), and by the time he woke Jeffries up, the plane was nearly out of gas. The plane crash-landed near Laughlin, Nev., and Jeffries suffered major back injuries.

While he was recovering, in severe pain and facing risky back surgery, one of Jeffries’ aunts gave him a copy of “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Indian-born Paramahansa Yogananda, who had founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in California in 1920.

Jeffries went to Los Angeles, connected with Yogananda, and after several months of practicing yoga and meditation with the master, finally found relief from his back pain, without the risky surgery.

This began a deep friendship between Yogananda, known also to his followers as “Guruji,” and Jeffries, who they nicknamed “Guruji’s buddy” because they spent so much time together.

Herb Jeffries and Paramahansa Yogananda in Los Angeles, Jan. 5, 1952.

“They would swim together in Lake Shrine,” Savannah Jeffries said, until Yogananda died on March 7, 1952, of heart failure at age 59.

Jeffries lost his “Guruji” then, but he never stopped practicing yoga and meditation, she said.

Army Recalls Jeffries; Nightclubs in France; Return to the States

Not much later, the Army recalled Jeffries and he served a hitch in Korea. After that, he relocated to France for several years and ran two popular jazz nightclubs, including The Flamingo in Paris. He also continued recording, releasing “Say it Isn’t So,” an album of torch ballads, in 1957.

Back in the States in the 1960s, Jeffries continued his acting career in a variety of character roles in TV series such as “Hawaii Five-0” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” and guest-starred on an episode of “The Virginian.”

He kept up a busy schedule of singing appearances at clubs and concerts well into the 1990s, appearing frequently at venues in the Los Angeles area and Southern California.

Herb Jeffries, jazz crooner for the agesLasting Impression on Later Generations

Veteran Los Angeles music journalist Charles Andrews saw and heard Herb Jeffries sing at San Fernando Valley clubs a few times in the mid-to-late 1980s, and was deeply impressed. Andrews is rarely deeply impressed.

“He was very elegantly dressed and coifed, in his 70s then — ha! — but a long way from his final bow,” Andrews said. “He was a deep-voiced crooner who could’ve ranked with any of the white ones. He didn’t swing much, but boy, could he glide. He always had a really good band, semi-big, at least seven or eight guys, with a horn section. But he would’ve been fine with just a piano accompanying him, like Nat ‘King’ Cole. He was a total professional who owned the stage. If you had never heard of him, you still knew instantly that he was…somebody.

“He was quite the crooner, but I was surprised, even shocked! to find out he had also been a black singing cowboy in the movies,” Andrews said. “Imagine. That had to be a tougher assignment than black jazz singer.”

Jeffries Honored at 1992 Autry Museum Salute to Singing Cowboys

Herb Jeffries was among the honorees at a 1992 Autry Museum tribute to the great singing cowboys of the big and small screens.

Boyd Magers, author of seven books on Western films and editor/publisher of the popular “Western Clippings” website, recalls meeting Jeffries that night.

“He asked me if I had ‘The Virginian’ episode titled ‘Stopover,” which he had done in 1969,” Magers said. “I did, so I sent it to him. About a year later, he called and said he’d loaned it to someone and never got it back, and asked me to send him another one. Sure. Another year later, he called again. This time, they’d moved and he couldn’t find it. Before he asked, I said another was on its way.

“Every time we met after that, I jokingly asked if he needed another one,” Magers said. “He was a wonderful human being. It’s the end of an era.”

Herb Jeffries, Warner Western, 1995The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again — at Age 82

The Autry event sparked a resurgence of interest in Jeffries’ films and singing career. In 1995, at age 82, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records’ short-lived Warner Western label, which was based in Nashville.

Jeffries cut an album of swinging cowboy songs titled “The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again),” backed by Michael Martin Murphy, Take Six, Little Texas, Hal Linden, Rex Allen Jr., The Mills Brothers and fellow Newhall Walk of Western Stars inductees The Sons of the San Joaquin.

“That (recording session) was very meaningful for us,” said Jack Hannah, co-founder of the Sons, the Western music trio (and sometimes quartet) that’s a founding and regular headliner at the annual Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival.

“It was the first time I had an opportunity to meet him,” Hannah said. “I didn’t realize he’d sung with Duke Ellington. He had that unbelievable tenor voice, but could also sing bass. It didn’t make a difference where it was on the scale — he could sing it. And it was obvious he loved our music, too. We were fortunate to back him on that album. That was a very rare experience.

Herb Jeffries donned his white Stetson in 1995 for “The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again).”

“He was truly gifted, vocally, and talented, but above all of that, he was a remarkable person,” he said. “He was very generous and giving. He had a great presence and knew how to make people feel comfortable around him. Even though people sat in awe of him, they never were intimidated. That’s what I noticed. He had that way of being gracious. There were no ‘little’ people around him. Everybody was a celebrity to Herb.

“I never heard him ever complain or ever put down or in any way insinuate something negative about someone, either,” Hannah said. “He either praised or he didn’t say anything. He also was a man of faith. He wasn’t shy about that. He was willing to say that he loved the Lord and that he was thankful for what Christ did on the cross for him. I’m sure that was an unusual thing, for a guy in his celebrity status to be open about. He was one of a kind.”

One stop on Jeffries’ album promotion trail was the Westwood One radio network studio in Valencia. “What a cool gentleman,” said Bob Blackburn, then a Westwood One producer stationed there.

Herb Jeffries is honored with a bronze saddle plaque on the Walk of Western Stars in Newhall, 2001Golden Boot Award, Newhall Walk of Western Stars Induction

In 1996, Jeffries received the Golden Boot Award from the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which honors actors and behind-the-camera crew members who have made significant contributions to Western films and TV shows, and helps fund the retirement home in Calabasas for veterans of the entertainment industry.

By 2001, when Herb Jeffries was inducted into the Walk of Western Stars in historic Old Town Newhall, the annual ceremony had become part of the city of Santa Clarita’s Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival (now known as the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival).

Walk of Western Stars inductee Herb Jeffries (second from left) stands by his saddle plaque in front of the El Trocadero Mesquite Grill and Cantina on Main Street in Old Town Newhall with (from left): Douglas Sink, 2001 president of the SCV Chamber of Commerce; Patty Kelly, representing State Sen. William J. “Pete” Knight (R-19th); and Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste. Immediately behind Weste is Santa Clarita City Councilman Bob Kellar. Photo: Leon Worden.

Joining Jeffries as honorees that year were Sand Canyon resident Linda Gray of “Dallas” fame, veteran Western and character actor Wilford Brimley and Santa Clarita City Councilwoman JoAnne Darcy, who’d co-founded the Walk in 1981 with Milt Diamond as a way to celebrate the lives and legacies of Western stage, film, radio and television stars who worked in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Fifth Marriage a Charm

In 2003, Jeffries and Savannah married, and notwithstanding a four-decade age difference, found peace, love and happiness together for the rest of Herb’s days. (The couple is pictured in a selfie taken on a road trip in 2012.)

Herb Jeffries and Savannah Jeffries selfie, 2012

“I arrived late in his career and life,” she wrote in a 100th birthday tribute. “At 100, he still amazes me with his in-depth multi-faceted life and sage-like wisdom and intuition. His ageless, dignified, charismatic demeanor, along with being very handsome, made it easy for me when he asked me to marry. I am 42 years younger yet he touched my heart so deeply. I said ‘yes’ because I am so comfortable by just being at his side. Being 42 years younger was not an issue due to his youth and fun-loving ways, and of course his magnetic charm.”

Jeffries Ropes in a Passel More Honors and Awards

The Cowboy Hall of Fame also inducted Jeffries in 2003, and the same year President George W. Bush invited him to The White House for a performance. Jeffries earned a standing ovation.

On Sept. 24, 2004, Jeffries received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring his music and film careers. The city of Palm Desert opened the Herb Jeffries Trail, which connected with a series of trails including one named after TV Western star Hopalong Cassidy (Bill Boyd), a frequent Jeffries riding partner.

The same year, officials at the prestigious National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum flew Jeffries and his wife to Oklahoma City for his induction into the museum’s Hall of Great Western Performers.

Actor “Buck” Taylor, veteran of the last eight seasons of TV’s “Gunsmoke” (1967-75) as Matt Dillion’s deputy Newly O’Brien and now a noted Western artist, delivered the speech inducting his longtime friend.

As a resident of Idyllwild the past several years, Jeffries was “revered and beloved by the residents of that mountaintop artists’ enclave,” Savannah Jeffries said.

He rarely missed a Walk of Western Stars ceremony or banquet in Santa Clarita, though, and always had a smile and time to talk with old friends and even fans he was meeting for the first time. In later years, unable to walk distances, he rode on a Westernized personal electric scooter.

Herb Jeffries and “Buck” Taylor crossed paths again at the Walk of Western Stars banquet, Valencia, Calif., April 25, 2008.

Herb Jeffries and Buck Taylor, Valencia, Calif., April 25, 2008Last Public Performances at Age 97

Herb Jeffries’ last public performances were three years ago, singing with a swinging big-band orchestra in Oceanside, Calif.

Utah Symphony principal clarinetist Tad Calcara, an Oceanside native and Jeffries fan, connected with the singer through a relative who knew them both. Calcara and Jeffries sat down for extensive video interviews in 2009 and 2010, and Calcara posted several clips on his YouTube channel.

They kept in touch, and in late summer 2011, Calcara invited Jeffries to perform at a benefit concert for the Oceanside School District, “to keep their instrumental elementary music program alive,” Calcara said.

“I conducted the Big Band & Jazz Hall of Fame Orchestra based in San Diego and Herb sang a lot of the old Duke Ellington pieces he did back in the ’30s and ‘40s with us,” he said. “We raised a substantial amount of money to keep the program going.

“We did a couple more programs with that same group, and Herb’s very last live public performance was in August 2011 with them,” Calcala said. “He was 97 and still remembered all the words and was able to work the audience. It was really remarkable.”

At the time of his death, Jeffries was working on an autobiography, to be titled “The Color of Love,” with longtime friend and biographer Raymond Strait, Savannah Jeffries said..

“We plan to finish the book by fall, so it should be out sometime this year,” she said.

Herb Jeffries celebrates his 100th birthday in 2013Funds Needed to Cover Funeral Costs: How to Help

Along with wife Sarah Lee “Savannah” Jeffries, Herb Jeffries is survived by three daughters and two sons, “and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” as she wrote on the family’s new crowd-funding Web page.

While he enjoyed fame, Jeffries was not financially secure in his later years, so his survivors set up a page on YouCaring.com where family, friends and fans can help pay for his burial and other funeral expenses.

Herb Jeffries greets friends at his 100th birthday celebration in fall 2013. Photo: Jack Hummel.

Donations by snail mail may also be addressed to Sarah Lee Jeffries, 131 Entrada Drive #14, Santa Monica, CA 90402.

The family also invites fans and well-wishers to share pictures, videos and condolences and make inquiries via Herb.Jeffries.Memorial@gmail.com, she said.

Herb Jeffries Memorial Service at Self Realization Fellowship July 12

The Self Realization Fellowship will hold a memorial service for Herb Jeffries at The Temple on the Fellowship’s Lake Shrine, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades 90272, on Saturday, July 12. Brother Achalananda will be the presiding minister. The public is invited to the service, which starts with a memorial tribute from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and continues with visiting until 4 p.m.

 “Herb Jeffries was a gentle, humble, spiritual man… Paramhansa Yogananda’s close buddy,” Savannah Jeffries wrote on the YouCaring page. “His one belief above all others: ‘There is only one race…the human race.’ His was a long life well-lived and he will be greatly missed by many.”

Special thanks to Sarah Lee “Savannah” Jeffries and the Jeffries family, Paige Hagen, Leon Worden, Tom White, Boyd Magers, Jack Hannah, Andree Walper, Mike Fleming, Tad Calcara and Charles Andrews. Chart numbers courtesy Joel Whitburn’s Record Research.


Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at community@hometownstation.com.


[node:title]KHTS AM 1220 - Santa Clarita News - Santa Clarita Radio


Article: [node:title]
Source: Santa Clarita News
Author: [node:author]


‘Bronze Buckaroo’ Herb Jeffries, Walk Of Western Stars Honoree, Dead At 100

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About KHTS FM 98.1 & AM 1220

As Santa Clarita’s only local radio station, KHTS FM 98.1 & AM 1220 mixes in a combination of news, traffic, sports, along with your favorite adult contemporary hits by artists such as Rob Thomas, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Maroon 5. We are vibrant member of the Santa Clarita community. Our broadcast signal reaches all of the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of the high desert communities located in the Antelope Valley. We stream our talk shows over the web, reaching a potentially worldwide audience.