Temptation lurked in every U.S. city, but Akron bandleader Bernie Cummins refused to succumb to the shameful vices of the road.
No smoking. No drinking.
He had promised his father.
Largely forgotten today, Cummins was a popular maestro of the early 20th century whose celebrated orchestra sold millions of records, headlined network radio programs and performed sold-out shows in the nation’s ritziest ballrooms, hotels and nightclubs.
It was a long, long way from St. Vincent Catholic Church, where he sang as a choirboy.
One of nine siblings, Bernard Joseph Cummins was born March 14, 1900, to Irish immigrants Mary and Michael J. Cummins, and grew up in a crowded home at 95 Hall St. between South Maple and Crosby streets.
Michael, the family patriarch, worked as an insurance agent, and was a leader in the U.S. temperance movement, serving as an officer in the Ohio Anti-Saloon League and Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America. As a boy of 8, he had pledged total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco — and demanded the same from his children.
In 1905, Michael drew up a charter for the Cummins Family Total Abstinence Society, which he had his wife and kids sign. Daughter Agnes was so faithful that she became Sister Michaela at Ursuline.
Bernie took a different path.
While attending St. Vincent High School, he worked as a caddie at Akron’s Portage Country Club, carrying the clubs of such luminaries as Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison and John D. Rockefeller.
Following graduation, Cummins, a novice drummer, put together an orchestra featuring his sister Frances on piano, along with Akron musicians Bob Hudson, Tom McCormick, Harold Miller and Leroy Morris.
The band soon folded, and Cummins startled his parents by joining Earl Fuller’s vaudeville troupe as a professional dancer. Well, OK, son, but don’t drink or smoke!
After the gig ended in 1923, Cummins moved to Cincinnati, where he formed a six-piece band that won a contract at the Toadstool Inn, performed on WLW radio and landed a deal with Gennett Records.
With Cummins wielding the baton, the band grew to eight pieces, then 12, then 14. The group’s success surged with a move to New York, where it played for four years at the Hotel Biltmore in Manhattan, then opened the Terrace Room at the Hotel New Yorker on Jan. 3, 1930, after beating out dozens of other orchestras.
Cummins found a winning formula by having his kid brother Walter, a banjo player, serve as the group’s tenor. The bandleader described the group’s style as “smooth, danceable music” and “sophisticated swing” with “a businessman’s tempo.”
Often compared to Hollywood idol Rudolph Valentino, Bernie Cummins was a handsome, suave figure with dark features and a bright smile. He was impeccably attired in full-dress evening clothes during winter or white flannels during summer, and routinely earned a spot on best-dressed lists.
He broke many a young heart in 1930 when he married Irish-American Katherine Mahoney at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The couple enjoyed 56 years of marriage.
Bernie Cummins and His Orchestra, later known as Bernie Cummins and his New Yorkers, performed live on CBS and NBC radio, sharing the airwaves with Count Basie, Guy Lombardo, Cab Calloway and Harry James, and made records for Brunswick, Columbia, Decca, Victor and Vocalion.
The orchestra’s theme song was Dark Eyes, a Russian ballad. Cummins popularized Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder in 1929, sold 2.5 million copies of Minnie the Mermaid in 1930 and became one of the first acts to record The Lady Is a Tramp in 1937.
Among the group’s popular songs were Lonely Melody, So Deep Is the Night, My Melancholy Baby, Everybody Loves My Girl, On the Sunny Side of the Street, My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now, When You’re With Somebody Else, Don’t Hang Your Dreams on a Rainbow and Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight.
Bandleader speaks
In a 1930 interview at the New Yorker, Cummins strongly encouraged young people to pursue careers in music.
“Thousands of boys who undertake professional careers at college abandon them for the dance orchestra because of the advantageous returns,” he said. “I know of no other business in which a boy can step right out of college, sometimes out of high school, and make a minimum of $150 a week.”
The work was difficult and the hours were long, but Cummins said he took satisfaction in knowing that he was pleasing great numbers of people.
“In past generations, artists have always been the favored children of the idle rich, and artists depended upon the whims of their benefactors,” he said. “New artists, especially musicians, are as rich as the former benefactors.”
It certainly was lucrative for Cummins. Despite the Great Depression, he owned 72 suits in 1935. According to a popular joke, Cummins had so many suits that when he stayed at a hotel, he put his clothes in the room and slept in the closet.
The orchestra crisscrossed the country, performing at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City, Club Madrid in Philadelphia, the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Meadowbrook Country Club in St. Louis and Beverly Hills Country Club in Hollywood.
Touring was a thrill to Cummins, who said he loved to take his act on the road.
“I really mean it when I say it’s a vacation,” he told a reporter in 1935. “You know, when one receives countless letters and cards from radio fans who invariably express the wish for the band to visit their communities, it really makes one want to travel to some of these towns.”
Bernie and Walter Cummins made frequent stops in Ohio, performing at East Market Gardens in Akron, Moonlight Ballroom in Canton and Brady Lake Park in Portage County.
They often visited their parents, who had moved to 286 Grove St. off South Balch Street. The orchestra gave a special concert at the Mayflower Hotel to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Michael and Mary Cummins.
“Celebrities by the dozens have swayed to their music but no celebrity ever made the occasion as important to Bernie and Walter as the golden wedding anniversary for which they played last night,” the Beacon Journal reported Sept. 19, 1936. “Old neighbors who hadn’t seen the ‘Cummins Boys’ since they wore knee breeches swarmed into the Mayflower ballroom to congratulate ‘Mike and Mary’ and see ‘The Boys.’ ”
Bernie Cummins kept his pledge to his father. He never did drink or smoke.
The orchestra remained popular through the 1940s. Walter left in 1948 after getting married, but he continued to serve as manager and supervised a Columbus bakery chain the brothers had purchased.
In the 1950s, the band became a casino act in Las Vegas, performing at the Flamingo and Last Frontier while rock ’n’ roll swept the nation.
Bernie Cummins retired as a millionaire in 1959, moving with his wife, Katherine, to Boca Raton, Fla., where he died in 1986 at age 86.
Although his name isn’t well known today, his music is easy to find — in formats he never imagined. In 2010, Vintage Music Productions released the CD Bernie Cummins & His Orchestra, with 20 songs from the 1920s. Other music is available by MP3 on Amazon.com.
Do take a listen, but please: No smoking or drinking.
For an online jukebox of Bernie Cummins songs, visit http://wn.com/Bernie_Cummins.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send email to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
