100 years ago in Spokane: Union musicians walked out in solidarity with a sacked clarinetist

Spokane’s musicians staged a walkout from the Hippodrome, one of Spokane’s vaudeville theaters, after the manager fired a clarinetist for blowing “blue notes.”

The manager claimed Bert Miller, an experienced clarinetist, was blowing “sweet notes into his clarinet that came out sour.” So when Miller came in for rehearsal the next morning, the manager gave him five minutes to clear out. Miller, however, was a union musician, as were 99% of the musicians in the city. The Hippodrome’s drummer, Fred Green, was the president of the Spokane Musicians Union. Green and other members of the pit orchestra walked out.

“Then the fun started,” said The Spokesman-Review.

Chuck Whitehead and his eight-piece band were also on the Hippodrome bill. As union musicians, they had no choice but to walk out as well.

The union contended that the theater manager had no right to fire musicians. The manager said he would “close the house before we submit to these arbitrary methods.”

The standoff continued.

Also from the show business beat: A sideshow impresario submitted an unusual classified ad to The Spokesman-Review: “Fat Lady wanted to take part in show at Labor Temple Circus. Apply in person.”

One of Henry Gordienn’s star attractions, Stella the Fat Lady, was absent for unspecified reasons. He needed another “Stella” to take her place. According to the script for the act, Stella needed to weigh 419 pounds, requiring five men to hug her.

“The stairways to his magical studio were not exactly congested” with applicants the next day. Gordienn speculated fat ladies must “have jobs or husbands, and none yearn for the spotlight of a tent show.”

Most of Gordienn’s other acts were present and accounted for, including “Atlas, the boy with the steel skin, who sleeps on a cot of spikes while four men stand on his ‘tummy.’ ”