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Obituary: Howard E. Davies Drummer played with Goodman, Nat King Cole Wednesday, June 10, 1998 By Nate Guidry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's the kind of sound that Benny Goodman liked, the sound of the brushes careening off all that brass, exploding into a palette of beautiful colors.
Howard E. "Hud" Davies had that sound -- the sort of sound that made you feel you were walking on a cloud, those bouncing brushes caressing the hide of the snare drums, and then, Boom! a quick snap of the wrist and full throttle into the crash cymbal. This was his unique and subtle way of working those sticks and brushes, as if they were his birthright.
Mr. Davies died of congenital heart failure Friday at Forbes Metropolitan Hospital in Wilkinsburg. He was 84.
"Hud was one of the most generous people you could ever want to meet," said longtime friend and drummer Spider Rondinelli. "Sometimes, I would go over to the music store where he worked to buy drum sticks and he would give me a pair. It was like, buy a pair, get a pair."
Having begun his musical career at Union High School in Turtle Creek, Mr. Davies tirelessly performed into the late 1980s, recording several albums as a sideman.
In the early 1940s, Mr. Davies toured the United States as drummer with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. A friend and fellow Pittsburgher, Bob Poland, had recommended Davies to Goodman. Goodman, in need of hard swinging drummer to replace the formidable Gene Krupa, who had left to form his own band, hired Mr. Davies. The band recorded "Why Don't You Do Right," and "Six Flats Unfurnished." The recordings also featured singer Peggy Lee.
Two years later, Mr. Davies was drafted into the Army. He toured the Pacific Theater, where he performed as drummer in the Army band.
In 1945, he was discharged and returned to Pittsburgh and began to work as a musician.
"He didn't have any problems finding work," Rondinelli said. "They would hang out in the old Carlton Hotel downtown. All of the great drummers were there, Krupa, Louis Bellson and other guys. Those cats would quit a job today, and have a better one that night."
Mr. Davies eventually landed a regular job with the Nat King Cole Trio, and in 1957 was married to Ester.
"He was one of the greatest on the wire brushes," friend and trumpeter Danny Conn said. "He was widely respected as a drummer."
Mr. Davies and his wife, who is deceased, eventually settled down in Penn Hills and had a daughter, Victoria.
In 1965, he went to work at Kennywood Park with a band, while intermittently working at the Progressive Music Store in McKeesport.
"My dad was a funny man," Victoria Pfauth said. "It was never a dull moment around here, especially when he was working at Kennywood. He's going to be missed."
While working at Kennywood, he would dress up in a red and white striped coat and straw hat and lead the band up the midway banging his bass drum up to the stage.
He gave a lot of young people their start in music. Some of them went on to play in the Pittsburgh Symphony.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Davies is survived by two grandchildren.
Funeral services were held Monday at the William F. Goss Funeral Home in Penn Hills.
"I didn't get to attend the funeral," Conn said. "But later that evening, I went to his grave site and played 'Taps' and Benny Goodman's theme song, 'Goodbye."'
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