Driving Fred Waring
Music, Polio, Comics & Pavement
by Dean Gray
May 3, 2010

It’s not simply Waring Way… it’s Fred Waring Way, a major arterial thoroughfare for cross town traffic. Many under the age of 60 don’t know this mystery namesake. Mostly known for his music he was one degree of separation from the polio vaccine and a half degree from cartoon art history.

His music career began as a rebellion against authority. During his teenage years, Fred Waring, his brother Tom, and their friend Poley McClintock founded the Waring-McClintock Snap Orchestra, which evolved into Fred Waring's Banjo Orchestra often playing at fraternity parties, proms, and dances, with local success.

He attended Penn State University studying architectural engineering but he was rejected from the school glee club due to "college politics." His music eventually became so successful he dropped out of college to tour with the band, which eventually became known as Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians.

Waring achieved impressive success and is sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing." He emerged as one of the greatest acts in Vaudeville` in the 1920’s. Early Hollywood “talkies” captured the Waring sound later becaming a popular staple in the Golden Age of Radio. He produced a string of hits selling millions of albums.

In 1947, Waring organized the Fred Waring Choral Workshop at his Pennsylvania headquarters, also home of Shawnee Press, the music publisher he founded. There, talented musicians learned to sing with precision, sensitivity and enthusiasm. Warings approach to choral singing spread throughout the nation. He taught and supervised workshop for 37 years until the day he died.

After entertaining troops and selling war bonds during World War II Waring acquired the Shawnee Inn in Deleware where he created, rehearsed and broadcast his radio programs throughout the 1950s. It wasn’t all about music.

Waring was also a promoter, financial backer and namesake of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender. So popular was the device it was commonly referred to as “The Waring” just as Xerox years ago was synonymous with copying and we “xeroxed” a copy. The Waring wasn’t just for kitchens.

It became an important tool in hospitals for the implementation of specific diets, as well as a vital scientific research device. Dr. Jonas Salk used the device developing his polio vaccine. In 1954, the millionth Waring Blendor was sold, and it is still popular today.

In 1983, the 83-year-old Waring who had already collected many awards and by then was considered king of popular choral music, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Ronald Reagan.
Music and blenders weren’t enough. Waring was an important cartoon and comic strip collector.
From 1943 to 1974, Waring owned the Shawnee Inn and Country Club, a golf resort located in Pennsylvania. In 1948, two years after the National Cartoonists Society was formed, Waring invited members of that organization to spend a day at the Shawnee Inn growing into an annual event for the next 25 years and amassing a huge collection of artwork including many drawn on Shawnee Inn stationery.
All the greats in that art field were there - Mort Walker, Stan Drake, Milt Caniff, Charles Schulz, Hal Foster - works collected by Waring now housed at Penn State's Fred Waring America Collection.
Later in life Waring married Virginia Morely, a Steinway artist performing as Morley & Gearheart who astonished and entertained audiences playing two pianos back to back. The duo was especially noted for performances with four hands on the keyboard and were guests on the Ed Sullivan television show plus toured the country.

After Fred passed Virginia carried on with his music publications and established the competition for which her name is known worldwide.

I proudly display on my office wall a slightly worn but prized and timeless 33 & 1/3 LP found in Gypsyland (DHS on Pierson Boulevard) of Fred Waring And The Pennsylvanians In Hi Fi featuring “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” “Ol Man River” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” …plus my personal favorite “The Wiffenpoof Song.”

In his honor I always try to whistle “Hit The Road To Dreamland” while driving Fred’s way.