Will Bradley

Career

Wilbur Schwichtenberg was born in Newton, New Jersey and grew up in Washington, New Jersey. He moved to New York City in 1928 and played with bands like Red Nichols & His Five Pennies. Through the 1930s, he worked as a CBS Radio studio musician, except for one year with the Ray Noble orchestra, and was the regular hot trombonist on the network's jam session The Saturday Night Swing Club. In 1941, he led the studio band for CBS's Summer Silver Theater, hosted by Ed Sullivan.

In 1939, he changed his name to Will Bradley and formed a big band with Texas-born swing drummer and vocalist Ray McKinley. The band featured Freddie Slack on piano, Arthur Rollini on saxophone, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, and Pete Candoli on trumpet, with vocalists including Terry Allen, Carlotta Dale, Lynn Gardner, Steve Jordan, Ray McKinley, Phyllis Myles, Larry Southern, and Jimmy Valentine. The group became famous for boogie-woogie, especially the hit "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," which reached Billboard's top ten, along with "Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat" and "Down the Road a Piece."

The latter was cut by the Will Bradley Trio—McKinley on drums, Slack on piano, and Doc Goldberg on bass—with a vocal by songwriter Don Raye. In December 1940, Bradley was among the first bandleaders to make Soundies, three-minute musical films for coin-operated movie jukeboxes, alongside Vincent Lopez and Ray Kinney. In 1942, McKinley and Slack left to start their own bands; Bradley hired trumpeter Shorty Rogers and drummer Shelly Manne, but many band members were drafted.

He dissolved the big band and went back to broadcasting, staying busy as a studio musician. In the mid-1940s, he recorded as Will Bradley and His Boogie Woogie Boys and made more Soundies in 1944 with a nine-piece group. He played trombone on Jimmy Dorsey's hit "So Rare." In December 1954, he joined NBC Radio's New York flagship WRCA, providing live music alongside other big-band veterans. He kept working in radio, television, and commercial music.