Roy Rogers and Other Famous People Who Played the Clarinet

Originally published on ClarinetMike Blog HERE.

ClarinetMike says, “Below is a reposted list of famous people who played the clarinet – if you know of someone who should be added to the list, let me know!”

Found this on young Roy Rogers (real name Leonard): Leonard had a trained rooster that he carried around on his shoulder. And in high school he taught a groundhog to sit patiently while he practiced playing the clarinet.“One day the boy smuggled the groundhog to school,” his mother says. “And when it came time for assembly, Leonard put the animal in his desk. Soon, however, the pet heard Leonard’s clarinet tooting in the auditorium. She crawled out and followed the sound until she found her master. When the groundhog interrupted the program by climbing into Leonard’s lap, he expected a scolding. But the band leader was so impressed that instead he tried to buy the animal. The few dollars would have meant a lot to us then, but Leonard wouldn’t sell.” (From HERE)

I found Roy Rogers and most of the other famous people who played the clarinet listed below on the Clarinet BBoard. (From HERE)

Alan Greenspan

Woody Allen

Ray Charles

Hal Linden

Keith Lockhart

Sid Caesar

Steven Spielberg

Julia Roberts

Jim Carrey

John Williams

George Segal

Deidre Hall

Harpo Marx

Van Cliburn

Billy Crystal

Rudy Vallee

Bill Clinton

Jimmy Kimmel

Alyson Hannigan (actress)

Roy Rogers

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Eva Longoria

Modern composers/conductors who also played (even briefly in their youth) clarinet:

John Adams

John Corigliano

Donald Martino

Leonard Bernstein

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Paul Hindemith

Meyer Kupferman

John Williams

Roy Harris

Sir Colin Davis

NOTE: The publicity photo of Roy Rogers and Trigger above is in Public Domain and available HERE. See HERE for links to arcane legal information, etc. about the photo.