BITSY MULLINS RECORDINGS

Friends Remember Bitsy Mullins

Bobby Chapman: My father was Milt Chapman and lived in Shreveport Louisiana in the 1950's. Bitsy Mullins played with Milt Chapman and his Orchestra on a number of occasions when he would be in Shreveport. The radio station KENT in Shreveport broadcast from the Club Coronado in Bossier City on successive Saturday nights at 9:00 pm.
I miss my father who died in 1998 but in my mind his music and talents live on. I remember him speaking fondly of Bitsy Mullins who appeared on at least one of three broadcast recordings
When Milt was still alive, I knew that he had many reel to reel recordings of his band, some of which were recorded live at performances and there were others that were recorded off the air. His youngest brother Julius Chapman actually recorded three 30 minute radio broadcasts over the air in 1951. I seem to recall my Dad saying that Julius actually had the tape recorder sitting in front of the radio speaker, although he may have recorded the broadcasts using a line input into the Ampex tape recorder.
The broadcast in February 1951 was the inaugural broadcast according to the radio announcer, and then Milt Chapman and his orchestra had at least 2 more broadcasts in March 1951. After Milt passed away in 1998, a cousin of mine in Los Angeles who worked at a recording studio "cleaned up" the audio tape recordings for me so that Sandy and I could create some CD's for our family memories as a tribute to our Dad.

Robert Penick, Georgetown, Texas, USA: Bitsy and I corresponded in the early 2000's. Keeping Bitsy's memory alive is very worthwhile. He was a great player, a great storyteller and a mentor to me, a semi-professional trumpet player. He had a remarkably literary style of writing, too, if one overlooked his typos and disdain for the Shift key.

Walt Boenig www.waltboenigbigband.com: I just wanted to let you know there is a picture of Bitsy on my web site.
Go to photos and click on More Musicians 2 and scroll down. This was taken when we were playing with the Forest Wasson Orch at the Shangri-la Resort in Oklahoma in '77 or '78. Al Voight (Drummer) is in the picture with him.
He is one of the best lead trumpet players I have ever worked with, always consistent night after night.

Arno Marsh I was in Las Vegas at the same time that Bitsy was but I didn't have the opportunity to work with him. It seems that he was working one gig and I was working another. Las Vegas had plenty of work for musicians in those days. Sometime around 1977 I joined a band in Oklahoma at a resort called The Shangri-la. We were working seven nights per week and Bitsy was playing first trumpet. He was living in Joplin, Missouri and he commuted every night. After he left the gig, he went to his home town in Arkansas and retired from the music business.

Ray McGuire, Brooks, ME  Regarding Bitsy, it's sad he's gone. I always enjoyed talking to him. In fact, I talked to him the last night he was in the hospital, before he died. Buddy Balbo, put together a band from Las Vegas musicians, of which Bitsy was one. Buddy did list all of the personnel and it was an incredible band. Buddy led the band and made all the arrangements.