This is an article my aunt sent me, published in the Fitchco-Deco News, house organ of the Fitchburg Paper Company. in August, 1956.
At the time, my dad was working as a draftsman at the paper mill, one of the many industrial jobs to be had in the brick mills of Fitchburg, which included Independent Lock Company (ILCO) and the Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works. When you started at one of these factories, you usually retired from them 50 years later. A co-worked of mile when I worked at South by Southwest started at Fitchburg Paper when my dad worked there and retired when they closed the factory in the early eighties.
That was the way things worked in Fitchburg. If you were lucky and hung on, maybe you’d retire to Florida and wait for the reaper there. My family pulled up stakes and left Fitchburg for southern California in October, 1960–as the Pirates were beating the Yankees and the last weeks of the campaign between JFK and Richard Nixon were taking place. This was considered by some–including both sets of my grandparents--as downright heretical. We were leaving the steady paychecks of Fitchburg Paper for the much less solid Westlake College of Modern Music, recently relocated (an accounting scandal was the reason) from Hollywood to Laguna Beach.
The writing in this article is wonderful, but the tone of the piece is clearly that Fitchburg was getting too big for dad’s britches and he was looking for bigger and better things. Odd then that no mention is made of his children, just Noreen and me at the time, but Cindy on the way in November of 1956, and 2 others, Jimmy and Marcia, to come.
Odder still is that the article is published in a column called Hobby Corner, with a cut in the corner of photography, stamp collecting, electric trains, and woodworking. Music didn’t have that relationship with my father. It was central to his life.
Dick Fenno’s Hobby Is Music
There’s nothing unusual about a five year old boy beating a toy drum – but when it is a snare drum and the forerunner of a career in music – that makes it news.
Our child drummer is Dick Fenno, who works in the Chief Engineer’s office at #4 Mill. Dick kept at it and had acquired a full eight years of practice on the drums by the time he played his first professional engagement at the tender age of thirteen. Two years later he joined Eddie Hamilton’s Orchestra and for three years this young lad hit the college and ballroom circuit all over New England and New York State. That was from 1941 to 1944.
Then Dick enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 392nd Army Service Forces band. He toured the Mid-West and South with the band on War Bond and Recruiting Drives. This band recorded V-discs for use by Armed Forces Overseas and made a number of recordings for transcribed radio use.
Upon his discharge from the Army in 1946, Dick joined up with the Gene Carlson Orchestra and worked the New England ballroom circuit for a couple years, building up a bankroll to further his music studies. In 1948 he enrolled at Schillinger House of Music (now Berklee School) and whizzed through the four year course in three years. During this period he played nights with Karl Rhode’s band for six months and with Freddy Guerra’s Band for a year, to provide funds for his studies.
When he completed his music course at Schillinger House, he re-joined the Eddie Hamilton Orchestra and did freelance arranging n the side. This was in 1950 and the arranging work simply poured in. He wrote the complete music library for the Frankie Dee Orchestra, made a number of arrangements for Freddie Sateriale’s Orchestra, and wrote arrangements for the entire library for the Lad Carleton Orchestra.
Last year he organized the Dick Fenno Orchestra of seven musicians and a male vocalist. This group has played for Fitchco events and it is a smart outfit. It has been very successful at colleges, high schools. ad small clubs and ballrooms throughout New England.
Dick recently re-organized the Lad Carleton Orchestra, which is preparing to start out in the early fall. Big units are on the way back, Dick says, and the new set-up runs to eleven musicians and a vocalist. It will be billed as the New Dick Fenno Orchestra.
Prodigious for a young man of 29 to cram so much experience into so youthful an age. But remember, Dick started at five and was a professional musician at thirteen. There have been a lot of drum flourishes in the years since.
Drums and piano are Dick’s instruments and he leads from the percussion section. Progressive Jazz is his preference in Music. Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan are idols. Dick believes very strongly that the big bands are on the way back, and backs up his belief with his new eleven-piece outfit. Bad as Rick and Roll is, says Dick, it is a step in the right direction. It’s got a beat that sets your foot tapping.
It’s been nice to visit you and learn about your hobby, Dick. It must give you a lot of pleasure and if you are lucky and hit it right it could bring you fame and fortune. We hope it does!
