Dick Merrick

Vo­cal­ist Dick Mer­rick sang with a hand­ful of bands in the 1940s but never broke through to the top. He con­tin­ued singing into the early 1960s but fi­nally called it quits in 1962. He spent the re­main­der of his life work­ing in the hos­pi­tal­ity in­dus­try.

A Philadel­phia na­tive and the son of an Ital­ian im­mi­grant fa­ther, Mer­rick got his first break in front of the mi­cro­phone at age 16 when the band he played in needed a singer. By mid-​1941, he was with Jerry Wald’s or­ches­tra, where he re­mained until No­vem­ber 1942 when he left for the Mc­Far­land Twins. He was back with Wald in May 1943, this time stay­ing for three years and record­ing sev­eral songs.

In early 1946, ru­mors ro­man­ti­cally linked Mer­rick, once de­scribed in a re­view as “bald­ing” and “mus­cu­lar,” with fel­low Wald vo­cal­ist Kay Allen. The pair mar­ried in De­cem­ber of that year.^[1] Both had left Wald by that time, with Mer­rick join­ing Bobby Byrne in April 1946. By Oc­to­ber he was part of George Pax­ton’s band. Pax­ton re­or­ga­nized in May 1947, with Mer­rick ini­tially re­main­ing as vo­cal­ist, but he soon left, find­ing work with Wald again, join­ing the clar­inetist in Texas dur­ing a road trip.

Mer­rick’s re­union with Wald did not go well. The two men had a falling out in June. Ac­cord­ing to Mer­rick, Wald “blew his top” when the singer gave no­tice that he was leav­ing the band over dif­fer­ences in vocal in­ter­pre­ta­tions. “Jerry wanted in­ti­mate Tormé stuff and I’m an Eberly type,” said Mer­rick. While Mer­rick was on the band­stand in Galve­ston, Texas, singing one of his num­bers, Wald ac­cused him of fool­ing around ex­ces­sively and or­dered him off the stage and out of the build­ing. Mer­rick de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion and went back to the dress­ing room. When Wald found him there, he ex­ploded and, in Mer­rick’s words, “jumped on me, tore my shirt and sent me home … with a half week’s pay and no car­fare.”

Wald de­nied that the in­ci­dent in the dress­ing room had taken place. Both men claimed that the “boys in the band” had seen every­thing and would back them up. “Dick Mer­rick caused dis­sen­sion in the band, kib­itzed around on the stand and made noth­ing but trou­ble,” said Wald, who con­tended that Mer­rick had been upset since the time of his ar­rival and was anx­ious to go home to his wife. Mer­rick filed charges against Wald with the Amer­i­can Guild of Va­ri­ety Artists, the vo­cal­ists’ union, seek­ing $88 for trans­porta­tion from Galve­ston back to New York.^[2] Pax­ton, in the mean­time, had scrapped his re­or­ga­nized band and put to­gether an­other new out­fit, with Mer­rick slated to re­turn. When the in­ci­dent in Galve­ston oc­curred, Mer­rick had two days left on his no­tice with Wald be­fore he would re­join Pax­ton. He re­mained with Pax­ton until 1949, when the leader dis­banded for good.^[3]

Post-​Band Ca­reer

Mer­rick and Allen had a son in Sep­tem­ber 1948. After Pax­ton dis­banded, the cou­ple set­tled in Philadel­phia, where they ap­peared on local tele­vi­sion. In early 1950, they recorded to­gether on the Ad­mi­ral label. In Au­gust of that year, Mer­rick signed with Capi­tol Records as a solo artist, and in 1954 he sang for the BBS label. He recorded more than 50 songs in his ca­reer but never quite man­aged a big hit, a fact he lamented in a 1981 in­ter­view. “I al­ways wanted a hit record. I came close but never could get it,” he said. “Just that one.”

Mer­rick con­tin­ued singing through­out the 1950s, end­ing up on the night­club cir­cuit. He quit show busi­ness in 1962 and moved to Florida, where his fa­ther lived, tak­ing a po­si­tion as Di­rec­tor of Ac­tiv­i­ties at the Car­il­lon Hotel in Miami Beach, which in­volved singing and host­ing in the hotel’s Tam­bourine Room. In 1969, he be­came so­cial di­rec­tor at the Ver­sailles Hotel, re­main­ing there into the 1980s. Dick Mer­rick passed away in 1995 at the age of 75.

Notes