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The king of morning radio; baseball at Shuttleworth Park
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
King Owen was a radio star and night club entertainer. He died in 1955 from long standing health problems, perhaps tuberculosis, at age 40.
His real name was Avery King Clizbe, Junior. His nephew William Clizbe, president of the Broadalbin-Kennyetto Historical Society, researched his uncle’s life.
The singer was born in Amsterdam in 1914, the son of Avery King Clizbe, Senior, head teller at City National Bank, and Mary Clizbe. The singer’s brother James, William Clizbe’s father, was two years older. The family lived on Church Street in a row of brownstones between Grove and High streets.
Avery, Junior, learned to play piano and cello. He performed hillbilly music on WGY in the 1930s. He sang with the High Boys and Radio Rangers, Doye O’Dell and Max Raney on the Schenectady station.
Avery moved to Connecticut where he was part of a musical group who performed on NBC’s Blue Network with over 33 affiliate radio stations around the country.
Avery came back to the Mohawk Valley in 1938 and married Gene Haff, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Haff of Broadalbin. Avery and Gene had two daughters, Marcia and Lynne.
The couple made their home in Broadalbin but Avery pursued his career on the road, checking in with postcards and telegrams. He played in the western United States and performed at Radio City in New York City with Doc Schneider and the Texans. He also played the organ for some network radio shows in New York
In the mid-1940s Avery came back to Broadalbin. He was hospitalized for a time at the Homer Folks Tuberculosis Hospital in Oneonta.
William Clizbe said his uncle played piano plus organ, guitar, cello and accordion. He recalled that his uncle smelled of tobacco and carried an inexhaustible supply of pink Canada Mints.
“He was an incredible talent,” William Clizbe said. “He could listen to a song twice and then play the tune.”
As King Owen, Avery played piano, sang, took requests and bantered on the radio during his last years, first on WCSS in Amsterdam then at WENT in Gloversville-Johnstown.
At WENT King Owen did not perform country music but instead sang the popular songs of the day.
He met Helen Comrie, the station bookkeeper. She became his second wife after he and Gene Haff divorced.
According to WENT’s 1952 broadcast schedule printed in the Leader Herald, the station signed on at 6:28 a.m. A religious program, news, weather, sports, a show called Cock-A-Doodle Review and a segment named Quiet Time advanced the clock to 7:40 when King Owen took to the airwaves. He performed until 9:45 when it was time for In Town Today followed at 10 by Arthur Godfrey on the CBS radio network.
After leaving WENT, King Owen was on the air at WWSC radio in Glens Falls in 1954. He died the next year at St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam.
WENT has a picture of the smiling singer in a suit and what looks like a bow tie, at a piano in front of a WENT banner. The picture is signed, “Airfully Yours, King Owen.”
Tomorrow, Monday, February 27, 2023-Story behind the story, more about radio star King Owen.
HEAVY HITTER
Reader Bill Tucker commented on the recent column on Amsterdam’s Shuttleworth Park.
Tucker played a high school baseball game there in 1965 as a junior from Albany’s Vincentian Institute. Tucker remembered the ball field was big and deep in center field.
One of Tucker’s best friends blasted one there as a pinch hitter, “He got all of it so hard that it hit the fence sign on one bounce.
“Now it is great to know Joe (Dimaggio) and Yogi (Berra) played there too!!!”
Tuesday, February 28, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Vaudeville Days
Wednesday, March 1, 2023-From the Archives-Episode 45, January 30, 2015 Railfan Jim Bachorz of Bridge Line Historical Society
Thursday, March 2, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Remembering historian Paul Keesler
Friday, March 3, 2023- Episode 464-Steve Haggerty is author of Norman Rockwell’s Models: In and Out of the Studio. In 1940, illustrator Norman Rockwell, his wife Mary and their three sons moved to West Arlington, Vermont. The artist discovered a treasure trove of models. Haggerty’s book‘details these models’ lives, friendships with the artist and experiences in his studio.
