Right after WWII John Holt
was finishing out his U.S. Navy tour of duty on the west
coast. In Never Too
Late
he tells this story about his favorite band at the time, the
Woody Herman
Herd, who he had
listened to only on records:
They had been playing on the East Coast, and one of the
many reasons I was eager to get out of the Navy was so
that I could go hear them. Just as I was getting close to
the date of my discharge, I heard terrible news—the
Herman band was going to come to the West Coast to play
for a couple of months, and was then going to break up. I
was going to miss them! I would never hear them! I was
such a timid and conventional young man that it never
occurred to me, not for a second, that I might stay out on
the West Coast, arrange to get discharged there, see
something of California and the Northwest, and hear Woody
Herman in the process. But no, my home was in the East,
and when the war ended I had to go home.
(Luckily he did manage to schedule his trip back east so
that he crossed paths with the Herd in Chicago.)
Right after WWII John Holt was finishing out his U.S. Navy tour of duty on the west coast. In Never Too Late he tells this story about his favorite band at the time, the Woody Herman Herd, who he had listened to only on records:
(Luckily he did manage to schedule his trip back east so that he crossed paths with the Herd in Chicago.)