Professor Douglas Fraser

Professor Douglas Fraser was a showman, musicologist, vocalist and performer on tenor guitar and tenor banjo.  He hailed from three generations of professional entertainers, and was on stage from the age of three.  Douglas' father was a Ringling Brothers Circus star performer, vaudevillian with partner Amos Jacobs (later to be Danny Thomas), a stand-up comic, and matinee crooner.  His mother performed on the Shubert Circuit in vaudeville, and his grandmother toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
 
Douglas played jazz in concert from coast to coast, was on TV shows, movies and radio shows. He was the band leader at Gastown's "Banjo Palace" in Vancouver, British Columbia,
for two years with a four to seven piece Dixieland/ ragtime band. He wrote, produced and directed the theatrical comedy production, The Heartaches Razz Band in which, as band leader, he sang, played banjo, tap danced, and did a comedy magic routine.  The show toured internationally for ten years playing concerts, clubs and the Canadian university circuit, ultimately performing a total of thirty one times at The Troubadour in Hollywood and at Pasadena's Ice House Comedy Club.
 
Douglas played fifteen hundred and fifty four shows at California's Knott's Berry Farm, and also played at Disneyland in Anaheim, and Magic Mountain in Valencia.
He was an opening act for Buddy Rich, Earl Hines, Les Brown, Stan Getz, Eubie Blake, and later toured with Blood, Sweat and Tears, and more.
 
Douglas also spent several years as a stand up comic and as a folk singer.
 
Professor Douglas Fraser, a favorite performer at Tenor Guitar Gatherings, starting with the first Tenor Guitar Gathering, was the author of "Early Entertainment, The Evolution of Show Business from 1840 to 1940, From the days of bare knuckled prize fighters, smoky backwater saloons, and Barbershop quartets."  In the book, he talked about the birth of the tenor guitar, the Tenor Guitar Gatherings, and founder, Mark Josephs.
 
We are proud to induct the late Professor Douglas Fraser into the Tenor Guitar Hall of Fame. 

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