In 1912, when he was three years old, Kasper Malone's brother gave him a beat-up, old cornet. By the time he was five, he was playing loud. The cornet was the first of many instruments Kasper played in his ninety plus years as a musician. He has played swing with the Jack Teagarden All Stars, old time with the Melody Men, classical music with numerous orchestras, and just about everything in between.

Kasper Malone was born in 1909 on a farm near Paducah Kentucky. His given name was Kanoy, but he wasn't too pleased with that, so he changed it to Kasper. As he puts it, "I was born before birth certificates, so I just named myself."

When he was fifteen, he sold his personal effects and left home. He was picked up by two boys headed to Miami but found Miami too expensive so he headed back north. His ride stopped for gas in Armuchee Georgia and there just happened to be a band tuning up. Kasper said, "I'll get off here."  He spent three years with that band and in that time picked up the clarinet. They played at the Rivoli Theater for silent films. That orchestra was directed by Helen Rhodes who later became the conductor of the Rome Symphony. He continued to play for silent films, also playing at the Princess Theater in Gadsden Alabama.
     
During this period Kas hooked up with Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett and together they formed the Melody Men. Until 1928 they made two recordings a year with equipment sent down from New York City. Columbia Records set up a studio in Atlanta at 15 Pryor Street. They also played at the radio station WSB housed in the old Biltmore Hotel. With Gid Tanner they recorded the record A Day at the County Fair.
     
In November of 1928 he went to St. Louis Missouri to visit his brother, also a musician. In 1929 on New Year's Day, he placed an ad in Billboard for a clarinet player. A response came from Schnitz Seymour's Miniature Circus. Kas got the job, and became part of the entourage that played at show theaters throughout the Midwest. On St. Patrick's Day of the same year, Captain Lewis bought the show and it closed in Tell City Indiana. Kas then moved on to Seneca Kansas, home of trumpet players, family orchestras, and dances, and there he formed his own band. Then he joined the Jim Story Band in Lincoln Nebraska which, in addition to Kas' clarinet, boasted piano, three saxophones, trombone, trumpet, and drums.
    
Kas was in the house band for many radio stations, among them KGBZ in the Ory Kirwood Band, KFNF in Iowa, and KFAB in Lincoln Nebraska with old time fiddler John Holder. In 1931 he joined the staff orchestra on WNAX in Yankton South Dakota. Holder had said, "Tell Chan Gurny I sent you. They need you." He earned enough money to pay $35 for a Model T, an open roadster with no top. On a windy day he got in the roadster and drove to South Dakota arriving at 4:00 p.m. at the local radio station. Happy Jack, the old time fiddler, was on the air and Kas just happened to have his double bass in the car. "You're on the payroll," he was told by Harvey Nelson the personnel manager. He became a "doubler," playing clarinet and flute, and also creating sound effects using chimes and other inventions.
     
While on that station, Kas was given his own show along with singer and pianist Olive Nelson. The popular show was called "Olive and Stranger,"  and they played modern music. Kas also played with the Rosebud Kids, a German family named Kosta, from the Rosebud Indian Reservation. "Five dollars was pretty big and I got $10 for a dance on the side from the radio station," says Kas.
     
1932 found Kas at radio station XEPN broadcasting from the Yolando Hotel studio in Eagle Pass Texas, but with its tower in Piedras Negras, Mexico. In December of 1932 Kas left the 80 degree weather in Eagle Pass and arrived in Yankton, South Dakota where it was 4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
     
In 1934 he got his San Francisco Musicians' Union card, sold his car, and got a job playing on the cruise ship S.S. Cooledge which needed a bass player. They played concert and dance music and and for forty-seven days travelled to Hawaii, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Manila.  Upon his return, he learned that someone needed a bass player on the boat to New York City and so he boarded the Grace Line ship Santa Elena and headed east. In New York, he stayed just long enough to find out that he preferred the prairies to "conditions prevailing" and headed westward once again, joining Jack Savage in Columbus Ohio in a band promoting Crazy Water Crystals, a medicinal tonic from Mineral Wells, Texas. England forbade commercial broadcasting, and so to sell the medicinal tonic there, the company set up a store in London but advertised from Luxembourg. Though Kasper was invited to join the band to travel to Luxembourg (they stayed there 18 months), he had met his first wife Virginia  and with her, settled down in Yankton South Dakota and had two daughters. He played on radio stations around the Midwest.
     
From Yankton he traveled throughout the Midwest, playing clarinet in Peoria at the Talk of the Town night club for three months with the Lumber Jacks, a refined quartet with accordion, violin, and bass. In Rockford Illinois, he played on WROK, as well as at county fairs and other entertainments. He auditioned for WLS but wasn't invited to join.  He continued playing for other radio station bands including KMMJ in Clay Center Nebraska and WIBW in Topeka Kansas. He then joined the Denver Symphony and while in Denver also played casuals as well as the Coors Program on KOA with the Shorty Thompson Group, a western group made up of Shorty, Sue, and Sally.
     
In 1943 Kasper began a stint of 2 years and 12 days on Catalina Island in the USS Maritime Service Band led by Phil Harris. After the war, times were tough, so in addition to playing at a club near Glacier Park, Kas also carried mail. In Kalispell Montana, he played at the Skylark Supper Club; later he went to Vallejo California he had a twenty-one mile commute to play at Walnut Creek restaurant with the Hiram Davis Band.
    
In 1953 he joined Jack Teagarden's Jazz Orchestra at the Royal Room on Hollywood Boulevard. Kas and Jack became fast friends and Kas continued to tour with him for three years (New York, Cleveland, Toronto) as well as living with Jack and his family. With the Teagarden All Stars, Kas played string bass and was featured as well on flute on such numbers as "Stardust," "Indian Summer," and "Body and Soul." Kas and Jack discovered that they had a number of strange "coincidences." Both had the same injured finger. Both had a brother named Clois. Both bought a five dollar baritone horn when they were nine years old. Both were given a baritone horn by an uncle when they were ten.
      
Upon moving to Las Vegas, Kas played casuals while waiting for his union card. Among other gigs, he played for Rudy Vallee ("My Time Is Your Time") and opened the Sans Souci Club on the famous Strip.
     
Feeling a yen to settle down, Kas accepted a job with the Tucson Symphony and was hired on the staff of the University of Arizona. In the Symphony he was Principal Bass, and at the university he taught bass for thirteen years. During that time he also participated in the American Symphony League Orchestra summer workshops, which became one of his most treasured experiences. The one-hundred piece symphony included players from every major orchestra around the United States and Europe and was led by master conductor Dr. Richard Lehrt from Pasadena California.
     
As seen already, Kasper's life has included much travel. In 1969 he walked around Ireland with a backpack and a flute. He found the Irish to be exceedingly hospitable. "The Irish won't let you walk," he recounts. While walking in Ireland he was picked up by a Catholic nun who took him right away to play with her choir. After his Irish adventure, Kas got a Eurail Pass and traveled around Europe using his music as a passport and an introduction to adventure.
     
In 1973 Kas moved to Winsbach Germany where he was to marry his third wife and spend the next twenty years. In Germany he taught privately with the world famous Boys Choir and had private students in clarinet, flute, and bass.
     
In 1993 Kasper decided it was time to come back to the United States. His plan was to go to Jacksonville, Illinois because in a Christmas card he heard that the symphony there could use a bass and there was an apartment available. After two or three months in Jacksonville, he felt he couldn't be happy there and took the bus to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hot Springs was too spread out, so, for a person reliant on public transportation, it was not a feasible living spot. He went to Cheyenne but found no music activity, so he called his old friends at the Rome Georgia Symphony and found they needed him right away for a Christmas program. He headed to Rome and found it "feasible" indeed and settled there in the middle of town, just one city block from where he played in the Rivoli Theater in 1925.
     
Since returning to the United States, Kasper "Stranger" Malone did not slow down his playing. From his first appearance on 78 RPM records for Columbia in 1926, to his performance on EMWorld Records in 2003 with Elise Witt, (both recorded in Atlanta Georgia), Kasper "Stranger" Malone's 77 year career in recording is unchallenged for longevity. He has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest career in recording history. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame presented "An Evening with Stranger Malone" highlighting his long and diverse career in music. Stranger also received the 2004 Founder's Award from the Country Music Hall of Fame.
     
Stranger continued to play clarinet, flute, and acoustic bass with a wide variety of Georgia musicians. And when he turned 82, he decided to learn to play the guitar.  In addition to hearing his marvelous stories from the music world spanning the entire 20th century, audiences were also treated to Stranger's personal renditions of his favorite songs with personal anecdotes about the songs' history. In fact, he could tell you not only the year, but the month, when any song came out, who wrote it, who sang it, and where he was working at the time!
     
So, after a lifetime of following his musical muse around the country and the world, Kasper "Stranger" Malone once again made Georgia his home, and continued to delight audiences young and old with his music and his stories. Meeting Stranger was indeed an opportunity to experience a living legend.
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