THE LATER YEARS
HOMEPAGE
BIOGRAPHIES
Karl
Jack
Dan
HISTORY
Getting Started
Early Years
Later Years
CATALOG
FEEDBACK
In the mid-30s, the Landt Trio began to do a fair amount of advertising work for the Layton and Nelson Advertising Agency. George Nelson in particular, took an interest in the group and provided them with quite a bit of work. After Howard White died in 1937, the Trio lost all of their sponsored programming within a year. George came to them with a proposal. He offered to provide them with a minimum salary of $100 per week for each of the brothers and for Curly Mahr if they would move to Schenectady, New York, and perform on the station there. While this was a substantial cut in the rates they had been used to, it was better than no guaranteed income, and they saw it as an opportunity to rebuild their repertoire in a smaller market.
In the fall of 1938, the Landt Trio, now usually known by just their own name, but occasionally referred to as the Landt Trio and Mahr, moved to Schenectady and began to perform on a program sponsored by a furniture company there. During the next three years they rebuilt the group, learning and relearning songs and developing a successful working relationship with Curly Mahr who was an excellent accompanist.
By the fall of 1941, the Landt Trio was ready to return to New York. CBS hired them for the five day a week "Sing Along" program. Their "girl singer" was Carol Ames and their announcer was Bill Cullen (who eventually married Carol Ames.) They continued on Sing Along for eight years and simultaneously had other shorter running programs including "Vest Pocket Varieties" and "Morning Matinees." In the final years of Sing Along, their accompanist was Johnny Cole.
By the late 1940s, live radio programming was beginning to be replaced by recorded music and television. While the Trio continued to do some advertising work after "Sing Along" ended in 1948, by 1951 they were working less and less. Jack had a serious accident that year which made it impossible for him to work for over six months and so the professional act ended.
After Jack recovered, he went on to own and operate a business on Long Island although his health was never good again. Dan worked successfully in Real Estate. Karl continued for a few years to do some advertising work, both writing and performing, but the income was too uncertain, so in1956 he went into the life insurance business.
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