A Manager’s Legacy

David Blakely was John Philip Sousa’s manager for only five years, but–in life and death–he had a major impact on the history of American band music.

Blakely ran the first tour of the Marine Band led by Sousa. The tour began in the spring of 1891 and lasted five weeks. Blakely had done his work well. The response was gratifying. But Sousa suffered a nervous breakdown and the Marine Corps Surgeon sent him to Europe to recuperate.

By the time he returned to the United States, though, Sousa was planning another tour in cooperation with Blakely. Toward the end of that tour Blakely approached Sousa with the idea of resigning from the Marine Corps and organizing a civilian concert band. Sousa was reluctant to give up the security of the Marine Corps but he had always dreamed of having his own band. When Blakely offered him four times his Marine Corps salary plus a percentage of the profits, he was quick to agree.

The gamble paid off handsomely. During the next three years the new Sousa Band was in constant demand, and its financial success was so great that in 1895 Blakely made Sousa an equal sharer of the profits.

Again Sousa sailed to Europe for a vacation, but the retreat was short-lived. In Italy Sousa received word that David Blakely had died.

Full of concern for the future of his band, Sousa rushed to England where he departed for America. All during the crossing he walked the deck of the steamship, brooding on an uncertain future. As he paced, worried and homesick, he began to hear in his imagination a band playing a new march. As soon as he arrived in New York Sousa wrote it down. It turned out that the death of David Blakely had inspired Sousa to write one of the greatest marches of all time–“The Stars and Stripes Forever.”