Karl Lawrence King

Karl Lawrence King was an American bandmaster and march composer born on February 21, 1891, in Paintersville, Ohio. The family moved several times during his childhood, settling in Canton, Ohio, where he left school after the eighth grade and apprenticed himself to a printer while teaching himself the cornet, baritone horn, and euphonium.

By his late teens he was playing in regional bands and selling his first published march, Moonlight Bay, in 1909. He spent the 1910s touring with circus bands as a euphonium player and conductor, including stints with the Robinson Famous Circus, the Sells-Floto Circus, and finally the Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth, where he served as bandmaster in 1917 and 1918.

His circus years produced his most enduring works, the so-called screamers — fast, brilliant marches written for circus parades and big-top performances. Barnum and Bailey's Favorite, composed in 1913 and dedicated to the circus, became a standard of the American band repertoire, alongside Invictus, The Melody Shop, The Big Cage, and Robinson's Grand Entree.

In 1920 he settled in Fort Dodge, Iowa, took over the directorship of the Fort Dodge Municipal Band, and remained its conductor for fifty-one years. He founded the C. L. Barnhouse Company's King Music line and eventually composed almost three hundred marches, waltzes, overtures, and serenades. A founding member and second president of the American Bandmasters Association, he was awarded honorary doctorates by Phillips University and the Iowa State Teachers College. He died on March 31, 1971, in Fort Dodge.

Karl is a masculine Germanic name from the Old High German karl meaning free man, cognate with the English Charles. He carried the masculine name throughout his life.