Leroy E. Hurte

Leroy E. Hurte (May 2, 1915 – April 16, 2011), Hurte was active in Los Angeles, California. He was a member of the music group The Four Blackbirds, an owner of the Flash Records store and Bronze Recording Company. He was the founding conductor of Angel City Symphony Orchestra, had a sheet music business, and created music publications. For a few year he owned a radio station. He wrote and published The Magic of Music: An Autobiography Bronze-Lyric Publishing Co, Apple Valley, California in 1997. Ball Records issued a record of him conducting the Angel City Symphony (CAM 1502 VG). One of the pieces performed is by William Grant Still. He was a baritone and played guitar.

Early life and education Leroy E. Hurte was born in 1915, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, his father was Black and his mother was a member of the Creek tribe. His family moved in 1927 to Los Angeles, California, where he attended Jefferson High School.

He established a music school, Leroy Hurte School of Music, in Los Angeles from 1958 to 1960. He also sold his sheet music. Hurte was the publisher of Lyric magazine, active from 1958 until 1967 in Los Angeles, Hurte owned radio station KOAD-LP in Hanford, California, from 1968 to 1971.

In July 1995, Hurte was interviewed for three days by Steven L. Isoardi from the UCLA Oral History Program, where he discussed his early life and work.

Filmography Memories and Melodies (1935), a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short musical film directed by James A. FitzPatrick, about festivities on a Kentucky plantation

Publications