Swing and Sway With Hathaway

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - Norm Hathaway is practically a household name around here. He and his Big Band have played at outdoor concerts, weddings, dinner-dances, fundraisers, private parties and festivals throughout the region. A few weeks ago they played at Bailey Park in Somers and this Friday they will be at the Hammond Museum.

Hathaway grew up in a musical family in Ontario, Canada. His mother’s brother, Harry, studied grand opera in Milan under the great Enrico Caruso.

While Hathaway’s mother instilled a love of opera in her children, his father taught them the joy of entertainment. He was a vaudevillian and “a fine entertainer,” said Hathaway.

“He could play any instrument. He even did minstrel shows, very popular in the late ’20’s,” he said. “In the ’30’s he played in a jazz band.”

Hathaway was introduced to piano at the age of 12 and was invited to join the town band just a few years later. That was when he picked up the clarinet and the saxophone. The advent of World War II brought him into the Royal Canadian Navy, where he became a machinist and tool dye-maker. Wounded after three years, he spent nine months in military hospitals.

Back in civilian life, Hathaway attended the Ontario College of Art and eventually started his own company, Norman B. Hathaway Associates. The company designed packaging for international companies such as General Foods, General Motors and Ford. It was also involved in the re-design of the Canadian National Flag with the red maple leaf in 1967.

About 15 years ago Hathaway returned to his first love, music. He got together with a few friends and before long the Big Band was born.

“We don’t play rock and roll,” said Hathaway, who will turn 87 on Aug. 18. “But we play with a good dancing beat. We get young people who are learning ballroom dancing and older people who remember the music. We cut right across the generations.”

For the last 22 years Hathaway and his wife, Lorraine Janus, have lived at North Salem's Peach Lake, in the very house where she was born.

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