Solid!

Birth and death dates unknown

Henry Halstead

West Coast dance band leader Henry Halstead formed his first orchestra in 1922. Nightly radio broadcasts from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco helped the group gain a following. In 1925, after the St. Francis engagement had ended, Halstead assumed leadership of another West Coast orchestra that had lost its leader. The group traveled throughout the region during the 1920s. The orchestra had the privilege of being the first dance band to appear in a musical short, Warner Brothers' 1927 ''Carnival Nights in Paris.'' During its time the orchestra included such musicians as Red Nichols, Freddie Slack and Phil Harris. Halstead retired from the music business in the early 1930s and eventually settled in Phoenix, Arizona, where he went into real estate.