Merle Evans

Merle Slease Evans was a cornet player and circus band conductor who conducted the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for fifty years. He was known as the "Toscanini of the Big Top." Evans was inducted into the American Bandmasters Association in 1947 and the International Circus Hall of Fame in 1975.On July 6, 1944, a fire broke out during a Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus performance in Hartford, Connecticut. The fire killed around 168 people. The quick reaction of Merle Evans and his band is credited with saving thousands of lives. When Evans saw the fire, he signaled that the band should play John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever," used in the circus as the "disaster march," indicating an emergency. The performers heard the music and immediately began the evacuation. Accounts state that Evans and his band played until it was no longer safe to do so, and then evacuated and reformed outside, where their playing helped to pace the evacuation and steady the crowd Show less «