Kyser, (James King Kern) Kay (1906-1985)

US bandleader. He formed his first band in college in the late 1920s, which toured widely and later expanded. In the early 1930s he performed at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, and in 1937 he began broadcasting his popular radio show, Kay Kyser's College of Musical Knowledge. A television version was later broadcast, 1949-51, until the year of his retirement. He appeared in several films and released many hit records.

Kyser was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.