Harry Bruce: Comstock King of Dixieland Piano

Silver City, Nevada - Harry Bruce, a Ragtime Dixieland pianist, lived in Silver City with his wife, poet Irene Bruce, for many years. He was a popular performer in Virginia City saloons during the later 1950s and 1960s, but before that, he played night clubs in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and was with Fred Nagel, Jr., and his Dixieland Band, playing Northern California shows. Earlier still, Harry Bruce was accompanist for David Brinkley’s NBC Television show Marriage Mills of Nevada, where his gift for turning tunes such as Mendelssohn’s Wedding March into ragtime was ballyhooed.

According to 1950s newspaper articles, Harry Bruce began playing piano when he was 10 years old. As a young man he was on a number of radio shows, including The Voice of Oklahoma on KVOO in Tulsa. Over the years he made recordings for stations such as KOLO in Reno and KPTL in Carson City.

By 1958, he had mastered hundreds of songs and was playing at the Great Western Bar and Cafe in Virginia City six days a week, “playing nostalgic melodies, happy melodies, devil-may-care melodies.” According to a 1958 Reno Gazette Journal article, “the stirring notes of a rag time piano reach out...and pull you...off the board sidewalk to listen to Harry Bruce, known on the Comstock as the King of Dixieland Piano.”

Swami Pooja of the Silver City Ashram recalls seeing Harry Bruce playing piano in Virginia City in the 1960s, when she and her aunt were there as tourists. She asked him to play the song “Red Wing” and he did, perfectly. Coincidently, years later, she bought the Silver City house where Harry Bruce once lived. The house, and a number of homes nearby, later became the Silver City Ashram. More about the Ashram, and Swami Pooja, later...

I haven’t been able to find information about exactly when Harry Bruce moved to Silver City, or precisely when or where he was born. If anyone knows and would like to share, please contact me.

HARRY BRUCE AT A NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY, 1949 or 1950. DETAIL FROM A PHOTO BY GUS BUNDY, FROM UNR'S SPECIAL COLLECTIONS.