short-lived but well-received all-music TV series, the JF TV Show, and by the following summer, had released its debut LP, Jerry Fielding and His Great New Orchestra (Trend, 1953). Blacklisted, but welcomed in Vegas Though never a Communist, Fielding was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in December 1953 during the anti-Communist hysteria, particularly in Congress, and the FBI, who were in the throes of punishing the many talented FDR supporters in entertainment who had helped to defeat isolationists before Pearl Harbor. This was done by smearing them with innuendo and charges of Communism. Fielding's sin appeared to be his Radio Union membership (which was obligatory for all nationally broadcast radio performers) which was in turn one of a dozen or more unions in the Hollywood Writers Mobilization which was founded in 1941 to promote show business efforts against Nazism and in support of the American war effort. However, Fielding later joked that all the committee really wanted was to get him to name Groucho Marx as a communist, which he refused to do. He also believed he was being singled out for his integrated bands, using African-American jazz performers in his radio and television music, which was carried live at the time. All integration and equal rights to black performers were deeply offensive to some HUAC members, and to FBI head, J. Edgar Hoover. Fielding took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to divulge the names of any colleagues who might be suspected of "Communism", doing so knowing that pleading the Fifth would damage his thriving radio and television career, as it did. He was blacklisted by the national television and radio networks, who were being pressed by these same forces with a similar fate if they 'failed to cooperate." The blacklist destroyed Fielding's embryonic career as an on-screen television host, but the talented musician survived what would be a decade-long exile from broadcasting by returning to his live performing and recording careers, both as a featured artist and a freelance arranger. In Las Vegas, Nevada he led a band at the Royal Las Vegas Hotel; in addition, he toured for the only time with his name orchestra, which also released several albums during this period, first for a little-known independent label, with Jerry Fielding Plays a Dance Concert (Trend, 1954), followed by Sweet with a Beat (1955), Fielding's Formula (1957), and Hollywoodwind Jazztet (1958), all on Decca. His jazz