[3] His primary purpose for entering Ohio University was to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Dr. C. K. Crumit, who had been a medical doctor.

[citation needed] By 1913, in his early 20s, he was performing on the vaudeville stage, first with a trio and then a year later on his own, playing ukulele; he was referred to as "the one-man glee club" in New York City's night spots.

Crumit also occasionally added vocals and banjo to recordings by the Paul Biese Trio on the American Columbia label.

[7] Crumit and Sanderson were married in 1928, and retired briefly to a country home near Springfield, Mass., but two years later they began working as a radio team, singing duets and engaging in comedy dialogues.

Their final broadcast was aired the day before Crumit's death from a heart attack in New York City on September 7, 1943.

[1] His biggest hits were made during the 1920s and early 1930s; they included popular phonograph records of "Frankie and Johnnie", "Abdul Abulbul Amir", "A Gay Caballero" (he even recorded a sequel, "The Return of a Gay Caballero"), "The Prune Song", "There's No-one With Endurance Like The Man Who Sells Insurance", "Down In De Canebrake", "I Wish That I'd Been Born in Borneo", "What Kind of a Noise Annoys an Oyster?

This song's lyrics shed light on the problems involved in stock market, correctly foreshadowing the devastating event that would happen just weeks following.