Pete Wendling.. used to think that he would rather build houses for the nation than write its songs. Pete, you see, started out to be a first-class carpenter and earned his livelihood for a time as a carpenter's helper...

When Pete was a youngster, his parents insisted that he study music and Pete selected the piano, figuring that he wouldn't have to carry the instrument to and from lessons. He believed in economizing on energy!...

Well, practise, they say, makes perfect, and before long Pete was a fairly good performer on the ivories. But he never took much stock in his own playing, always thinking that everybody else was a better performer than he... in the course of his ramblings about town, which included attendance at various house parties, Pete finally discovered that he was not the world's worst piano player, and following that discovery he set out to earn extra money playing at private club entertainments and dances.

Wendling was inspired by watching famed ragtime pianist Mike Bernard perform in the orchestra pit of Tony Pastor's 14th Street Theater, just a two block walk from the home he grew up in on Manhattan's Lower East Side. After graduating DeWitt Clinton high school, he played the piano at the Dewey Theatre, a nickelodeon in 14th Street. In 1908, he won a national ragtime playing contest - being awarded the Richard K. Fox Gold Medal by the judges, one of whom was his former idol, Mike Bernard. He was overheard playing the piano at a boy's club in the early 1910s and was hired as a 'song plugger' by the Waterson, Berlin & Snyder and F.A. Mills music publishing companies. Lewis E. Muir, the composer of Robert E. Lee, was a useful colleague, and ended up using Wendling as his regular vaudeville partner. However, they quickly found he had talents other than his playing - namely composing songs and lyrics. In 1915, he had a huge hit with 'Yaka Hula, Hickey Doola', which was one of the first Hawaiian style popular songs. Entertainer Al Jolson took a liking to the song, and introduced it at the Winter Garden. Other Wendling successes during this period include 'I Wish I Could Sleep Till My Daddy Comes Home', 'Take Your Girlie To The Movies', and 'Take Me To The Land Of Jazz'. He also married Anna Gillen (niece of Tom Gillen the actor) in 1911, and a short gossip article in a newspaper of 19 April 1912, mentions he had 'recently become a papa and had to quit cabaret work for a while'. This refers to his son, Pete Wendling Jr., born on 11th April. Tragically, pneumonia was to claim Pete's only child just over a year later, on 11th May 1913.

• Wendling was not neglecting his other talents - he had by now made a name for himself as one of the top pianists of the time, and set a long-standing record when he appeared at the London Hippodrome for 8 consecutive weeks in 1913. After a time working for the music publishing house of Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, he started a vaudeville career, and joined the Rythmodik Music Roll Company in 1914, and his first roll performances appeared shortly after. In 1917, he moved to larger roll company QRS, and rapidly became one of their most popular artists - his distinctive yet always musically imaginative performances constantly topping their best-selling lists. The Music Trades article continues:

  When he attained prestige ten years ago as a composer, he was signed up by a player-piano company to make rolls. Pete wanted to record blues, but the recording manager said the public would not buy that sort of stuff as it carried too many mistakes. Later Pete signed with QRS. The recording manager of this company was thoroughly familiar with the changes in popular music and said he wanted blues - and the mistakes. Pete was paid $3 for the first piano roll he recorded, but now he receives many times that amount for each recording.

  The 1920s were a time of great success for Pete - he had several hits to his name, including There's Everything Nice About You and Red Lips Kiss My Blues Away, and had a steady income as one of QRS's most popular roll artists.

Pete's name continues to appear on rolls released by the QRS company until May 1928, the very final QRS release crediting him as the performer being #4267, I Wish I Were Back In My Cradle. Although J. Lawrence Cook later recalled Wendling was released in 1925 (Cook having been witness to the event in an elevator) it is more probably his memory was faulty, as an article from the Music Trades Review of April 1927 states "For the past two years, Pete was so busy recording for Q.R.S. that he did not get time to compose...".  Certainly, the Wendling rolls in the 1925-1927 period bear signs of being more an amalgamation of pianist and editor than the earlier ones, but this is true of all QRS rolls of the period, as the editors and arrangers became increasingly skilled and increasingly tended towards using the recording piano's output as a 'guide', rather than a record to be faithfully followed. Cementing this as the most probable scenario, an article about Wendling written in 1949, that obviously had interviewed him as part of the research, listed his QRS years as 1919-1929.

Apparently Pete had a good sense of humour - QRS artist Ursula Dietrich-Hollinshead told the story of Wendling and Phil Ohman accompanying her to the train station as she prepared to leave on one of the QRS promotional tours. She was impressed by their kind attentions as they took the conductor aside and whispered to him, since she assumed they wanted her to have an exceptionally pleasant trip. The conductor was too solicitous, however, and watched her every move for hours, until she asked him what the problem was. Her two "friends" had told the conductor that she was mentally very unstable, and might explode at any minute!

Pete's sense of humour may have helped get him through what was probably the darkest moment of his life - the death of his young son in 1913. Pete's nephew, who spent a lot of time with Pete and Anna, is of the opinion that Pete never fully got over the loss, and this (coupled with Pete's closeness to his brother Charles) is probably the reason Pete and Anna became almost like a second set of parents. His nephew recalls him as a 'joker, with a happy-go-lucky personality'.

Wendling appears to have been one who lived in the moment - he was not short of money in the Twenties and Thirties. He certainly appears to have enjoyed life in the Roaring Twenties, and appears to have continued to be financially secure during the '30s, enough so to make an investment in Jack Dempsey's famous restaurant in Times Square, which opened in 1935, and also to have a large financial interest in a racehorse named after him. Pete Wendling (the horse) was described by Pete's nephew as 'the classic hard-luck nag', losing Pete considerable funds as it competed all around the country and continually lost. However, it did have one triumph late in its final season in Canada.

Wendling's nephew recalls that he spent about 20 years in California, and is under the impression part of this time was spent under contract to one of the film studios - this was most probably after WW2, when his 1942 draft card lists him as living in New York, and also gives his height as 6' and weight as 174lb. He continues to list himself as a composer.

For whatever reason, his fortunes took a turn for the worse during this time, and when he returned to New York he spent the remainder of his days in a small apartment, described as in 'straitened circumstances' by those who knew him during this time. Several fans have found it odd Wendling appeared to never develop a performing career, and unlike most artists at his level of talent, never led a band or did any radio broadcasting. This writer speculates he may have not been overly ambitious, content to enjoy the royalties from his compositions and lead an 'easy' life. A 1949 article says much the same thing (as well as mentioning his beautiful Steinway piano, which he still occasionally gave a workout).

Following several strokes, Wendling died in 1974, and his wife followed two months later. He's buried in St John's Cemetery, New York, sadly without a monument marking his resting place.

 In later years, Wendling recalled he had nothing to do with the editing side of roll production - he said he turned up, played the song on the recording piano, and left the rest to the editing department. His performances remain today among the rolls most sought after by collectors.

1920 New York census, listing Peter Wendling as a "Writter (sic) of songs". 'Germany' refers to the birthplace of his parents.