By Herb Brock
Staff Writer

I've had three faces. Big deal. Henry had at least twice that many but wasn't the subject of a single movie or the object of a single psychiatrist.

The Henry in this case was Henry Fillmore, one of the world's most famous composers of march music.

During his life (1881-1956), Fillmore wrote such enduring tunes as ``Americans We,'' ``Klaxon'' and ``Men of Ohio.'' He also gained fame as the ``Father of the Trombone Smear,'' writing several songs featuring the sliding sounds of the brass instrument. In his spare moments, he published band instruction books that became standard learning material in the homes of thousands of young musicians.

But he didn't always do all these things under his real name, according to George Foreman, director of the Norton Center at Centre College, founder of the upcoming Great American Brass Band Festival and a brass band and march music historian and author.

``Fillmore composed and published under several pseudonyms, including Harold Bennett, the name he used as the publisher of the instructional books youngsters of my generation and several other generations of music students knew as Bennett Band Books,'' said Foreman. ``He also was Al Hayes, Harry Hartley, Ray Hall, Gus Beans, Will Huff and -- here's a good one -- Henrietta Moore.''

Many of Fillmore's noms de plume were inspired by experiences in his own life.

``For instance, Henry got into a conflict with his father over the kind of music Henry was composing,'' said Foreman. ``His father preferred church music, while Henry liked march music. Henry reportedly told his father, `I will huff and I will puff and I will write my own music.' Hence, the pseudonym Will Huff.''

But Fillmore's choice of Will Huff as one of his phony names created another conflict, a potential one, at least.

``As it turned out, there was a real Will Huff and he was a real band music composer and he owned a real music publishing house and it was in the Fillmores' hometown of Cincinnati,'' said Foreman.

The fake Huff and the real Huff got together and the result was the formation of a music publishing company under Fillmore's real name. The Fillmore Publishing Co. published the music of both the authentic Will Huff and Fillmore's alter ego of the same name.

It's not surprising that Fillmore had fun with names. He had fun with life. Unconventional was his middle name.

Fillmore's family was in the music publishing business in Cincinnati, and the company's bread and butter was church music. Being restricted to one particular genre of music wasn't particularly appealing to young Henry.

``Henry was a free spirit -- a fact later displayed during his conflict with his father over the kind of music Henry should compose and publish,'' said Foreman. ``Henry eventually ran away from home, joined the circus and played trombone in the circus band. To top it all off, he married an exotic dancer.''

But Fillmore decided to return to his conservative hometown and take over the family's conservative music publishing business. Before long, though, religious hymns were being replaced by march music at the company and Fillmore -- and Beans and Bennett and Huff and Hayes -- was on his way to fame, although he had to split his celebrity among several different composers.