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Bumps Myers was born Hubert Maxwell Myers on August 22, 1912 in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Influenced by Coleman Hawkins he played the tenor saxophone but also the alto and baritone. Growing up in California he began his musical career at the age of 17 in the Los Angeles area, playing with Curtis Mosby and His Dixieland Blue Blowers,

By 1927 he had recorded for the first time and two years later was playing in Seattle, Washington with Earl Whaley. The mid-1930s saw him with Buck Clayton and Teddy Weatherford, with whom he went on tour. From 1934 to 1936 he lived in Shanghai, China where he worked in Canidrome with Weatherford’s band and Buck Clayton. After returning to the United States in 1937 he played with Lionel Hampton and Les Hite .

The early Forties had Bumps working with the short-lived band of Lee and Lester Young. In 1942 and again in 1945 he worked at Jimmie Lunceford and 1943-48 in Benny Carter’s big band. Mid-1940s he performed several times with Jazz at the Philharmonic and in 1945 he played with Sid Catlett on.

1947 saw him playing with Benny Goodman and recording the hit Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad). Under his own name he released Bumps Myers & His Frantic Five in 1949 on the Blu, Selective and RPM labels.

In the 1950s, Myers worked as a studio musician, played with Red Callender, and Harry Belafonte in 1958 . After touring with Horace Henderson from 1961-62, Myers retired from music  because of issues with his health.

In the field of swing and jazz, he was involved from 1927 to 1960 on some 90 recording sessions with Irving Ashby, Kay Starr, Lee Richardson, Ernestine Anderson, Freddie Slack, Mel Powell, Dan Grissom, Fletcher Henderson, Russell Jacquet, Louis Bellson and Maxwell Davis, Not limiting himself to jazz he also played on a number of rhythm and blues recordings by T-Bone Walker, George Vann, Amos Milburn, Jimmy Witherspoon, Helen Humes, Percy Mayfield, Tony Allen and B. B. King.

Swing saxophonist Bumps Myers, who never gained the notoriety or popularity of his contemporaries, due possibly to working mainly in the Los Angeles music scene, passed away on April 9, 1968 in Los Angeles, California.

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