Gene Krupa autograph on London House note card.

Eugene Bertram Krupa was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of nine children in the family of Bartlomiej Krupa and Anna (née Oslowski) Krupa. His father was an immigrant from Poland, and his mother was born in Shamokin, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania; his siblings were Clarence, Eleanor, Casimir, Leo, Peter and Julius.

Krupa began playing professionally in the mid 1920s with bands in Wisconsin. He broke into the Chicago scene in 1927, when he was picked by MCA to become a member of "Thelma Terry and Her Playboys", the first notable American Jazz band (outside of all-girl bands) to be led by a female musician. The Playboys were the house band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago and also toured extensively throughout the eastern and central United States.

The London House was a jazz club and restaurant in Chicago located at the corner of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue, in the London Guarantee and Accident Company building, 360 N Michigan. It was one of the foremost jazz clubs in the country, once home to such luminaries as Oscar Peterson, Ramsey Lewis, Dave Brubeck, Marian McPartland, Cannonball Adderley, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, Nancy Wilson and many others.