Great sections from The Phonoscope

          If you're a collector of brown wax cylinders and/or Berliner discs you really should check out this magazine which was(as I previously mentioned) started and mostly written and edited by Russell Hunting, to it's like a direct source of information on early recordings and recording artists, here's a few great little things i took from it(I had so many I had to make a separate folder in my Google drive for it, images I found from it are also here):

                     that's not even all that I found! I hope you enjoyed these! 

This is a fascinating cylinder by Roger Harding(tenor) and Len Spencer(baritone) from around 1898.
This is announced by Spencer, but if you listen carefully, he doesn't sound quite right(possibly a little tipsy to be reasonable...), Roger Harding sings fine on this one, and it's great because Fred Hylands is probably on the piano behind them, as you can hear some syncopation on the piano at the beginning.
here it is:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/11000/11858/cusb-cyl11858d.mp3

                          The Trial Of "Michael Casey", 1896

    Russell Hunting. The man who was known on his hundreds of records as "Michael Casey" to much of the public in the 1890's. He was one of the major recording artists and salesmen of recording's first full decade, but what he is infamous for is experimenting with what he could get away with recording and sell to the public. He began recording in 1892, but not long in that year after he began recording for the Columbia phonograph company, he wanted to try recording nasty stories and ditties on brown cylinders of his. These "saucy" records quickly became a "hit" with coin arcade owners to have in their coin phonographs for 5 cents a play. He still remained on his Michael Casey records, but what was really the up-to-date records were his naughty records. His success remained with these off these records for a while, even if he used several pseudonyms(such as "Manly Tempest)when he made them. They remained very popular until early 1896 when Anthony Comstock and a crowd of his detectives heard about these records. They searched through all of the "Phonograph Parlors"(as they were called) and destroyed as many of these records as they could. They then needed to find the source of these records, who was making them. So in March of 1896, one of Comstock's detectives went to Hunting's home in Manhattan posing as an arcade owner who wanted to buy two of Hunting's "saucy" records. So the man arrived at Hunting's home and told him what he wanted, so Hunting agreed to make a few records from him. Hunting slid on the few brown cylinders and made two naughty records for him. Just after he recorded them the man grabbed him and hand cuffed Hunting and arrested him for violating Comstock's obscenity laws. Hunting was shocked and couldn't fathom going to prison for just experimenting with recording brown cylinders. A little while after a pretty hot trial for its time, Hunting was found guilty for the crime that the detective had blamed him for. Hunting spent three months in prison.
When he returned, he decided to start the magazine The Phonoscope in November 1896. This magazine was his until he went off to England in 1898. Hunting's success became fresh and worldwide when he worked abroad until about 1916.

More rare photographs of early recording artists:

The image above is a very early photograph of the Tenor Albert C. Campbell who recorded from his late teen years in the mid-1890's to well into the 1920's . This was taken when he was twenty in 1892, in the time when he was a star actor in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.(He was in a production of H. M.S. Pinafore in 1892)

the name of the man above is just as unknown as David C. Bangs', he is C. H. H. Booth, who was at one point trading off as pianist on Edison brown wax cylinders with the extraordinary Frank P. Banta. And in the 1900's he became the Victor talking machine company's pianist(but again trading with Banta on that role, depending who the leading singer or artist is).

another artist who is rather unknown to many record collectors, George W. Graham. He was a very interesting artist who made mostly Berliners, starting in 1895, but progressed to Victors in 1900 and 1901, and then(probably as a suggestion of Len Spencer's) on to Columbia for a month in 1903, and from there he just disappeared from all recording. I call him "Berliner's Drunk" because of he fact that he drank so much at many of his recording sessions(only his Berliners, Victor would not allow that sort of thing in their studio) that the Berliner crew had to make a sort of stand for him so that when he was really drunk that he wouldn't fall over holding the sheet of paper that had his recitation written on it.

this is not only an unusual image of Vess L Ossman, this is a rare look inside the early Edison studio from 1898, very few photographs were taken inside the Edison studio, or any studio for that matter.

this is a rare photograph of the "Tobacco-chewing tenor" George J. Gaskin from the 1890's, but the exact date is something I am unsure of. Now for some information on that odd nickname of his. So when he was in the time towards the beginning of his recording(1891-96) he would, at his recording sessions, chew tobacco and spit the juice in the recording horn, as he thought he hadn't any other place to dispose of it. So after years of doing this, i would assume that he never dared to smile in any photograph of him because of those(probably) awful teeth of his...

here is a rare photograph of Dan W. Quinn taken in 1895 or 1896, from a page from a Berliner catalog that calls him "The King of Comic Singers".

And finally, a very jolly man according to Berliner's pianist and scouter Fred Gaisberg, Burt Shepard(circa 1854-1913, though his birthdate has never really been known, Shepard himself refused to give that information). His relatively few Victor records from 1901 to 1904 are highly desired by early record collectors. This photograph was taken from the book Monarchs of Minstrelsy, and in the book he is labelled as one of the "Feminine fancies", what that means is that he (in his earliest years upon the stage)dressed in full drag and sang parodies of popular songs. the information below is what the Monarchs of Minstrelsy says about Burt Shepard:

the date of the image of Burt Shepard is unknown, but it looks most likely like it could be from the 1890's, but it could be older than that...

Rare photographs of early recording artists and and vaudevillians:

the image above you see is a very early picture of a young Dan W. Quinn from around the beginning of his recording career, in c.1892-93.

this is the only full length photo of the Welsh Baritone J. W. Myers, this was taken in the late 1890's most likely, but the exact date I am unsure of.

this is one of the only two images of the famous Ragtime pianist Mike Bernard at the piano.This image is from a piece of sheet music, most likely taken by the date in 1910-11.

what you see above is four of the eight famous victor artists(all eight at this time consisted of: Henry Burr, Vess L Ossman, John Meyer, Billy Murray, Theodore Morse, Arthur Collins, Byron G. Harlan, and Albert Campbell) in this image, you see from left to right: John Meyer, Arthur Collins, Theodore Morse, Byron Harlan and the owner of the Victor store in which this photograph was taken. This is from April of 1917.

this is the EARLIEST photograph of the famous tenor and vaudevillian Edward M. Favor, taken when he was a fit young dancer at age 19 in 1875. He was at this time part of the song and dance duo "Favor and Shields" which was a prominent early vaudeville duo in the 1870's.

this is a very unusual photograph of Edward M. Favor and his wife Edith Sinclair

this image may have been back on my first post, but this one is a little different if you may notice, the graceful signature of Spencer can be slightly seen at the bottom of this, but it is very faded. This was taken in 1896, but was signed in 1900. You can almost see his "type A" personality on this one...

the two images seen above are details from a single photograph taken in 1900 with 42 of Edison's recording artists(but not all of them! there's quite a few missing) the first one has(left to right) Charles D'Almaine, George P. Watson, Dan W. Quinn and Harry MacDonough. The second image shows(left to right) Byron G. Harlan, Fred Hager, Arthur Collins, S. Holland Dudley(S. H. Dudley), W. C. Densing, and the woman sitting in front of them is "Senorita" Godoy. The full Image is shown below.
More small interesting details can be seen in the one below.

Will F. Denny(or Denney) pictured on a piece of sheet music to a tune I don't recall that he ever recorded.

Dedicated to Vess L Ossman, America's Greatest Banjoist, " in the left corner of the cover, rare composition composed and published by Fred Hylands, 1898

This is the oldest known photograph of tenor Byron G. Harlan (half of the famous duo Collins and Harlan), as from a piece of sheet music with a common title among old sheet music collectors, but this is a very unusual photograph that made me gasp when I found it, I couldn't believe that there was ever a photograph of Harlan prior to the one that i have(listed below). This was taken around 1894-1898, judging by the age of Harlan and by what they're wearing. The full name of his partner here, not known as a partner of Harlan's to me before I found this picture, is unknown other than just "Yost"

a VERY rare image of a younger "B. G. Harlan(with the even rarer stage name "The Western Tenor") from around 1898-99, on a piece of sheet music that I own(I took this picture myself, so the quality may not be the best) published IN 1899, not 1900 or a few years after like some sheet music can end up being. This sheet music was also published by the uncommonly found publisher "Weber, Fields, and Stromberg" which did not last very long. This picture can be observed as not as old as the last one, really take a look. Harlan never recorded the song that this is pictured on, "Because she Loved Him So" is the title.

an interesting specimen of mid-1890's sheet music, this time picturing the famous Welsh baritone of the 1890's who began recording in 1891, J. W. Myers from around 1892-95

Also following the sheet recording artists on sheet music trend, this is a somewhat common image of the famous "King Of Comic Songs" Dan W. Quinn pictured here on a piece of sheet music that he never decided to record, but most likely to his nature of learning every new song probably read through it. This image Quinn matches up pretty well with another photograph taken around 1900 surrounded by several of his fellow recording artists, so this must have been taken around 1900 or 1901, also judging by his looks in general.

a Common singer in the world of Ragtime in general, Arthur Collins, was very rarely pictured on sheet music, but examples such as this one are of tunes that he recorded and made major "hits" with them, Collins recorded this one on a Victor in early 1906.

the last one for this section of recording artists pictured on sheet music is an unusual image of the "Silver-voiced Irish Tenor" George J. Gaskin on a title that he did eventually record on a Columbia brown wax cylinder. the photograph of Gaskin is first seen in the November 1896 issue of The Phonoscope.

This may just look like the cover to the sheet music of an ordinary "Coon song" from 1895, but there is one little detail that almost made me skip over this VERY rare piece of sheet music as I was looking around on a sheet music website, but this was the small thing that caught my eye:

                     "Inscribed to America's Talented Ethiopian Delineator, Len Spencer"
this is something that you do not see everyday in the world of sheet music of the 1890's!
    I wonder if Spencer ever recorded this?

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/9000/9836/cusb-cyl9836d.mp3
This is a link to a brown wax cylinder from 1898 by the rarely heard whistler John Yorke Atlee 
with VERY clear, LOUD ,piano accompaniment by Fred Hylands. 
A great example indeed! 

 a name nearly forgotten to history! the somewhat handsome man you see picture above is Mister David C. Bangs(1860-?). To the few record collectors who know him, he made dozens of records for the first disc record company ever to exist, the Berliner Gramophone Company. He was one of the first artists that Berliner's scouter Fred Gaisberg had decided to drag in to their studio in 1894, Bangs only recorded several records in bunches here and there from 1894 to 96, he was never a true "regular" in any studio like Dan W. Quinn, or George Gaskin.

I have my seminar for the West Coast Ragtime festival on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving all ready! it's about the two boys you see above, Arthur Collins(Right) and Byron G. Harlan(left), this photograph was taken in about 1919, judging by their age, and from other images of them I have seen before from about the same time.
spoiler alert: I have a surprise at the beginning of my seminar!
I hope all of the record and Ragtime people will be able to attend, I've already more than one person filming!

This publisher shown above, only lasted for a single year, 1899. The three last names may be slightly recognizable to collectors of brown wax Columbia cylinders(very few Edison's), the names of these three are: Frederic Hylands, Len Spencer, and Harry Yeager.  Fred Hylands is just a great big mystery in the world of Brown wax cylinder collectors, as he is mentioned a great amount of times in Russell Hunting's magazine The Phonoscope. There(to my knowledge) isn't a photograph of Mr. Hylands anywhere, though one could be floating around out in the wild of record and sheet music collections, which is rather unfortunate, because he was apparently a very heavy man with very strong piano hands and arms, as again according to The Phonoscope, that very powerful piano playing can easily be heard on the many Columbia brown wax cylinders he is on from around late-1896 to about 1900(not sure if he recorded any later than that...)

If anyone knows any more about Fred Hylands, do comment, I must try to learn as much as I can.

This is a very interesting article. I, being a cylinder and record collector find that this sort of in-depth information about the recording artists and the music in general is just fascinating.

Len Spencer was quite a man for his time, outside of recording, he was very ahead of his time, from experimenting with his younger brother(Henry) in film, to publishing music that rather famous composers wrote in the late 1890's.

He must have been one of the hardest "regulars" in all record studios at that time to record, as he was well over six feet tall and was very rather loud, according to the passed down accounts of studio laborers who heard him sing.  

And the man must have had what some people say "Nine Lives", as he got into so many severe accidents, from pianos falling on him to crashing into a cable car in 1898. And he just stressed himself to death, as he had so many activities to attend to throughout his 47 years of life whether it be his family or his Vaudeville/minstrel stage he opened around 1913.

He also must have taken schtick from other performers,(such as Harney) I mean really, listen to that record of him singing “You’ve been a good old Wagon, But You Done Broke Down”, really listen to it, it sound quite a good amout like the cylinder recorded in the 1920’s of harney himself singing the tune, and how Spencer sings this fits the few descriptions of how Harney sounded in the 1890’s and 1900’s.

  He also must have complicated his stress and somewhat slight madness(he probably had it later in his rather short life) by having a venereal disease which was for some reason uncommon in these early recording artists(such as Arthur Collins, Vess l Ossman, Billy Murray etc.), but was common in the general public as expected. Spencer died at about the same age as Scott Joplin, so it can be assumed by Joplin’s cause of death, Spencer’s must have been a very similar cause, but he complicated it a whole lot more than Joplin ever could have.

this is the man himself, mister Leonard Spencer as he looked in 1896, (from the Nov.1896 issue of The Phonoscope)