Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Frederic or Frederick?

It has long made me curious and kicked up lots of arguments about how Fred. Hylands' first name was actually spelled, as in The Phonoscope it's spelled "Frederic", but on all the census records and virtually everything else that has been documented on him, it's spelled "Frederick". So it could just be a typical census mistake that they don't spell his name correctly, because who knows, his wife Maria and his Father could only have been home when the census taker came to their door(it's likely that this is the case). Here's some picture  to show the confusion here:
(from the July 1898 issue of The Phonoscope)
his name spelled "Frederic" 

(1900 census)
According to this, he lived with his father Charles, who was still at this time a Railroad engineer, and his British wife Maria who was an actress. His name is spelled "Frederick" here. Interesting mix if ya ask me...
(1910 census) 
he lived alone in 1910, as a free boarder in a boardinghouse full of eccentric theatre people, but he's the only musician of out the heap. 
The only reason that this rather small thing has kicked up several arguments with me is because he seems to have more of an English background, which would fully apply to the "Frederick"spelling of his name, but his own buddies in The Phonoscope have his name spelled as though it has more of a Germanic flair to it, rather than English. 
(From a piece of my own art work of Hylands)
I have the feeling that Hylands may be a bit German, was he looks slightly like W. H. Krell(composer of "Mississippi Rag", 1897) who was a solely German brass music man.
(W. H. Krell, the German brass boy of Chicago)

 And occasionally on some cylinders he's on(when the song is a waltz) he throws in some of the random "Viennese hesitation"in the waltz tempo, and for those of you who know what I mean here, you will find this very fascinating  to hear. Here is one example that you can clearly hear it: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/6000/6707/cusb-cyl6707d.mp3
really try to follow along with his tempo here, sounds a bit hesitant and broken, somewhat similar to the Viennese in the time period and decades before, as this song was from the 1870's.
Among the millions of things he must have picked up on his journeys around the country as a child and teenager, he may have heard this sort of thing as heard in the link above, as well as early styles of "Rags" as the word was reportedly used as early as the 1880's(in this context) in the area around Kansas city. 
"Frederic" Hylands must have been playing  at these early "Rag Times" at boardinghouses in the midwest as early as 1888 or 1890. It's very likely, and his advanced but rough touch on the piano, especially when it comes to Ragtime, proves this obscure point. 

I hope you all enjoy my "Rant" of some sort!

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