Wednesday, April 29, 2015

same songs---different pianists(Frank P. Banta and Fred Hylands)

Banta 
Hylands
Many may come to wonder about how different Banta and Hylands really were from one another on the piano. The best way to judge their creativity and styles is to listen to the same song on a different cylinder label. Listen to cylinders that have the same song by the same singer, but have different record numbers and record companies. They did have to play many of the same songs for the phonographs, but how they played with melodies was their own means and creativity. 
Most of the time, Banta was not very loud, as Edison's recording rooms often looked like this:
(this image is actually the main recording room at Edison in around 1903)
Could that actually be Banta at the piano! :-O
Banta was also not as daring and pianistically curious. As he seemed to hold off on all of the saloon-reminiscent ideals that Hylands had perfected at Columbia. And since the stricter management at Edison did not allow drinking in the studios, it was not nearly as openly creative and loose. 

Every day at Columbia was a day to turn the singers loose. 

Every day at Edison was a day to make records. That's all.

Here is the first good example of what is mentioned in the title of this post. The title of this tune cannot really be settled because it is announced at two different things on each cylinder. Anyhow, this is by the great Dan W. Quinn here's the first version, from March of 1899 with Frank Banta at Edison:
This one above is the better sounding version of the two I have found, as it is clearer(in fact unusually clear for its age!) and the piano can be reasonably be heard. Banta's playing on this is not very flashy, but it's quick and light in his right hand. Very typical of him. The rest you can hear clearly. 

Now the second version I found is VERY messy, so if you really want to hear the piano, you kinda have to wait till later in the cylinder where it becomes more distinct. So this one is also Dan W. Quinn, March of 1899, but recorded on Columbia with Fred Hylands on the piano. 
Like I said, it's very MESSY!
The piano solo at the end is a full 30 seconds! And he ends it all with a very quick chromatic thing starting on Eb. All of the trills and quick little things that are distinctly Hylands(yes, Banta did that as well, but Hylands was much quicker and more efficient when it came to those).

Anyhow, here's the second set of records to compare. This one is of Will F. Denney(his name is spelled that way on a few records) being very entertaining singing "How'd you like to be the Iceman?"
from 1899 as well. Here's the first one, the Edison version with Banta on the piano:
Interesting solo at the end Banta!
This one has some Ragtime in small places all over the place, and of course, at the end as well, very typical for Banta. one can really hear Banta's style of Rag-time and accompaniment style very well on this one. 

Now, for the wildman Hylands on Columbia's piano:
(Notice! He's playing in a completely different key here.)
OOH! Hylands is wasted alright! Hear that piano at the end! I know, it skips a bunch and gets a little bumpy at the end, but even over all of that, Hylands still FUBAR's the end of it, in whatever he's trying to play...
Hylands plays this one pretty straightforward, not too much of his vain flashiness, but it's still there anyways(because that's the little prodigy in him!). 

 Here's another good one of Billy Golden Singing and whistling his famous specialty, "Turkey in The Straw, both from 1898.
Here's Banta, playing here in the neutral key of C Major, and playing some fun Cakewalk patterns throughout the cylinder:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5271/cusb-cyl5271d.mp3

 And now for the wildman Hylands in their big room at Columbia:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/9000/9322/cusb-cyl9322d.mp3
(Very odd solo at the end, but the whole cylinder is very entertaining on both ends, with the singing, and the piano playing, But that piano playing is sure as hell ear-catching!)
I don't need to really explain much here, as all of the truths and comparisons are in the records listed above. I will add more to this post if I find any other good ones!

I hope you enjoyed this! 
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Monday, April 27, 2015

Throwing in some Gottschalk

The real creator of Ragtime in 1868 or 1869

And the prodigy who played it well in 1898

I have great amount of respect for Louis Moreau Gottschalk. And one of the reasons that I like Fred Hylands so much is because he is exactly the kind of pianist who would have played Gottschalk's music when he was a teenager. This fact can be heard all over the place in Hylands' playing, it's ever present in what he decided to improvise on those many a cylinders. There's no doubt that Hylands would have thrown many of the old classical pieces aside in his teen years, hungering for something hard on the piano keys and in need of strong force to play correctly. And his family was not a mix of musically inclined oddities like Fred and Ettie(his sister), so they were mostly on their own for musical training and stage experience. Fred was likely playing Gottschalk's "The Banjo" and "Tournament Galop" by the age of fourteen. That wouldn't be much of a stretch to say, as he was starting to create and manage shows by fifteen. 
In connecting Hylands' playing to Gottschalk's, first listen to Gottschalk's wonderful early syncopated piece "The Banjo" here:
it's really something ain't it!

Now that that has been listed, listen to this record from around the middle of 1904 with Billy Murray singing and whistling with Hylands doing all of his usual little things, and playing out in ragtime at the end:
Classic Hylands, doing things reminiscent of Gottschalk, and playing all flashy to catch the ears of the listener to the piano playing. 
Now, for another great comparison of the two, listen to this Gottschalk rarity "Ojos Criollos"(Creole Eyes):
Very graceful and fun! 
Now, listen to "The Bobolink" whistled by Joe Belmont and accompanied by you know who:
http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-1405.htm(remember, click the little "real" icon to play this)

Very interesting comparison indeed! That last cylinder is a fascinating one that I just found yesterday afternoon. This cylinder is a very good example of Hylands' flashy and Gottschalk inspired playing, with a quick and fun right hand and a steady strong left hand to accompany it; that was how to do it. Just like how Gottschalk beat the hell out of the piano, Hylands did as well, learning how to do this mostly on his own. This is also why I have the feeling that Hylands was not the most musically literate. He was certainly reasonably good at it, but it must have taken him quite a while to actually be a pretty decent sight reader by the late-1890's. What I'm saying is that he wasn't nearly as good at sight reading as Frank P. Banta was, because Banta was like a music machine when it came to him as Edison's pianist. 
Hylands can be compared to one of the slot machines that Russell Hunting went on to talk about so much in The Phonoscope, because he would only work if they paid him accordingly, much like the slot machines. If you put in the right amount of money, they would play for you. 
Hylands was a vaudeville pianist. 
That's all the needs to be said. He was a child prodigy who took up vaudeville, as the music of Gottschalk could easily fit into what became popular in the late-1890's(ehm! Rag time that is!), and it was flashy enough to catch quite a lot of attention when playing slightly like that behind a singer. And oh how it did! Even if he was accompanying someone as Vain and attention-hungry as:
Vess L. Ossman
Here's one from 1898 where Hylands is SO loud that you can barely hear Ossman:
(still throwing in some Gottschalk!)
Ossman was very demanding of Hylands, and wasn't sure what to think of his ways in playing like the multi-racial composer Gottschalk, but it was what made his Rag-Time so distinct and likeable to Ossman, which is why left Banta in the dust for a few years. Really what we hear from Hylands, on his serious records and his Rag-Time records is true vaudeville piano, and to close off, here is a perfect example of vaudeville piano:
(once again, click the "real" icon to play this)
This one is really fun! Len spencer and the whole crew are on this, and even w hear Hylands clapping from his nest. He even plays a section from  "Smokey Mokes" just a bit too fast!

I hope you enjoyed this! 


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Sunday, April 26, 2015

Columbia (and the U. S. Phonograph company) in 1888 to 1896


 Long before "Vic" Emerson became the ruler of Columbia's wild crowd of a staff, Columbia was the building in the picture above. Tall, slim, with not much to show off. In 1888, the Columbia Phonograph Company was officially founded, after being a disbanded group of inventors for two previous years, they at last got together. Once they did, they had to find a way to make and sell their records reasonably. They didn't need to go out and search around for the first of their devoted employees:


He came to them, they didn't come to him. He had been fascinated with the recording device that was the phonograph since its creation in 1877. And when Columbia came to town in 1888, Len was just bound to go and experiment with the stuff that they sold. They didn't know what to do with him at first, as he was a very ambitious young teacher who had lots of money, a wife, and a baby girl at home. So he was just like any of the founders of the company, only that he was younger. Spencer was a very odd character to fit into their staff, as they had not yet met anyone who was willing to do so many jobs at once and create so many new ideas. They had no reason to just not take him in, so they did, but kept him as a clean up boy and an "amateur" salesman. He wasn't amateur at selling the records however, he just had the natural talent for doing it. 
They didn't have him record for them for a little while after they hired him, it took until late-1889 to decide to record him. To their surprise, his seemingly loud and deep voice recorded very well with the very primitive machines. 
The only way to record Spencer was this way:
“Spencer’s earlier records were made by grouping four or five phonographs on top of an upright piano with their horns converging towards the keyboard, on which Spencer played his own accompaniment while he sang. He received the munificent sum of ten cents for each accepted record.  He was fortunate enough to get three out of every four records accepted and it was possible for him to make as much as $3.00 or $4.00 for each full hour of singing.”

(This section comes from the reminiscences of and older founding member of Columbia Frank Dorian written down by Jim Walsh)
This process was a very rough and tiring one for Spencer, especially because this was before he bulked up like Fred Hylands(Thank you Phonoscope!) ten years later. Spencer was tall and stringy-looking when Columbia first took him in. Much like his brother Harry Spencer was.
Columbia was still a small business by 1890 and 1891, as it only had the Marine band come in and record occasionally, such as the very rare and amazing cylinder listed below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxgSRbgHWzQ
The amazing cylinder above is indeed a Columbia cylinder, but I am at a loss as to who that announcer is. I've heard chatter around that it might be Russell Hunting, but Hunting DID NOT WORK THERE! That early.
Here is a better-sounding one from 1891 below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGpOSqCfvig
This one actually says the record company, and the announcer is MUCH MORE distinct. 
AAAHH! I know who that announcer is, I just can't pull out the name!
Very loud bass notes! I love it!
By 1893, Columbia had improved its means quite a heap, and Spencer was no longer forced to do all of that useless work to make every single record. They were still located at the same Washington building, but they had improved their staff and recording strategies. They had a much better equipped talent department by this time, they had Fred Gaisberg on many of the piano accompaniments heard from this time that survive. 
Here is a wonderful collaboration between Gaisberg and John Yorke Atlee from 1893:
(this cylinder was recorded at Atlee's home late at night!)
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/8000/8106/cusb-cyl8106d.mp3
Way to go Atlee! Announcing that piano player behind you! That's the way to do it!

By 1894, most of the beloved Columbia staff that we all know already worked there, such as: 
Billy Golden, George J. Gaskin, Dan W. Quinn, Russell Hunting, J. W. Myers, Edward M. Favor, you get the point. 
One quartet who made a few negro imitation cylinders for Columbia between 1891 and 1895 was the Brilliant Quartette. This group of four has always been a mysterious venture for record collectors to try to dig into. No one knows the exact personnel, and it was never written down on a note anywhere that has survived the decades. The only thing that I can be for sure of who's in it is that Billy Golden was the main singer most of the time, as on this one he is heard yodeling his heart out:
https://ia902205.us.archive.org/12/items/CollectedWorksOfTheBrilliantQuartet/Mary-annMedley1893.mp3
It is also for sure that the other members of this four must have been fellow minstrels of Golden's or even some of his later-to-be recording friends. I even have the suspicion that Len Spencer might be one of those singers, here is another older example below, from 1891:
https://ia802205.us.archive.org/12/items/CollectedWorksOfTheBrilliantQuartet/WayDownYonderInTheCornfield1891.mp3
I cannot understand most of the announcement after " Down Yonder in the Cornfield imitation, sung by the Brilliant quartette... ..." the rest of it is hard to understand, as the announcer is speaking far too fast. 
The next mysterious quartette of the Columbia and U. S. Phonograph company staff is the Manhansett Quartette. In this group, only two of the four have been identified. 
The main singer is George J. Gaskin, and the second tenor has always been said to have been Gilbert Girard. 
Here is it(beware! It's pretty messy!)
https://ia902702.us.archive.org/25/items/us-oldfolks/us-oldfolks.mp3

By 1895 and 1896, it was clear that this business was becoming a very big and competitive field for these talented and creative businessmen. By late-1896 the U S phonograph company was bought out by Columbia, and therefore having all of their current artists and staff into their clutches. So in doing this, this is where "Vic" Emerson comes from. Emerson was the manager of the U. S. company from its creation after leaving boring his job as a local telegraph operator, so this meant that he was inevitably the choice of all of the record talent to have as their manager. When Emerson became the infamous manager of Columbia in 1896, this is where the "Columbia kids" come into action, and where the unsure and primitive days of recording finally ended. 


I hope you enjoyed this! 
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Thursday, April 23, 2015

cheers and shouts---hear Hylands on cylinders!


One thing that is truly fascinating about Columbia cylinders from the 1890's is the fact that the beloved staff that we all know is that they all participated in hundreds of little productions of the records. These little productions ranged from vaudeville acts to Minstrel shows, all condensed onto a single cylinder, often coming in a series of five to seven cylinders. These productions are a real mix of fun little acts that are much like hearing a performance on the stage. That's what they wanted to have the listeners hear anyway. 

Sometimes, like every old record, little things slip out that can be identified by who's voice or hands(when clapping) are present at the recording session. It's hard to believe, but Hylands' voice was in fact recorded on Columbia cylinders, you would just have to find the right ones(that still exist!). Between jokes and monologues, cheers and claps can be heard on hundreds of Columbia cylinders. This rarely thought of fact was not nearly as relevant on Edison cylinders, as they didn't have the brilliant minds of the Spencer brothers and Russell Hunting on their staff to regulate and spread innovative ideas.

 Hylands was almost always the one to get the last clap in on the applauses that they did on the minstrel records he just happen to be on, this can be clearly heard in the one below:
(the piano at the beginning! Damn!)
On the last joke's applause, the last little click! In the background is exactly what I'm talking about. It's Hylands in the back behind them, not really sure of how long the clapping was supposed to go for. These sort of things happened quite a lot with him, as he was in his own little "perch" or nest behind all of the commotion below him.
By the usual angle of the horns, to the piano, you can heard reasonably well the claps from farther behind the loud ones of the singers, crowded around the horns, much like the picture below:
(sorry I keep using this picture...it's so perfect for demonstrating everything!)
From these minstrel records, one can easily hear how their room was set up, as these were recorded smack-dab in the middle of 1898, when the picture above was taken. Here is the other one I have found:
This one is not as fun, but the terrible sound of Columbia's old piano(i.e. refer to picture above!) is very clear on this one, and Len Spencer's announcements are always a treat to hear, but Spencer's speaking in general on this one sounds a little off if ya ask me...(Hylands was probably in the same state as Spencer was on this cylinder, a little tipsy,
as usual).
So those two cylinders were from 1898, probably recorded around the same day in fact! But how about some later examples of Hylands cheering out from his"piano nest". He still had his own little area behind the singers, even if they weren't exactly recording at the same angle as they were in the picture above, but it usually went that way. 
Now, I know that I have shared this one before, but this is an extraordinary example of Hylands' Mike Bernard-like tendencies behind singers:
This one is always a go-to for Hylands with me, as it is VERY hard to keep up with his plying behind Quinn, and he's playing in the wonderful key of D-flat.When they all cheer at the last chorus, the voices of Harry Spencer, Len Spencer, Hylands and who knows who else can be heard. If only Hylands' voice could be picked out of the heap easier!

This next one is another fun one by Dan W. Quinn 

Well, that's Quinn above, but it's quite a few years before this next record, seven years before in fact! 
here you go, a vaudeville sketch by Dan W. Quinn and Fred Hylands(he's the "professor" on this :-D) from 1900:
This one above is a particularly priceless performance, as it's a great old cylinder by Dan Quinn, but you get the whole of the staff in the recording room participating. 
And Hylands. Oh! How he's having way too much fun back there! You can hear him laughing back there and clapping his fair and dainty hands, between the jokes and singing.

 And from how muffled it is, it is very likely that the "Encore, Encore!!!" at the end is piped by you know who from his little "nest" behind Quinn. And the last clap is always from Hylands. He wanted to be heard, and how he made sure that he was! Even if someone like Dan Quinn was in front of him, and his nest was high up behind the horns. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 
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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

outside the studios----performing as early recording artists

J. W. Myers 
Billy Golden
Dan W. Quinn
Freddy Hylands 
Len. Spencer 
Harry Spencer(the taller guy) 
Steve Porter

These are only a few of the artists that dedicated themselves in the 1890's to the benefit of creating a new industry---recorded sound. We all know what the studios were like, hot, often unsanitary, and a hub for sounds and ideas of all kinds to be heard. It was a hard life in the studios, especially if you were frequenting certain ones very often. But aside from the busy field of the recording studios, most of(if not all) of these great performers whose voices have been permanently etched into the echoes of history were prominent and popular stage performers. Some were minstrels, some were operetta singers(i.e. Gilbert and Sullivan shows), working musicians(Hylands!), stage managers, and booking agents. A few were even all of these! They were all very busy cats, going from place to place performing, and recording, sometimes often all in the same days! 
Most of these singers had been mostly stage or private performers before the boys at the record companies fished them out from wherever they came from. And they continued their performing ventures far into their recording days. But since this was such a money pit of a business, they did not really need their previous jobs. By this, I mean the fact such as that Dan Quinn was an Iron molder in his teens and early twenties, and that George J. Gaskin was a skilled carpenter. Those who truly had music-oriented jobs before recording were the real music-lovers and passionate musicians. 

Len Spencer was truly the most dedicated of all to recording and selling records, as even outside of the studio, he was out at shows doing his pitches and performing the songs and sketches he recorded on records. Hylands was the most dedicated musician of them all, as he came in every day, and even outside of Columbia's studio, he was out publishing music or doing his straight or blackface vaudeville. So, it would be likely that if you ever saw Hylands on the stage, it would be likely to see him like this:
He must have been some performer in minstrel acts and vaudeville! 
They were prominent performers, especially Edward M. Favor and J. W. Myers. As by 1890, Myers was already a reasonably popular baritone on the east coast, so it was not much of a stretch for the boys at the North American Phonograph Company to throw their lines at him and reel him in to their studio in 1891.  Edward Favor had been a popular all-around performer since 1874! 
Favor in 1875! 
It was a win for everyone when they took in Favor in 1893, and what's even more amazing is that many of his 1893 and 1894 cylinders still exist to-day!
here is one from 1893:
https://ia902700.us.archive.org/33/items/HeWhistledUpATuneByEdwardM.Favor1893/HeWhistledUpATune1893_64kb.mp3
(wonderful piano accompaniment by Edward Issler, as it is an early Edison cylinder)

 Spencer was one of the only ones who wasn't really a performer when he became and employee at Columbia, riding his new up-to-date bicycle to the old building in 1889 and 1890. Spencer was just a college teacher who had a bright but unsure future when he came into Columbia in his own time to buy records and get to know the machines and how they worked. Even though they say in all of the old sources that he was a performer before they "found" him, he wasn't. He just happen to have the perfect voice for the phonograph. 

 I mean, Billy Golden's voice was almost too much for the phonograph, as he was a VERY loud singer, whistler, yodeler, and a booming speaker. It is truly amazing how he was ever able to be recorded correctly, and how the phonographs could stand his intensely penetrating voice and whistle. He did have to stand back from the horns though, if you listen VERY closely, you can hear that he was not directly at the end of the horn when he recorded. He was, only because they all knew that his voice was loud as hell. He did blast on a few cylinders even with these changes, such as the one that I just happen to be listening to as I'm writing this:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/11000/11728/cusb-cyl11728d.mp3
(Oh Hylands! Beat that Rag-Time! Not bad for 1897. This was not long after they hired him as their pianist.)

 Billy Golden went out on all of the shows that Spencer forced upon the staff at Columbia he could trust and love at performances. Of course , his first two favourites were always Hylands, and Billy Golden. It always just happen to go that way. He would even pull out his friends who were already scheduled for shows on that night to do these performances, as he did anything to get what he wanted, even if it meant pissing off his friends of another better paying show. But to make up for it, Spencer probably offered a higher amount of money to them for their tip afterward, as he or Steve Porter could always pay for it, in full. 

 Many of these artists still kept on performing after their term before the horns. Hylands did, Golden did, Myers, Dan W. Quinn, George Gaskin, Ed Favor(he was even in silent films!), Vess L Ossman, etc.
But some left all of that behind them, and let it to die after it was over, and left a million mysteries unsolved: Silas Leachman, Joseph Natus, Burt Shepard, George Graham(but who knows what the hell happened to him!), David C. Bangs, etc. 

 The basic idea here is that their voices will forever last, but their performances will never be seen again. They can only be heard. 
I hope you enjoyed this! 

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Sunday, April 19, 2015

a tight-knit community of mis-fits

(one of my own brown wax cylinders, this one has George P. Watson on it with Hylands on piano, recorded in c. earlier-1898)

When cylinder collectors get into talking about Columbia's phonograph company, they are usually at a bit of a loss of what to say about it. As it has, in many ways, not been documented nearly as much as Edison's company, and most collectors immediately lean toward Edison due to the superior sound quality Edison had after 1900. It's obvious that more collectors have taken more to the Edison side of recording because, those who know, will be able to actually identify the pianist without being criticized by other collectors. When it comes to Columbia, it's not as easy. As those who follow my blog know who Columbia's pianist was in its prime years with the best staff, but it's not a universally known fact. Many collectors(in fact, a majority of them) do not know of this "Frederic Hylands" chap anyway. As he as VERY rarely credited or even mentioned outside of The Phonoscope as Columbia's pianist. And those collectors who haven't really noticed his playing very much before mentioning him will be surprised that he wasn't the type of pianist showed below:

(this was a typical pianists stereotype of the 1890's, 1900's and teen's, great illustration though! the bottle on the piano is the best part!)
Hylands was the opposite type of pianist compared to the one above. 
He was more like this:
Quite a difference, clearly. 

 These mis-fits at Columbia were very close as partners in their work, and just as friends in general. That's what was so unique about Columbia in the 1890's, all of their prime staff were friends, and could trust each other easily, even when many of them were not sober. They even had a very close relationship with their manager, "Vic " Emerson. Vic was not the best manager, and as he got older, his personality deteriorated. In the 90's however, he was one of the boys. The main swell of Columbia's sales and recording department was of course Len Spencer. 
Spencer was the dude of the staff, always keeping up-to-date and having the most unusual and progressive ideas there. His energy could certainly consume any room he came into, at about 6 foot 4, over 200 pounds, white-faced, with jet black hair slit with gray strands, it was hard not to miss him. He could overtake any room or conversation that the staff got into, bringing up all sorts of things that were not previously thought of. But amid Spencer's clearly high IQ and somewhat awkward social means, he was the type who would try anything. His dedication to being a modern eccentric led him to drink terribly, and get somewhat addicted to some drugs, as some of the effects of these can be seen in the few pictures that exist of him. Spencer was only a fraction of the odd mix of close friends that Columbia had to offer. They had the daring Russell Hunting going out and keeping up with everything as it happened, such as the Edison and Tesla feud. Since they weren't at Edison, they all just watched the whole battle like a boxing match, setting their money on who they thought would win certain debates that came up. From a few issues of The Phonoscope it is clear that Hunting and the Columbia staff enjoyed the fight when it happened. 

 These boys were so closely associated, that when Steve Porter got his yacht all set up to sail in yacht races, he invited everyone out to the competitions out at Staten Island in the Summer of 1898:

 So clearly upon reading this, it can be easily assumed that Mr. Porter had quite the heap of money to spare. He was willing to share it with all of his close friends, and to think that all of those boys that we know on those Columbia cylinders went a-sailing with Steve Porter is a funny thought. This rather gossip-natured thing just proves how close and trustworthy they all were toward one another, and proves how they were all true "sporting swells". 
This little thing also says that their still rather new house pianist, Fred Hylands, was to be trusted by them already by mid-1898. They had a very modernistic relationship as fellow co-workers, and this was in the 1890's!
I hope you enjoyed this!

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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Musical Directing and Comedic travels of Fred Hylands


Hylands loved bossing people around when it came to being a music director. 

He was apparently a very good director, even if he had impulsively lazy habits. He did get things done, and he always picked out the best people to cast for anything he did. His talents, like most of them, were rooted deep into his past, starting in his teen's. He started presenting this great talent around the age of fourteen, and continued on as a successful performer and director. His kindness and sense of humor got him out of every bad relationship in his teen's, twenties, and early thirties. His past was a weird mix of a poor family life, and also the extravagant and spoiled child sort of thing, as the traveling was hard on him when he was young, but the attention and praise made him become somewhat vain in his older years, and had him believe that his charm could get him through anything, and As I have said, that never worked for him as a publisher...
He became the musical director for the same Pastor's theatre that Mike Bernard held control of the pit almost just as soon as he got out to the east coast, which was in 1896. He proved to be a very strong leader at this company, as he joined several other connecting companies within the next year and a half. He had some control over the wild Mike Bernard when he was Pastor's music director, so that must have made for some interesting encounters. 
Amid his success as a music director, and performer, a few boys of the columbia phonograph company came up to him one day and wanted to test out his piano playing on their cylinders. 
Hylands must have been reluctant at first, but then when the boys heard him on the cylinders, they were immediately captivated by his skill, and power on the piano. His playing was so unique and modern that they had to take him. 
So he began his term at Columbia in c.mid-1897 and remained there until late-1904, playing all sorts of music behind the great singers and performers. He did not do too much show work in the time between 1898 and 1902, as those were his busiest years at the studio. It was amazing that he was able to do all of the things that he did in this short time frame though, being a house pianist by the mornings and mid-day, and later being at his publishing office, and sometimes going out to do a show by the night. He was doing quite a lot for a 25 to 30 year old. And to add to it, he tried out many types of drugs and drank terribly in this time, due to the obliging of his friends in the recording business, him taking advantage of the little-to-no rules in the studio, and having his own little nest above where all of his friends could constantly monitor him. 

 After this damaging and important time at Columbia ended in 1904, he went right back into directing and managing shows. He then came up with his most popular two shows Yankee Doodle Girl and also his much more successful The Beauty Doctor. These shows earned moderate success on Broadway, and within a few months, the shows were on the road throughout the mid-west, once again going the path that he did many decades before. 
“The Beauty Doctor” at Popular Prices, Matinee and Night 
 Wednesday afternoon and evening at the Majestic Fred Hylands, a Fort Wayne boy, will present his own musical comedy success, “The Beauty Doctor.”


There is a beauty chorus and a large number of comedians and comediennes to interpret the hilariously funny plot which, hitting as it does all the salient points of the beauty fad, offers opportunities well taken advantage of for funny incident and humorous situation.  Mr. Hylands has been fortunate in casting his plays comprehensively; and the dialogue and music in the hands of these competent people goes with a dash and a merry swing.  There are a dozen or more songs that will be whistled and sung and the entire music of the piece is far above the average injected into musical comedy, and is well sung by a chorus noted as well for its singing ability as for its beauty and agility.  A “Rube” song, “Good Bye, Jennie Jones,” is one of the real big hits of the year.  “My Flower of the South,” with a catchy chorus that will relate it in the public ear, and “Angel Voices” go to make the “Beauty Doctor” as good a show in a musical vein as it is in its comedy.
           
I used the newspaper snippet quite a while back on this blog, but this is a perfect time to bring it back into the light. Hylands really got his sense of humor out there with these two shows, and earned an even higher reputation as a comedian and comical personality. 

By 1907, Marie Hylands(his wife) was one of the star beauties and singers in The Beauty Doctor and Fred made sure that she got her place in the show that he created prior. But of course, just like the days back at Columbia, Fred was beginning to find so much traveling tiresome, and due to his weight by this time, he was only partially enjoying the touring. As when he was back at Columbia, he was much more sedentary, now that he was touring, it was much different, think about that comparison for a minute...
(i.e. refer the picture I have first on this post for a better look!)

(From a 1909 newspaper)

The heavy traveling did slim him out a little, but not by very much(clearly). Critics of his shows poked fun at his appearance still, just like the boys at Columbia used to in The Phonoscope, except that is wasn't really mean like the critics...He could not have been more stressed as a musician. His life of dedication to music was only becoming harder for him, and as much as he loved performing and as good at it as he was, he was just finding it cruel to his body and means. 
He didn't manage shows after 1909 and 1910, he got back into writing music for a little while, and toured around as a minstrel man and general Vaudevillian with his wife and Wilbur Held. He was still a funny performer to see by 1912, still slightly like "Columbia's baby-faced pianist" even after so many years of rough traveling and failures. He still had some determination in him, and he still had Len Spencer to go to if he needed some help in any way(and if Spencer was willing to actually help him...).  He still had his schtick, his odd looks, funky voice, less-than perfect smile, and quick fingers to keep his stage presence up. 
But of course, as Fred Hylands' tragedy goes, he died in the middle of an English tour in mid-1913, very suddenly to all of the performers who came over on the boat with him. 

Hylands' friends mourned him for a short time, and then got right back to business in touring and performing all over the place. Not long after he died, Marie went off to Chicago once again and married another actor type(of which his name I forget at the moment, but I have it written down on a small piece of paper buried somewhere). That seems like a rather disrespectful thing to do nowadays, but for actor types in that time period, well, it was unfortunately a very common end to a love and/or marriage. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 


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Thursday, April 16, 2015

Moody hands of Fred Hylands--The Non-Ragtime rarities

Ah yes, Freddy Hylands, Columbia's "heavyweight piano artist" 

He could kill the Rag-Time like a king, but that was not where all of his talent on the ivories stood. As the voiceless wonder on Columbia cylinders, all his words, phrases, misery, love, and tiredness all came out on the piano keys of Columbia's less-than-great-sounding piano. He can be described as a pianist who "wore his misery", in his weight and sometimes in his piano playing. But he was also a very kind, comical, fun, and quick-witted as a person, and a performer. 
His records playing the more common, and respected type of music of the 1890's are also very interesting curiosities. As like always, each take is different, and each song has some odd improvisations, whether they make musical sense or not. Recently, I heard a record by J. W. Myers from 1901 with organ accompaniment on it, here is that record:

A most sad song, but it's somewhat hard to completely feel that way due to Hylands' TERRIBLE organ playing. He just was not good on the instrument. And this cylinder above truly gets that point out, and since the organ is so LOUD(oh Hylands...) it's easy to tell that J. W. Myers did not think this through when he wanted "Freddy" at the organ when they recorded this. But this was a typical thing with Frank Banta at Edison however. Banta was very skilled on the organ, and had a better style at playing the thing. 

Now this next cylinder is a great 5-inch wide concert cylinder from Columbia, once again with the partnership of Myers and Hylands:
(the little home recording on this is also very fun!)
This cylinder is a different story. This one has the hard-handed nature of Hylands, and also gets some of his unusual sort of early-novelty piano playing here and there. The song is pretty fun also! 

So, this next one is a Pre-Ragtime number from 1892 by Thomas Hindley, called the "Patrol Comique", which has always been a fascination with early-ragtime studies, recorded in c.late 1897-1898:
this one also exhibits all of Hylands' traits on the piano, more so than some of the ones above, even the quick walking octaves! George Schweinfest is also always a wonder to listen to, as he was the best piccolo player recorded on cylinders, in my opinion. 

Now this one is an unusual sacred number by Steve Porter in 1898, and this one is particularly interesting because it's one of those few records where you can actually hear Hylands' mood in his playing:
(make sure you pause it right after the music cuts off!)
Hylands' playing is so heavy and strong. On this one, he's clearly not enjoying it half as much as Mr. Porter, his misery can be heard in his playing. 

Hylands's playing can be characterized as rather typical for the time period, but it was unique in the sense that he was once a praised child prodigy, and his playing has many aspects reminiscent of those early days. So he played in some ways similar to his friend and fellow Rag-Timer Mike Bernard, with the same sort of flashy patterns that Bernard had cultivated from his child prodigy days. Hylands always had that feeling that he had when he was a well-loved prodigy. He believed that his charm and respect could get him through anything, and since everyone loved him, it only added to this mindset. He never had enough money to get truly what he wanted out of what he did, so the charm and love wasn't enough, and it took him to get out of his thirties to fully realize this. And he didn't live much longer than that anyway. This is why he could be considered a "lost soul" or a broken musician around the time he died. His rich friends would never fund him enough anyway, and when he was an older publisher, they just heard about it and let it pass by them, not willing to help an old friend. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 


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Seeing in through the horn--recording studios of the early years

this is what all of the great singers, instrumentalists and pianists played into to make those records. 
early recording sessions looked a little something like this:

or this, in older terms:
(sorry the picture isn't so good, it was from The Phonoscope though!could that be Hylands in the top right corner? I see a piano there! Its so hard to tell for sure...)

Recording sessions could either be fast going, or an absolute pain in the neck. They were what the artists made of them, and what they were willing to do for the day. The artists got paid based on the amount of songs they did, and after the mass production of cylinders, c.1902-03 they were no longer paid for the amount of takes they did, as they were in the brown wax cylinder days. But recording sessions in general were one of the hardest things to perfect in the 1890's, as everything had to be perfect, and they had not created a room specifically perfect for making records under the conditions that they needed. the days of the brown wax cylinders was always said to be the most dreadful of any era of recording, as each take had to be made, which meant that the artists would do the same song over and over, at least forty to fifty times into five or so horns. So this is why brown cylinders are so fascinating, each one is different. You may hear the same selection by the same artist, with the same cylinder number, but they are very slightly different, and when I say that, the differences are so slight, that one not listening carefully could easily mistake it for the same exact take. 
I recently heard a great example of this amazing fact, with the same artist, same record number same selection, done on the same day, in the same recording room.
This cylinder was "The Anvil Chorus" whistled by John Yorke Atlee in mid-1898.
Here is the clearer and better sounding take, but of course with Hylands, there's always little hiccups on the octaves...

Here's the other take done on the same day, and this cylinder came from a different machine than the first one, it's a little bit differently balanced than the first one, proving its differing angle to Atlee:
(you have to be on a computer to play this file, click on the little "real" thing in the box to play it)
Hm! No mentioning of the piano player! I Don't like to see that! Especially if the cylinder is from 1898! 
Well, these records above were clearly recorded in that big wide room at Columbia, as seen below:
Oh Hylands...
(damn that camera flash!)
This recording process was a very meticulous ordeal, and the perfectionists did the best in the early recording business because of this. This is why the Spencer's were very good at what they did at Columbia. But someone like Hylands or Silas Leachman grew very weary of recording after not many years, some did for obvious reasons(Hylands durr...), but it was very hard, having to play a song fifty times in a row, and not all the takes would not be accepted anyhow, as I'm sure this was one of the disadvantages of having Hylands as a house pianist(takes would be thrown out quite a lot). 
Many artists quit the business after a very short time due to it's hard and particular customs. It took ambition and endurance to be in this business in the 1890's, as Hylands and Len Spencer are perfect examples of dedicated but also very worn recording artists of this time. This was also a business that was constantly changing, so if you were on staff, whether it be at Columbia or Edison, you would have to be able to change things if need be. 

Now imagine if you were listening to a cylinder, such as this one:
And now listen to this, and imagine you were poking your heard out of the top corner horn of the rack(i.e. use the picture above to get a better picture) and see Hylands and the piano, pounding the waltz time with a blank face or a scowl. And of course, look down at George Watson below, yodeling his heart out. 
(George  P. Watson from about the same time)
It's a fascinating thing to imagine, and being a lookout from on of the horns would be the most interesting place to be at an early recording session anyway, as they would have been through quite a life. Every brown cylinder that still survives has been through quite a life, even if it's perfect condition. 

I hope you enjoyed this!

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