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!