John Yorke AtLee has always been a funny and largely unknown recording artist for decades.
AtLee was always the oldest on any of the record staffs that he became a part of, only because he was born earlier than Edison himself, in 1842. So he was one and generation older than all of the Columbia staff that he worked alongside in the 1890's. The Columbia staff(most likely Fred Gaisberg), seen below:
Found AtLee at a local vaudeville show doing a very intriguing whistling act with piano accompaniment. Not long after that, Gaisberg and AtLee were making records for Columbia at AtLee's house late at night. After AtLee's term at the treasury department by day, young Gaisberg only in his teens' would trek off to AtLee's little house and play with his piercing whistling for hours on end. AtLee was said to be a sort of mirco-manager when it came to Gaisberg, as he would not let him leave after so much recording to where he could drop. Oftentimes AtLee kept Gaisberg there until well after midnight. This fact surprised Gaisberg, as AtLee would often have to go off and work in the morning, also by AtLee's age he was just starting this highly-demanding business. Here is one of the house recorded records I was talking about:
You can tell that this was recorded in a small room, like a house(AtLee's house), also that is was pretty well recorded for a house cylinder, not recorded at Columbia's studio.
Not long after these unbearably tiring nights with AtLee, Gaisberg vowed just to stay at Columbia's master Washington studio. AtLee was also a part of this, so he was from there just recorded at their studio. AtLee then became one of the great artists of Columbia's celebrated and unique staff(as advertised in that section from The Phonoscope above). After a few years of trying out Berliner's technology, AtLee returned to Columbia in 1898, and this time he came to greet their latest edition to the permanent staff, Fred Hylands. AtLee must not have been sure of what to think of this big and burly pianist when he met him. If they wanted to keep AtLee at Columbia, they needed to make sure he could work with their pianist at least reasonably well. These 1898 records were all recorded amazingly well for their time, here are two takes of the same song, done on the same day:
Not as good take, but a different one!: http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-1108.htm
(Make sure you click on that "real" icon to play the sound file)
Here is another one from these 1898 Columbia sessions:
(I have the feeling that this record was played a little too fast however.)
It's still a good old good one by the rare John Yorke AtLee from 1898!
Atlee left Columbia in 1899, to work on his own record selling, making his own records just as he did back in 1893, and selling them to dealers and purchasing agents, such as Harry Spencer. I.e. the ad below:
AtLee remained in the recording business until about 1901, but after that nothing can really be found other than the fact that he still performed his whistling specialties in Vaudeville until 1910. AtLee was an old man by 1900, he would have been almost 60 when he was recording with Hylands at Columbia in 1898. So he died in 1910, at age 68, much older than the other recording boys he worked with later in his life. He was said by Gaisberg later in life to have been "just five feet tall in his shoes and proud of his flowing mustache...", makes sense since he was an old Scotch man making whistling records. AtLee was like George Graham in many ways, one of the fresh catches of Fred Gaisberg and one of the Washington locals who were taken in by the collar to record for Columbia between 1892 and 1896, others of this group include Russell Hunting, Steve Porter, and George Graham.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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