There he is, J. W. Myers.
He is some fascination when it comes to the earliest of the early recording artists, as he was not born in the United States, and probably spoke only Welsh before he came to the US in his teen's. Hmm, thinking of him speaking Welsh is an interesting thing to picture. The language is hard to read for an English speaker though...
From the picture above, I am not sure if Myers was tall, but I have the feeling that he wasn't Roger Harding short, nor was he Len Spencer tall. It was really his whiskers that were his main feature, paired with those thick eyebrows, well, that's J. W. Myers alright. From what I have heard, Myers worked at several jobs before he decided to leave all that behind him, and what those jobs were, I would like to know. It took him years to realize what he really wanted to do, and whatever job he worked at in the mid-1880's, the fellow workers must have noticed his sweet voice, if he was experimenting there with his talent.
By 1888, he was on the stages of New York, performing all kinds of songs, from light opera(like Gilbert and Sullivan), to comic songs(like "Down Went McGinty" from 1889). By 1891, he was in the recording studio, with the few regulars like Len Spencer, Billy Golden, George Schweinfest, and George Gaskin. And those names listed were about it when it came to who was making all the popular records in 1891. By 1892, even more artists we know came on the scene, like Russell Hunting and Silas Leachman.
Back to Myers, I know I am repeating myself as my posts go, but he's still slightly a mysterious character in the early recording business, as his birthdate and death date are both estimated, wherever you will go to try to find him, they will be unknown. It's likely that his exact birthdate and death date will never be known, because he did a pretty good job of completely disappearing after 1910. But come to think of it, I think Myers might have been older than Jim Walsh estimated(which was 1864), just from the fact that he started in the business very early, and most of the earliest artists were older than say 1867(minus those like Len Spencer, Ossman, or Fred Gaisberg). With Myers, I am thinking he was born more around 1860 than 1864, as if he was born in '64, it would make him 26-27 when he began making records in 1891. That idea does not really make the most sense to me for some reason, I know that Hylands was 25 when Columbia hired him, but Myers had been working at several other jobs before that, for at least ten or twelve years in the time prior to 1891. So somehow, the logic that goes into that doesn't go with me very well. To add to this theory, all sources you find out there will say that Myers died in 1919, though, I have been told by other collectors personally that Myers died in 1917, probably back in Wales. Hmm. I really don't know who to believe on that matter, as it's a hard one to track down. Since his death date is unknown, Myers probably moved back to Wales around 1914, as there was no work for him any longer in the US. Whatever happened to him, his friends must have heard something about it, and Myers must have heard of his dear Fred Hylands' death back in late-1913, if he was still living in the US that is.
Now to go on a little bit of a tangent, I would like to bring back this picture into consideration:
Yes, that picture.
The reason I would like to mention it once again is because of the fact that I now know who two more of the people in the picture are, for sure.
So we know Fred Hylands is at the piano, now that man right below him up against the piano is George P. Watson, that small man standing on what looks to be books is Whistler John Yorke Atlee(who would have been 56 when this picture was taken!), I'm still not sure who that man with his hands behind his back is, and the other two we know are Harry Spencer and Russell Hunting. I had to really think a while to find that the short man in the center is John Yorke Atlee, but I remembered what Fred Gaisberg recalled him as, which went a little something like this:
"even with his boy-like stature, at just five feet tall in his shoes, he was proud of his flowing moustache."
"even with his boy-like stature, at just five feet tall in his shoes, he was proud of his flowing moustache."
Hehe, that's always funny to me, Gaisberg always had the funniest ways of describing the people he worked with. But according to that, and the photograph, that's about right. I thought the man left of Atlee was Watson because of the hair, and overall physique, it's for sure yodeler Watson.
Just to get some music on this post, here are a few Atlee cylinders:
I hope you enjoyed this!
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