Saturday, September 19, 2015

Things Found in "Variety" and other similarities

Within the last few days, I have been searching through editions of Variety magazine for general information about any people I might know. One thing that I found a whole lot of was Burt Green and Irene Franklin. More particularly Irene Franklin, but in most of the things about them I saw, he was mentioned at some point. I also have been looking for anything on the Hylands' mentioned somewhere. They are indeed mentioned, but I haven't found too much yet. I have found many of the people that Hylands worked for, or knew very well. I did find this:
Hmm, that's interesting. I found this in the October 14, 1915 issue of Variety, rather than a date closer to his death. I think she remarried in 1916, or was it 1917? I don't really remember, but it must have been a few years after Fred died. I have always wondered what Fred and Marie's marriage must have been like, whether it was filled with love and attentiveness, or had love, but was not clear upon first seeing them. It's hard to know, but clearly Marie must have missed him after he died, and probably wore black as customary the year after he died. I always have thought that Fred and Marie's marriage was a very convenient one, as they were both stage performers who just happen to live in the same area when they met, and found each other good enough for one another to run off together.  I have no idea really, but I would like to assume that their marriage involved lots of booze, love, fights, adventures, and performances. 
Another marriage that was full of love I have read a whole lot about lately is these two here:
Yes indeed! That's Burt Green, Irene Franklin, and the older of their two daughters. Well, that's Burton Green folks. At last! I finally found a picture of him(that unfortunately could be a better picture!). 
There he is. Now this is one of those times where I wish I had photoshop. I would do so much to fix the lighting of this picture, because, as you can see that can be an issue here. I really want to sketch Burt Green, but I need to make this picture look better for me to get to it more precisely. It seems that from this picture, Burt and Irene's first daughter was about three or four years old in 1912. That would make her born in 1908 or 1909, the year after they supposedly married(which as in 1907). It's so odd, Burt Green looks like a shorter version of Len Spencer in a lot of ways, from what I can see of him. I could definitely see him and Fred Hylands being friends and publishing partners. I'm pretty sure that he was better off as a person and partner when he married Irene. That first wife of his must have been holding him down. He did seem to have lived more fully with Irene and his two daughters. 
From what I have found, Burt and Irene were everywhere, touring in all the theaters possible in every state, and eventually going off to France and England too. They were also a very revolutionary stage couple, as they were the first act to have an official advertisement on a magazine cover, and here it that very cover:
My god! How that gets the point across! Now mind you, this was the first of its kind, paid advertisements on magazine covers were experimental in the 1910's, and this one is the very first one. Burt and Irene were really the most popular couple in vaudeville from 1908 to 1918, and nothing could stop their popularity and praise. Burt could never have gotten the amount of attention he got with Irene than if he stayed with his first wife, he would only be as popular as his friend Fred Hylands(who could have been more popular on the stage). They made a handful of records together as well, two Edison cylinders in 1912, and four sides for Columbia in 1915. I really want to hear their Columbias! I will certainly look out for the only two sides they did, which are conveniently on a single two sided Columbia, so if I see one side, I sure as heck got the other one too. Burt and Irene were having too much fun on their recordings, that Burt messes up lots of notes and plays all sorts of funny melodies alluding to other things. You can really tell they were madly in love, and it lasted up to the day that Burt died. 

In further geeky studies from these last few days, I have found a few more interesting new records from the Santa Barbara website. This first one is by an artist I only mention here and there:
S. H. Dudley!
Here you go with Dudley and Banta's rendition of the 1896 hit "Chin Chin Chinaman" from c.1897.
What a comical record! It has all of Dudley's specialties put into one, his dialect skills, and his signature whistling. But how could I forget Banta's playing! It's wonderful! It's quick, comical and very fun.
These next few records are not from the Santa Barbara website, but they're Bob Roberts records. 
Now I think I have spoken of Bob Roberts' records briefly before.
There he is, in c.1903. Roberts was not particularly a popular artist when he began in 1902 and 1903, but by 1904, he was up there with the most popular artists like Arthur Collins and Billy Murray, which is really saying something. One thing that is interesting about his first three years making records is the piano accompaniment on most of his early records. It's pretty much always Fred Hylands. They must have proved to be a very good duo, both musically and personally. 
He made a large batch of 7-inch Columbia's in 1903 and 1904, all with the accompaniment of Fred Hylands. Here are some of them, all with wonderful accompaniments!
https://ia802704.us.archive.org/35/items/BobRoberts/BobRoberts-IveGotaFeelingforYouCoonSong.mp3
https://ia802704.us.archive.org/35/items/BobRoberts/BobRoberts-Alexander.mp3
https://ia802704.us.archive.org/35/items/BobRoberts/BobRoberts-BackBackBacktoBaltimore.mp3
https://ia802704.us.archive.org/35/items/BobRoberts/BobRoberts-BytheWatermelonVineCoonSong.mp3
I cannot get enough of Hylands' playing on these! He's so wonderful!
These later records are, in my opinion, the best examples of Hylands' playing overall, the earliest brown waxes of his may have gotten more syncopation and rhythm, but these get all his dynamics and power on the piano. 

I will still continue to look through Variety for more information about all those performers I know of, especially for the name Hylands.


I hope you enjoyed this! 



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