This is an image of the Columbia phonograph company's main recording room, from 1898, with Fred Hylands at the piano in the top right corner.
Back when this photo was taken, there were very few, if not any rules in the recording studios. This meant several things, other than having the freedom to balance the instruments and voices as needed, they were able to drink and do a much drugs as they wanted. The 1890's recording business was a free-for-all, both in its politics and making of records themselves. This is why I mention so many times on this blog the fact that sometimes the artists singing or accompanying could be either drugged or drunk. I don't really speak of the "drugged" end of this notion, as who knows what they could have sniffed or smoked beforehand. That is really open for whatever kind of drugs were readily available at that time. Since most means of common medicine in the 1890's were full of addictive drugs that we are very aware of to-day, who knows how it got to them. We are only left to guess what they could have done before they got their heads into the horns.
From this man's whole story:
George's Graham's that is, it was something that the recording engineers just didn't want to deal with the drunkards that they knew were an epidemic in their studios. George Graham was undoubtedly one of the more interesting of the 1890's recording stars, as he was obscure throughout his career as a patent medicine man and a recording artist. Wherever the man came from, he certainly had a whole lot to say, even if he didn't say it very clearly more than half the time. He is the perfect example of what the studio workers thought of their drunkard artists. I have been told many things about this controversial subject, and the reactions I have gotten from other collectors about this have always been ones of surprise and disbelief. This is because the subject was not very well documented, if at all, in the actual time period, and the artists who survived their fellows spoke not of it. Fred Gaisberg was the one who described George Graham in the best of detail, as he was the one who went and found him in 1895. He spoke of Graham getting too drunk to stand straight, and them not really caring too much for him, thinking it was genuinely entertaining to watch him. It was like that until they had to all get a hold of him and drag him out.
This sort of thing must have been a regular thing at Columbia. Why? Well, think of who was on their staff there: Len Spencer, Fred Hylands(especially!), Russell Hunting, George Graham, George P. Watson, George J. Gaskin, and several more that we know of. These were really the ones I have come to think would be more likely to have been dragged out by the engineers than others, someone like Dan W. Quinn or Vess Ossman probably not. The two I really am pointing at on this subject(other than George Graham of course!) are Len Spencer and Fred Hylands. These two just looked like drinkers, and they both had health problems that are directly related to drinking themselves sick. There is, however, more proof of this in Hylands' death certificate from 1913, Spencer's was a little more direct, in saying what was the main thing that killed him. With Hylands, it was a mix of a handful of things that slaughtered him. These things included: a variety of symptoms of diabetes, Liver complaint, a weakened immune system, and a few more things we may never know the specifics for. There was no hope for Len Spencer, he was the most stressed and overworked of all the early recording vocalists, so it was just coming his way when he died in 1914. He sure "Got all that was a Comin' To him" if ya know what I mean!(that's a reference to a song he recorded in 1899.)
In saying that Hylands and Spencer were probably the problem drunkards for Columbia, they probably got dragged out at the end of some long days of recording. They were productive however, and that was all that mattered to the management. I'm sure that Vic Emerson(the manager at Columbia when Hylands got hired there...) probably found it very entertaining, and needed to work dear Hylands till he dropped to get full satisfaction from the takes. I do think I have mentioned before that this was Mr. Emerson's logic with the artists he had at Columbia, and it's always an important thing to note when thinking of how much the artists worked. The fact that it was mostly the fault of Emerson that is. This is why some collectors speak of Emerson very negatively when his name is ever mentioned.
I have heard from one collector that I spoke with a little while back, that some of the engineers and studio workers said they couldn't tell the difference between the drunk artists and the sober ones, and that sounds like a bunch of mush! That can't be true, they must have known. They must not have wanted to admit the truth because they would have to get into specifics with who did it and who didn't.
Hylands had the worst job of them all, working the piano accompaniments. As we will probably be able to guess why, this job was absolutely brutal, and not for a stringy sickly chap(like Frank P. Banta). It was a job that involved every one of the featured artists there, egos battling with each other, terrible studio conditions, not getting fed regularly, and a need for time to rest, but was restricted forcefully by the greedy and anxious artists that approached the piano. So with all of this stress and anxiety, one would certainly think that the piano man would certainly have a flask on hand, and maybe a bottle of snuff(cocaine, opium, etc.) buried somewhere in their jacket pocket. The bottle of any kind of alcohol was allowed, and if seen by Mr. Emerson or anyone else in management, it would go unnoticed. The bottle of snuff however, that would vary, depending upon whether it was one of those addictive elixirs sold in the time, or just a powder of some kind. That was usually hidden, but its affects can be heard sometimes in the piano accompaniment. Preserved for decades.
Here are a few examples of this sort of accompaniment(by Fred Hylands):
It's such an odd thing to think, but it did happen, and the poor musicians were the worst cases of these, because the singers worked them more than they needed to. The singers though, also were caught by this bug, and proves the free-for-all means of the 1890's recording business.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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