I don't know what it is about George P. Watson, but I really do like him for some reason. It's either his hair or freaky looking face. He was the premiere yodeler on Columbia and Edison records in the late 1890's, and gained fame in Vaudeville before that. I do not know how the boys at Columbia came across him, but it was around the same time that Fred Hylands was hired as their pianist, which was in later 1897. Watson was a hit with all the staff there, especially the exhibition crowds, which was a very important thing to be in the recording business. If you were a popular artist among the studio workers, that was great yes, but if you really wanted to get fame around the record buyers, you had to be popular on the bills of the exhibitions. George P. Watson was just that. His German themed specialties were always popular among the hundreds of exhibition-goers they had every night of the week(not on Sundays though).
I hate to keep using it, but here:
The perfect picture of the Columbia exhibition. George P. Watson is with his back to the piano and his arm slightly up. You can see all the other "usual suspects" of the Columbia exhibitions. From left to right: Fred Hylands(of course!), George P. Watson, John Yorke Atlee, George J. Gaskin(?), Harry Spencer, and Russell Hunting. These exhibitions were really a mixed bag, and they were a pain for everyone who was instructed to come. They all had to bring food, set up the racks, decorate wherever needed(i.e. the American flag decorations for "Columbia"), get everything balanced correctly like the studio, and get a bill together for the audiences. The first thing before all of that though was picking the phonograph parlor to do all of this, as there were hundreds of them in Manhattan. They were spectacular things to come to, as you were able to meet the artists who made the records, buy records, and hear them perform right before your eyes. They began this way:
I do not know who the speaker is on the short cylinder above, but I know that I have heard that voice before on cylinders. The cylinder above really gives the best example of what exhibitors were like at the introductions of the exhibitions. Just imagine that voice it Harry Spencer's, because that was who did these at Columbia, or Len Spencer for that matter.
Anyhow, back to George Watson. His records were very popular at Columbia, more that they could have thought, as he was just a yodeler, not a "coon song" singer or vaudevillian like Dan Quinn.
Here are a few of his records:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/6000/6707/cusb-cyl6707d.mp3(from 1898 with Fred Hylands on piano)
Also from 1898 with Fred Hylands on piano. Recorded in that room seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxeWJAZju8(from 1901 with Hylands on piano as well).
Hylands and Watson must have gotten along well, as did most of the artists at Columbia. Hylands was said to be an easy and pleasing person to work with, even though it's pretty obvious he had some faults in his personality. Watson is one of the few earliest recording stars that I am 100% sure that he was a drinker, and he seems like the perfect contender for this notion. I wish I really knew the actually artists that Jim Walsh listed in the "Drinker" category, because according to a collector friend of mine, he spoke with Walsh on the phone back in the 70's and Walsh told my friend many things that were never written down in his articles. One of the big things was the artists who had the worst studio habits. This sort of thing can lead into George J. Gaskin supposedly chewing tobacco while be sang and spitting it into the horn between takes. I don't know where that story came from, and I don't know whether it's true or not. That notion will lead me into my next post.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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