We certainly know about that gentleman. Even with all that is known about him, I still have many questions about Mr. Len Spencer, as many record collectors do as well. My dear friend Jack Stanley and I both fully believe that there's a side to Spencer that has long been disregarded, or maybe pushed aside for specific reasons? It's hard to know, but whenever I go out to the LOC, the first thing that I will look for is that little notebook of his I've heard tales of for many years. Who knows what that little treasure trove holds in its pages...
It would be similar to if someone found a bunch of Fred Hylands' letters from around the time that his firm collapsed. Speaking of that! I wonder if Spencer's notebook has dates from the time that he worked with Hylands in publishing, that would certainly be fascinating. I've been told that it has dates from the late-1890's, but I don't know if that means 1897-98, 1899, or 1900, or any configuration of any of those dates. If anyone knows, tell me! Either way, that little notebook might be a hint into what this unknown/forgotten side of Len Spencer was.
Anyhow, now to get into the main part of this post. I was listening to some cylinders by the Columbia orchestra while in art class yesterday
(some of the Columbia orchestra, including Fred Hylands in the right corner with his hand atop the piano)
While digging through these eccentricities of studio orchestra music, I stumbled upon somewhat of an atrocity of a brown wax cylinder. I am a great fan of the Columbia orchestra(the group that lasted from 1897 to 1905, not to at all be confused with the Columbia band what came a little later, and overlapped with the orchestra for a few years), but this cylinder was a real change from the many others by them I have heard. This record had the title of "The Village Orchestra", and when I saw that title, I immediately knew that this was going to be a comic cylinder of them imitating an unskilled and terrible-sounding country orchestra. Guess what, that's what it was!
Here you go:
I was cracking up terribly when I heard this cylinder! They're trying to play horribly! I heard a familiar voice in there, hmm... That "Encore! Encore!" after they played "Pop Goes the Weasel" sounded an awful lot like that piano player. Fred Hylands! Also, that little thing toward the end:
Tom Clark or George Schweinfest: Say! Do ye fellows know "Annie Low-rie"?
Fred Hylands: Why--that was "Annie Low-rrr-ie"! (there's a weird rolled "r" there, that's why it's written that way)
That, my friends, is real 1890's vaudeville! And that's also Fred Hylands' sense of humor at work(it was one of the things he was know for!). It's very clever really, and it must have been a popular act with those who asked the Columbia to play for them, as it was hilarious and perfectly terrible in its own ways.
Now onto the Rag-Time mysteries part of this post. Just this evening, I was listening to Len Spencer's version of this here:
Yes, that iconic tune of early "Rag-Time" by Benjamin Robertson Harney
Yes indeed.
Harney at last got this Louisville true "Rag" in 1895, after years of carrying the piece around with him as he played in saloons, boardinghouses, and playing the left-handed banjo occasionally. In 1896, Len Spencer got a chance to see Harney perform at one of the major Manhattan vaudeville stages. Harney not only did his specialty with "Mister Johnson Turn Me Loose", he also went for his outlandish "buck dance" along with his choruses of "Good Old Wagon". Spencer had to learn it, and so he did, mimicking Harney's rare and deceiving tones of voice, some dance movements, and his perfect dialect.
His exceptional mimicking skills came very handy when making the rounds of "Good Old Wagon". When Fred Hylands came along, all Spencer wanted to do was to make hundreds of rounds of it with him. So he did. I haven't been able to heard any of the brown waxes he made with Hylands in 1898, but I know there must be at least a few of them out there somewhere. The one popular and somewhat overly-used take of Spencer's "Good Old Wagon" is the take from 1902 on a Lambert cylinder:
Everyone uses the cylinder quite a lot, on record blogs, history blogs, and music blogs, only because many would come to the idea that it only fully represents how Spencer was the main singer of Coon songs in the 1890's, and was the most cruel and shameless with the racism. While that is partially true, there are dozens of more things to consider when hearing this infamous cylinder.
That piano accompaniment. It had been a widely debated item of interest since the first CD with the record on it was put out. It is one of the few records where non-record collectors I know have argued with me about the pianist. Even though there are hundreds of better examples of Rag-Time on cylinders from even several years before, this one seems to have kicked up the most discussion. It cannot be Frank P. Banta, and here's why:
-It's Len Spencer singing
-It's a Lambert cylinder
-Banta already worked for Edison and Victor in 1901-02
-Lambert was a branch off of Columbia(if you think about it for a moment)
So with that, the pianist would, most logically, have to be Fred Hylands. The style is also similar to that of Hylands, even if there's hell of a lot of sustain pedal on is. His rhythm is good enough to be Hylands as well:
Yes, to those of you who had to do any liner notes for this cylinder on any CD, that pianist is not "anonymous" or "Unknown Studio pianist", nor is it when trying to sound all smart by saying the pianist is Frank P. Banta. It's Len Spencer's favourite pianist FRED HYLANDS.
Now this next thing I would like to speak of is something I have hinted at on this blog before. It is the discussion of music written out by other composers that sounds like it could be imitations of Frank Banta or Fred Hylands. I would like to bring back Maximilian Hoffmann into the picture:
Yep.
Hoffmann is still a reasonably unknown character in the history of Rag-Time, even though he was one of the first to string together extraordinary medleys of Rags and cakewalks. He can be considered one of the early "Rag-Timers". In that group(by the way) would include this:
Ben Harney, Max Hoffmann, Mike Bernard, Barney Fagan, Burton Green, and Fred Hylands(*keep in mind that these were the white performers on the east coast, and in the midwest, there was of course the group that the Turpin's and Joplin were part of at the same time*)
Hoffmann's Rag Medleys are still unknown in their true origins, the songs in them are known, but not necessarily the stylistic spectrum of them. When I hear either one of his medleys, whether his "Rag Medley" from 1897 or his "Ragtown Rags" from 1898, I hear the syncopated musings of Fred Hylands. Why? Well take a listen to all of Hoffmann's "RagTown Rags" here, and really listen to how the syncopation is written, and even how some of the left hand is played as well. Now after 6 minutes of Ragged mastery, listen to Hylands and Golden's "Roll on De Ground" from the same year as "RagTown Rags". It's got all of the same syncopation that the medley has, with that distinct style of Rags that disappeared mostly in 1904, but completely by 1906.
It's a distinct style that can be very well heard on this one here from 1897, it's a little hard to describe, but it's very syncopated, quick, and stems from how the earliest cake-walks were played. It's a style that is hard to master, and what is forgotten about this specifically mid-late 1890's style is that complicated bass patterns were also played behind the heavily syncopated right hand notes. This can complicate the playing far more that it needs to be, but it's how it was actually played. No one knew how to write the walking bass patterns. That's the only reason that it is non-existent in written Rag-Time until Artie Mathews' "Weary Blues" from many years later in 1915. It existed, and it was played often, but it took a true musical genius like Artie Mathews to know how to write it out.
That was the one thing that Hoffmann missed when trying to transcribe his medleys, after hearing Burt Green, Harney, and Hylands play. They all played it, but in slightly differing ways it seems. Another thing that was specific to few pianists of the 1890's, was the fifths and fourths in the left hand. That was something that Fred Hylands didn't do too often, but Frank P. Banta did, and Ben Harney did. Now, here's a piece that all of these aspects are:
Every one of the late-1890's Rag-Time stylings are present here. Minus the syncopation patterns from the ones above. Now, here's the one thing that's amazing about this piece "The Funny Old Fakir' as it's called. Walking bass patterns are present! That it truly astounding for 1898! That can be heard at about 1:20, by the way. There's also quite a few fifths and tenths in the left hand, that's also curious.
All of these characteristics can be heard on the cylinder by Golden and Hylands above, and also on this cylinder here( the first take listed) recorded in 1898 as well.
All these Hylands characteristics(minus the broken octaves) are present in this piece I have shared on here before:
That Rag possibly might be named for Hylands, being a freckle-faced redhead.
Anyhow, the piece is fantastic and is a true Chicago-Indiana Rag, that is not at all in the Rag-Time style of 1905, and it sounds more like 1896-97 to me.
Like a "Chicago Professor" I have mentioned before on this blog.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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