Fred Hylands
Why is one of these studio pianists forgotten(as with the majority of record collectors), while the other one isn't?
It be a hard question to answer, and as of now, there is not a straight answer to it. I just had a conversation this evening with my dear friend Marty Eggers about this unsolved mystery. It's some thing that can get suspicious when examining the surviving examples of interviews and magazine sections. Many will speak very highly and kindly of Frank P. Banta, with everything about his certainly "easy" and pleasing personality present, about him working at Edison. But hmm...nothing about the pianist who worked at Columbia. A little strange isn't it?
Yes indeed. That Edison pianist was so well praised for his talent, abilities, silence, modesty, and work ethic. Why was he the more acknowledged? Well, let's just first take into consideration that Columbia's ledgers were destroyed in the 1970's, but other than that, there has to be other reasons why Hylands isn't mentioned in the interviews that survive of the artists from that time. Why is that so? It's a very bizarre thing, and thinking of it this way can really start to spark quite a lot of theories. Some of the theories I have heard range from Hylands being simply not being in the studio very much after 1898 to some like Hylands being a varying character in complexity in the studio, and that was not easy on the management. It's varying.
One of my opinions about this would lean more toward the slightly bi-polar nature of Hylands. When I say this, I mean that Hylands was described sometimes(most of the time if you find anything on Hylands, it will most likely say this) as a very fun character, who made friends wherever he went, as he was a man who won everyone over with his charm. Something like this from 1900:
(sorry it's so small...)
However, take a moment to recall that he complained about working there, saying that the managers worked him too much:
That pretty much reveals his feeling of importance over at Columbia. He said that he is ordered to play piano, get his pay for it, and even with all that, he still has to work here. That give us a hint into the side of Fred Hylands that was never written down. This could mean that he could sometimes be a person that the studio managers didn't want to deal with. Maybe when he was drunk in the studio he was like this. The sort of character Hylands could have been sometimes was the reason that the managers sometimes considered getting rid of him often between 1899 and 1904.
Why was Hylands absent from all the interviews and letters?
That's the real part of this mystery. There has to be a reason that he wasn't mentioned anywhere in Jim Walsh's articles(I dare you! go on the Library of Congress Website, type Jim Walsh into the search bar and look through the collection list, you won't find him listed anywhere!) What was it about Hylands that forced Walsh to not mention him anywhere? It could be that since Walsh didn't say anything provocative or controversial in his articles about any of these artists, which is respectable. However! I have been told by my friend Craig that Walsh did indeed hear quite a lot of scandalous information about many of these great artists, he heard everything about all of these figures, but he did not want to specify. Of course, this information could be about anyone in the business, but could this at all contribute to the absence of mentioning Fred Hylands? It's possible, as Hylands was a hard person to work with on some fronts, as his firm collapsed rather quickly after just over a year and half in 1900, due mostly to his frustration in Len Spencer, and somewhat with Harry Yeager.
Hylands would be "two-faced" if you will, sometimes. I bet in the studios when he came in at 8 in the morning, he was kind and warm most often, but by the evenings, he was a broken mess who would come back home and yell at his father and wife. Probably would moan about the amount the Columbia people worked him as it would seem that he did indeed do that, hence the image from The Phonoscope above. It's all just fascinating.
Yes indeed, we do know that Frank P. Banta is remembered because of his son Frank Edgar:
He fondly remembered his father in the 1940's, and his account of his father is what kept Frank P. Banta from being forgotten.
Whatever it was that is hidden about Hylands' personality, it's probably one of the contributing factors to why Hylands is forgotten as a studio pianist now.
Who was it spoke of Hylands long ago? It is obvious that someone spoke of him many years ago in an interview or letter, but who was it? It's clear that Hylands was listed in obscure record anthologies in the 1970's and 1980's. It's hard to know who it was.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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