Records for Sale with commentary and troubles for the "whistling coon"

Looking at record auction lists can get us down...but at least by doing this we know what's out there. Recently(this past week) I looked through Kurt Nauck's auction list for this month. I was told that there was some unbelievable stuff for sale, and didn't believe that comment until seeing the listing! 

What a group of brown wax for sale!

That was really the most surprising thing I had seen, on page 119 of the list where the brown waxes are for sale. 

You can see the list here:

http://www.78rpm.com/AUCTION/v62_cat.pdf

I just couldn't believe the amazing selection of records under the brown wax category. Starting with Hunting's original "Bureau" sketch? Come on. We all want to hear that one. But 500 dollars for a single record? No. of course not. 

I love these records more than many collectors probably ever have, and personally don't think that 500 dollars is worth two plays of a historic cylinder. If you're a reasonable collector of brown wax, the least you would do once owning such a cylinder is play it once to get a decent transfer, and never play it again until you have someone special over or are doing a demonstration. Is that in the end worth 500 dollars? Maybe. I've bought a dress in perfect condition from the same time period as that Hunting cylinder for less than that. 

Is two plays of Edward Favor singing "Sweet Rosie O'Grady" worth 250 dollars? Who knows. But generally I will say not. 

Okay, the one David Bangs Columbia is practically priceless, due to the odds against its existence. Generally records with unlikely survival stories do well in terms of collecting a ridiculous pile of money. 

I've been lucky to hear even a single record by Bangs, and he is not a lost cause in terms of continuing to search for records. He made enough recordings of curious selections to keep us looking(also, he was really good-looking!). Enough Shakespeare and coon songs to keep us sustained! 

Indeed, Bangs bantering on "A stump speech on Love" would certainly seem priceless to us poor but passionate collectors, but of course, those who have money will always win in the end, with that 1000 or whatever more money they have to spare just for a single recording with unlikely odds for survival. 

Let me elaborate on why this certain Bangs record really is a miracle for survival. One, it was recorded in 1894. That's a year that was deep in a recession, so generally records from 1894 and 1895 are hard to come by(even though there seem to be a lot of them transferred on the internet...). Two, this record is by David Bangs, a name we never normally see, like EVER. I only know of him because I saw his picture in a Berliner catalog, and saw what he recorded for them between 1894 and 1896. Oh, and he recorded for a short period of time as well, that usually lowers the odds of survival an awful lot. That's just two years of the entire brown wax era, and that era lasted from 1887 to 1901. Three, this is a Columbia record, and Columbia's from this period of 1894 to 1896 are sketchy and very few. Columbia almost went under in that recession period, and had death scares from every year 1889 onward to 1897. The fact that the record contains an attractive number paired with the record company, and the artist, and the year, makes this record an extraordinary example of the brown wax era. Okay, 1000 dollars is a lot, but actually, when considering the odds against it, and how attractive the artist and selection just happen to be. It's a powerful combo that will end up costing someone over 1000 dollars. go for it, whoever you are, with your plenty extra throw away money for a single cylinder...

Record pricing really gets to me, if you haven't already noticed. I have a hatred toward Ebay at the moment because of all the ridiculous bidding wars that have happened recently over sheet music. Of course, only one thing interested me more than anything could...Hylands' "You don't stop the world from going round" was for sale. But not only that! It wasn't just any edition of that coveted sheet, it was the one with his face on the cover!

Yes indeed. I was hoping it was some obscure picture of him that we'd never seen, but it was this one:

So it was at a reasonable 50 dollars for a few days, I checked it a few times a day(0f course). Remember that this is the fabled sheet, the one that was advertised in The Phonoscope with great pride and attention. This was the dream sheet, the only one(0ther than a certain "narcissus" by a certain composer) I would have paid no matter how much it went for. So I kept checking it, until the last night for bidding came. I even teamed up with one of my friends and made a deal where I would have gotten the music from him. So came the war, it soon rose over my first limit, over 100, then it went to 150, then to 175, then to 200, then back down to the winning bid of 189. Never had I felt such a loss in terms of sheet music. come to find out later, the hours after the fact, all the people I thought watched it saw it when it happened, and it was much to the likeness of a sporting event. We were all cheering and howling at the price changes as they were sent in. It was really quite a scene, and the frustration that cam about afterward perplexed us all. 
The week before that night, I convinced many potential bidders off of the music, since they knew I'd be all over it. After all, it was the "dream sheet", and I would have been complete had I gotten it. 

nope. Some rich collector had the money to burn to spend the absurd amount of 189 dollars on a single piece of sheet music. This person probably won't go out and do lectures on Fred Hylands or Len Spencer using this piece as an example of their curious Rag-Time work together. 


Whoever you are who got it, please disclose your identity to all of us  in the Rag-Time community.

So that's why I have given up on Ebay for records and sheet music. All of you rich collectors are too much. I just can't handle all these bidding wars over such dream items like Spencer brown waxes and coon song sheet music. 
yes, I still check Ebay every once in a while just to see what's out there, but usually there's not anything as good as that Hylands music. 




Now to move on...
The past two weeks or so, I went digging through the archives of newspapers on this website:
http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
I dug through specifically the papers kept on the murder trial of George W. Johnson, which indeed I have dug through in great detail before, but I came across two particularly interesting articles that I had not previously seen before. One provided a very detailed description of a bout I had not heard of previously. Of course, as expected, while digging through these various papers, Johnson's common-law wife's name was spelled a variety of at least 5 different ways. I have always seen it as Roskin, but I saw Roxana, and Ruskin, and it seems we're at a point of uncertainty. The most reliable and detailed article called her Roskins, but let's not get into a fight over what her name was an how it was spelled, lets just stick with Roskin Stuart. 
It seems a few months before Creole Roskin met her end in later 1899, she and Johnson had an awful fight, and not just one of those usual quarrels that they had in their flat(according to testimonies of the neighbors). This seemed to have turned out much like one of those very "coon songs" we hear from Len Spencer or Quinn, which is always ironic to read these realistic stories. 
So, the "whistling coon"(Johnson) was minding his own business whistling on the front steps of their building, this was on the night of March 23,1899, he was just about to go inside...
but of course, there comes Roxana(as she's called in this one) with a black gentleman friend. He continued to whistle various tunes,(including "a new Coon In town"!), and she got very frustrated with him quoting various tunes, the last being "after the ball"(hahaha!). The article then goes on to say something very interesting to us who know somewhat about the relationship between these two:
"In fact, Johnson's general attitude was a riddle to her[Roskin]. She would rather he would speak instead of whistling with his head on one side like a pert sparrow, and she said as much emphatically."
That's a curious statement, something that we wouldn't often hear from the background of these two. It's certainly something I hadn't heard before. It is important when building our point of view of this whole murder trial to understand the relationship between these two in the months before she died. 
To move on in the story...
Finally Johnson gets to "the Mockingbird", and Roxana's man friend just isn't having it at this point. The other guy soon neared Johnson with clenched fists, making Johnson back off slightly. At his speechless whistle-talk, Roxana at last had enough and had burst into tears with frustration at him, and the man friend had run off at this point. All the speech quoted in this article is fully in dialect, so I won't quote it directly for the sake of readers...She says amid her emotional panic that she's only with him because he's " lined wif' five-dollar bills." Just after her hate speech to him, Johnson whistled up(hilariously...)
"You can go when you gets your trunks pack'd-
I don't Care it you never comes back!"
She had had enough, and with that, she pulled out a little revolver and shot at Johnson a few times. One of the shots hit Johnson in the calf, but luckily when the police arrived, an ambulance surgeon was able to tie up the wound for Johnson, and the policemen were able to get Roskin to the police station. All of that passed over quick, and everyone seemed to be back to normal after all of that craziness. 
But of course, as we know, that was only the beginning of their troubles. 

Another article from just after Roskin was killed(dated October 1899)provided very much needed background into the two of them that's also very detailed and brought up some curious theories. This article detailed the background to Roskin and what led to her immediate downfall. The article states that just two weeks before she died, she met her end with going out and singing at clubs.

WAIT what? Singing? at clubs? This article details how Roskin was a singer at Tenderloin clubs and underground black gathering places. She was said to have been called "The blackbird", which is curious, because around this time we can see a certain piece of music with a similar title...

hmm mm...what's this? 
Could that be a reference to Johnson's Roskin?
I mean, just like any theory of mine, there's always the possibility that it could be true. Of course, there's almost nothing to prove such a thing, but Hylands did indeed work with Johnson, rather often I might add. It must be noted that in 1899 was when Hylands was there at Columbia pretty much every day, since he lived at the address that is indicated on the sheet music above, and that is a block away from 1157 Broadway(notice how I used the present tense here...). 
So of course with all of that, there's the possibility that this piece above was titled in honor of Johnson' common-law wife, though we can't know for sure, it's just interesting to point that out. 

Evermore we are reminded that Hylands was like a hawk watching everything go on at Columbia from his high perch at 33 W. 27th street, and occasionally getting into the mess going on below and almost getting in trouble or killed with each swoop down. He may have been part of it, but he seems to have been on the edge of the mush pit his entire time at Columbia. 

With all that, "the Blackbird" two weeks after getting at last thrown out of the final saloon, she was found dead by Johnson(0r whatever happened...). The article then goes along to tell the story of what happened the night(or morning) that she died, the same old story that we know. 
Johnson was minding his own business at the flat, and she came in an awful racket, and seeing that she was in trouble, Johnson went to a policeman near his flat and called him down to investigate. After Johnson told him what was wrong and how he came to find her in such a condition, Johnson was arrested. All the rest is history. 
Okay, you all know my opinions and theories about this touchy subject matter, but you know, I'm serious about this subject matter. This whole murder trial is one of the most complicated legal battles of the brown wax era, it's certainly more interesting than all the pointless patent battles that every company went through before 1903. Columbia didn't see this coming at all, and must have sent everyone in a scramble when it happened. Everyone must have been in panic, even though they might have been wary of Johnson before she died, since he was a guy with a troubled life, unfortunately scattered with awful women who didn't like him, but stayed with him because of his money. once we start digging into the names associated with the lawyers who went to the actual courtroom on trial day, that's when it gets complicated and deeper. I still think it's really strange how Hylands' legal associate Rollin Wooster(or whatever he was for Hylands...) was thrown in to learn everything about the trial and stayed completely silent on trial day. His comments after the trial will remain infamous to us. Let me remind you all of Wooster's comment right after the madness ensued in the courtroom at Johnson's acquittal:

Johnson is what you would call a good coon, he is too good-natured to have ever killed that woman. We're going to take him to a hotel tonight or to Mr. Emerson's  home and give him a good dinner, sitting down at the same table with him. I am glad I was the first to shake hands with him after he was discharged. He can earn 35 to 100 dollars a week singing and whistling.
This was taken from Lost Sounds by Tim Brooks.

Oh Wooster. That comment resonates with me well. I can almost see Hylands patting him on the back just after he shook hands with Johnson, as he said he did. What a relief it must have been for all of them. And as expected, the most uncomfortable one of the crew was most certainly Spencer. Spencer always gives me mixed messages with Johnson, since he clearly was nice to him and respectful, but thinking of how internalized racism was, and how passive aggressive it probably was with Spencer(in considering his privileged upbringing), his feelings about the ethics surrounding the trial must have been out of control. The prejudice was probably passive aggressive with all of them, since they all praised Johnson so highly just as soon as the trouble came around, and after that we don't hear much. The only thing we really hear is Spencer being yet again passive aggressive with Johnson while also housing him, soon forgetting about him, then a few years later finding him dead and the white guilt smacked him right in the face, harder than he could have ever expected by just going up to clean a forgotten room in his Lyceum. 

Again folks, this is why the trial is so complicated, and why it really was a landmark event for Columbia,since it was one of very few legal battles that didn't have to do with patents. Eventually I will have the time to do a super long report on this matter, with my unusual and rare point of view on it. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Mid-night crooks and "The Voice in Time"

Who are these three funny guys? 

Well, we ought to know that first guy(Len Spencer), but the other two could stump some of us. The second is George Emerson, and the third is Clyde Emerson. These three rough-and-tumblers seem to have pulled off an interesting heist back in 1897, one that has been causing all sorts of buzz among the brown wax community this past week. This heist of a sort was pulled off in early 1897(just as the U.S. Phonograph company was collapsing), and in fact, speaking of the U.S. company, it seems that this was part of what led to their demise. So after reading the other record blog that was all read, it seems that Russell Hunting wasn't the only one of these studio stars who was arrested in the 1890's. Len Spencer and those infernal Emerson's were also taken out of that studio by the men in blue. 

The three of them crooks went to their U.S. Company headquarters in Newark(I hope late at night!) and took a hundred records as it says(around 100 would be my guess, keep in mind that it's just three guys...) from that company and brought them to be sold to a company of "rival concern",which is probably Columbia at this point of time. The case was brought to court, with them three handed $2,500 in bail(hot damn that's a lot of money!), but were soon discharged upon having no strong stance on the case. 

So that's it?

Yes, essentially with all the evidence. 

But hold on! There's more to it...This is clearly an inside job, a very complicated story, much more so than it lends itself to be. This is one of those things that just can't be a small thing, with a bail set over the amount that Victor Emerson put aside for George W. Johnson, something ain't right to me...As with anything Emerson or Columbia related, there's some really tangled up backstory that involves several recording stars, as well as deals between rival companies. The U. S. Company was a sinking ship in 1896-97,and everyone had to get their way off into the water. Spencer was in an uncomfortable position for sure, since he had such strong and long lasting ties to U.S., but was being led on a string back to Columbia, since that's where he started, and that's where they wanted him. A similar story must have been attached to Edward Issler, though Issler was not nearly as valuable to the management(he would be the most valuable if managers really cared about musicians), however, he did have an important role at U.S. that succeeding pianists hadn't, the knowledge of the technical aspect. Everyone eventually were saved by Columbia, but it was a long and almost deadly process, as it always was with Columbia during any transition. Spencer just after this heist had pledged his services to Columbia, which is also a little fishy. Come on, you can't just see this as being a smoothly moving thing that just happened. Spencer got busted for it, and so did the two "lesser" Emerson brothers. Victor Emerson may not have been charged, but it's got to be for certain that he had some hand in this late-night raid. 

(a cartoon I did parodying this heist)

Even with the lack of names(unlike the Johnson trial), there must have been at least a dozen other sleazy hustlers involved in this raid, they just sent out the best hustlers to go and steal the records themselves to be sold. I'm sure brother Harry(Spencer) had a piece of this too, since Harry at this point wasn't fully set as a recording artist solely. Recall that at this time (early-1897) Harry was more of a salesman and repairman than a recording artist. It would seem in this case that everyone we might think who would have a hand in this probably did. Considering Columbia's rampant legal squad, they were sure to brush this off quick no matter what happened. Hopefully we'll be able to learn more about his rather hilarious bust with Columbia. It's always fun to read about these stars getting into trouble like this, whether it has to do with recording or not.

Now to move to Fred Gaisberg!

We all have grown to love this crazy guy, and I have most certainly done so, along the course of reading this lovely book:

(Thanks Charlie!)

At this point, I am over half way through the thing, and the first night I started reading it got through 90 pages. I already have written about the first two to three chapters in a previous blog post, but this time, since I've the book right here, I will get to quoting some of Gaisberg's priceless and utterly snobbish remarks about those he met places he went. 

Here's one of the first lines from chapter three:

The man finally selected[to manage Berliner's London outpost]for this task was William Barry Owen, a legal assistant to Frank Seaman...

"Berliner could have selected no finer agent than Owen to exploit his invention. He was an opportunist of quick decision and a bold gambler...You would always find him sitting at the stiffest game of poker in the smoking room...and his eyes would bulge as he laid a full house on the table...He brought to London an infectious enthusiasm and energetic leadership which I believe was quite new to the conservative English city man of that day."

That's most certainly Gaisberg's writing at it's finest...his descriptions and diction were just fantastic to every degree. When he wasn't describing a type of foreign music with his European eye, the images he painted through words otherwise were unbiased and nicely structured, giving us a very real and somewhat raw vision into the early recording business. 

His description of the old man Giuseppe Verdi was just as intriguing as his vibrant imagery of his first visits to Milan and Rome:

I often saw the venerable Verdi, who would regularly take an afternoon drive in an open landau drawn by two horses. People would stand on the curb and raise their hats in salute as the carriage proceeded down Via Manzoni to the park. A frail, transparent wisp of a man, but the trim of his pure white beard so corresponded with the popular picture of him that one could not fail to identify him. 

That pretty much sums up Verdi. Gaisberg and Willie Darby were utterly overwhelmed by the culture and constant vigor of Milan the first and few times they went. Being ever surrounded by lovely art, music, and people seemed to overwhelm Gaisberg at first, though after a little while he grew used to the culture.

I hate to move a little out of chronological order, but this book keeps opening to other important pages with Gaisberg's unequalled descriptions, here is his rather cute description of Alfred Clark around 1897:

He was, I remember, a youth big an well-proportioned, perfectly dressed in a tailor-made suit which, in those days of "off-the-peg" clothes[what does that mean?] (which I and even Berliner wore) struck a note of distinction. Further, his dark eyes and curly brown hair set off by a boyish blush whenever he spoke, made him irresistible[hmm mmm...interesting choice of words there], quite apart from the shadow of the great Edison.[That's where he worked before then]

That's a lovely description, and makes me laugh, since he and Clark lived adjacent one another above Berliner's studio from 1896 to 1897, and went to all sorts of shows and got plenty of bonding time in, whilst also learning of the business and local culture in Washington and in Philadelphia. 

Gaisberg's time from August 17th and 18th of 1899 is one of the absolute best two days in sequence throughout his entire years of travel. In these two days, he was traveling with Darby in Spain to France:

Thursday Aug. 17th 99. Plaza de Montesino, Valencia...

Here again the terrible uncertainty of whether to proceed to Libson or return to Madrid seized us, and for two hours we sat discussing the pros and cons. Our fate was decided when we discovered out luggage was already placed on the relief train and we sprung aboard...[then] the station-master informed us no connections for Libson would be made that day, but if we waited for Mañana('tomorrow') connections would surely be made. 

Already knowing that a Spaniard's 'tomorrow' means 'never'[haha], we quickly had our luggage transferred to the Madrid train and at 7 o'c p.m. we re-journeyed over the same ground travelled last night--sad, tired and provoked. However, before starting we invested 9p. in a sausage three rolls, and a bottle of wine. This we tackled with great relish, as we were nearly famished. 

The night was awfully close, and as these European railroad carriages give no draft9as there is no vestibule) we suffered awfully from the heat and thirst caused by the salty sausage

Friday Aug. 18th 99.

We entered Madrid at 8 in the morning...arriving at the station we finally accomplished the difficult task of registering trunks, and tried to find a place in the coach--but they were full. At last, finding an empty seat, I jumped in and sat down just as a fat matron with a bitter tongue claimed it. I refused to move, and she plumped down in my lap and there remained, while Darby on the outside frantically ram about looking for me. At last I gave her a push and slipped out from beneath her and she fell back into the seat with a jar. Then Darby got in, and as the fat woman got out of the car to give the seat to her daughter for whom she was preserving it, Darby slapped himself into it, and immediately two men and the old woman yelled and pulled and tugged and punched at him. Finally he had to give it up, and with a long face squeezed himself in a place opposite, and then it was my turn to laugh[indeed so Fred!].

Well, the ride was the worst I ever endured. This was our third successive night on a train--and that in a car so crowded that one had to sleep as in a strait-jacket.

What a trip! Hot damn that sounds absolutely awful, but it's genuinely a hilarious story that sums up most of their journeys together. 

Many of us can get to wondering about Fred's love life, and luckily, there's a lot of it scattered throughout this book, and it seemed impulsive of him to be describing the women around him any time they were met. Of course, he knew that he's never actually settle with a lady, and with his constant state of moving from place to place, his status of bachelor seemed inevitable, no matter how long the traveling with Darby lasted. Here's a particularly interesting little affair from Feb. of 1900 while back at home base in London:

25th, Sunday...

I went to take Miss Waite's package to Miss Edell's, and there spent a delightful afternoon, at the same time taking tea with them. Returning to town. I dropped in at the Horse Show, and to my great surprise who should I see sitting there but Henrietta. I hardly recognised her at first. She looked entirely prosperous, and decked out in fine dressed an jewels. She tried to urge me to enter old associations with her, but I stoutly resisted the magnetism of her beautiful brown eyes. She waxed most furious. What an uncontrollable passion this spoilt beauty has!

26th. Monday

After work Henrietta met me at the office, where we had a short dance and singing[aww...what a cute picture...].Then after supper we went to the gallery of the Savoy theater to see The Rose of Persia on Newton's invitation. She followed me me all the way to my Kensington lodgings, where I abruptly left her.

How interesting. It really fascinated me to read such writings of his, since we would normally never hear this side of him. He seems confused in this whole love matter...but at the same time all mad about it. It's truly charming to gather his feelings about being kinda in love. He hadn't the best of luck with this matter it seems. 

Here's an interesting picture from just a few months later. This was taken of the family when he visited for Christmas:

I'm sure you can guess where Fred is. 

Their long and grueling trips to Russia were chock full of mockery for Gaisberg. He reveled in how ignorant the Russian opera audiences were, cheering madly at a single performer who wasn't even adequate(at least to what Gaisberg had experienced). But after a horridly busy week of recording and traveling in Russia, this horrid mess befell them in their room:

About 2 a.m...

We were awakened by a terrible battering on our door. The porter and three or four others wanted to know what terrible happenings were going on, the room below was all dripping with what might be blood or something deadly, and was falling on the face of the sleeping occupant. We went into our 'lab' and to our dismay found a bucket filled with old acid had sprung a leak, and the floor was flooded...The bright red fluid dripped through the ceiling on to the sleeping guest; when his body began to smart[interesting word choice there...]he roused the hotel. We had the disagreeable task of sopping it up in our nightshirts, and expecting the manager up every moment to pitch us out bag and baggage. 

What a horrid thing! That would have freaked me out if I had been that other hotel occupant. Certainly I would have been convinced it was blood a-dripping on my face! 

Oh how there's so much more to write here from this lovely book, but there's no way I could quote everything  that was curious, since his descriptions of eastern music and instruments  are very interesting, while at the same time also strongly judgemental. He wasn't easy with his words on eastern music and instruments. He didn't revel as much being in Japan as he ought to have. His time in India and the middle east especially was curious to him. It seemed he took a great fascination with these nations, and took many candid pictures of the street people and musicians. This book is an overload of information and quotes, since Gaisberg lived a fuller life than anyone I have ever studied. Such the amount of travel he did is more than anyone would hope to travel in an entire lifetime, and he did that much travel in 10 years, or even less. He seemed to have most enjoyed Milan throughout his time of travel, since he revisited the place very often, and spoke the highest of everything there. He seemed to have disliked the long grueling trips to Russia, and seriously disliked the music of Japanese opera. His tastes dramatically changed from his days back at Columbia in 1889! Never would he have guessed he'd be in the studio with the masters of Italian opera just 15 years later...

Over time, I will use quotes from this book, since there are so many more, and I have to finish reading it of course. Remember, I'm only just over halfway through!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Recording on Brown wax and new items of interest

I'm back! 

Again,  I apologize about the long times in between postings, but things have kept me away from the joy of writing so often...It's been very rather eventful around here and emotionally consuming for me, but that's okay...I'm young, and need times as such to live fully. 

Of the events that came down in recording and record world, I got to record on a brown wax cylinder! Thanks to my good friend Ryan Wishner, we made a deal where I would bring my pristine Amberol copy of "The Preacher and the Bear" by Collins(the famous take with the announcement at the beginning!), and he would give me the recording we made of me on brown wax. We managed to get a few cylinders recorded while at the Sutter Creek Rag-Time festival on August 11. As of just today, the cylinder looks like this:

Mine turned out to be the best blank to record on, since there were little to no issues, and the recording itself turned out wonderful, was the best in the batch I may add. 

I wrote out the title abbreviated on the slip just like I've seen Spencer do on a few of his brown waxes. 

To add to how lovely this record turned out, you can actually hear it!

Here you go folks:

https://archive.org/details/IDontLikeThatFaceBrownWax

I sent the recording to a few people without any description, and they were fooled into thinking it was actually by one of the studio pianists, or Hylands himself. This is not including the announcement of course. You know you've done it when people think you're the real deal! I've done it before, and would be happy to give lectures where I end up playing a transcribed solo of one of the studio pianists, and end up playing a brown wax of me playing and they wouldn't know the difference! The three of us who recorded brown waxes later performed at a set later at night where we actually played the records for the lucky people who attended the set. That absolutely mesmerized people, much like it would back in the 1890's. 

There's Ryan presenting the machine and one of the recordings, in his 1900's vest. That's a photocopied Columbia catalog on the table. 

The whole experience with the brown wax was completely worth it, and understanding the struggle of those studio pianists helps us better understand what they went through every day at work. To add to this new found understanding of recording, yesterday I spent six or seven hours recording for a CD I'll be releasing in the near future. After recording yesterday, I understood to a certain extent how tired Hylands must have been after every day at work. And to think that he would have to do that nearly every day, and for several hours longer than I recorded. He would usually have to be there at 8am and record until 3 in the afternoon, then a few hours later perform at an exhibition. What a life he lived...

I just couldn't imagine having to do that almost every day, and the days he didn't go to the studio, he'd be going to a few shows at other places in and around NYC. 

Another thing to move to in the items of interest is that very catalog that was seen in the picture above. One of my friends sent me a very nice high quality photocopy of an 1898 Columbia catalog that he had recently acquired. 

In the past, I have used a listing from 1900:

This catalog is rather nice, however, the photocopy of this one was not nearly as outstanding as the other catalog from two years earlier. The older catalog not only has a simpler cover, but the inside is must more tantalizing to even someone who wouldn't know much about the complicated nature of the company of Columbia. 

 That's the cover.
But the inside of the cover was a sweet surprise! There was an interesting-looking version of the very contract that most of the Columbia stars signed in 1898.

Now that's an interesting group of signatures. 

Will F. Denny's signature looks weird and as though it took a while to write out. Just as expected, Russell Hunting's looks lovely and efficient, almost as much as Spencer's always did. It is very curious that Denny's and Ossman's look unexpectedly strange. It seems we've got three potential lefties here...Ossman, Denny, and George W. Johnson. Hmm. How interesting...Of course that's just another one of my crazy theories, but there's always that possibility. In fact, if I was to guess who might be lefties in this group, I'd actually guess those three anyway, even without not knowing what their signatures looked like. 
All over this catalog are titles that we'd all love to hear, and hope they exist somewhere. One of these is the "Tapioca Polka" which would be an elongated arrangement of the tune the Columbia orchestra plays at the end of this interesting descriptive selection. This tune "Tapioca" must be a civil war era jig, judging by the melodies of the piece, and how it's quick one. There are countless other titles that would be gems for sure. Also in this catalog, each performer whose name is on the inside of the cover is given a section with titles they've recorded. Of course, Spencer's section is very specific, with his Negro songs having the most specific categories from "Picanniny songs" to "old man negro songs", it's very complicated, more than we'd ever expect from such a subject of "Negro songs". 

How specific need we get? Very it seems.
So his 1895 record of "Laugh You little Niggers" could be classified as a "picanniny song" which makes sense now. Since I could only see Spencer like the cartoon below while hearing him sing that song.

How lovely. What a beautiful sight it must have been to see him in such a costume. 
(remember folks, this is satire at its best, I am not trying to be meaningfully offensive to anyone)
Anyway, we still have to await until many of these desired titles turn up on those unmarked brown waxes. A few of them are indeed making themselves be known, such as George Schweinfest playing "The Belle of Koon-Tucky", which you can hear at this link here. We will get to hear some of these selections, though it is inevitable that any may not exist, at least anymore. 
Let me take a moment to say how wonderful that record in the link just above is...it's an outstanding example of true cake-walk music on brown wax, and it's an obscure but really strong and catchy piece, one that is arguably just as good as the Kerry Mills pieces from the same time. See, this is likely what will come out of digging up these cylinders. This is why we will continue to look. 


While I was gone, I was able to read one of the many famous letters Quinn sent to Jim Walsh. 

(Quinn in 1898)
His letter was rather short, only two pages long, but full of the usual of what to expect from reading only bits of his letters. Much of what he says includes lots of song references, some of which I actually haven't been able to understand! There's some slang, not too much to be really noticeable, and also very complicated and articulate phrasing. That sums him up pretty well, even for writing those letters when he was an old man with a fading memory. We of course already know that he was somewhat self-centered, from the way he phrased a lot of his writing, and how he talks about some of his old friends, but he was genuinely in love with what he did in the past, even though there seems to be something there to contradict that. In Quinn, after reading his letters(bits of others, and a single one the whole way through), I see a bit of repression, repression of things he did in the past, especially because he turned to a more religious point of view and didn't drink later in life. He had some shame in his past, despite speaking of his time in the studio fondly in his letters. There's certainly something there that we're not getting when we read his letters. It must have been interesting to know, whatever it was. 

Speaking of letters...I also heard details about the LOC also housing letters that Charles Carson wrote while he was on his Eastern travels, which must be just as interesting as Gaisberg's travels in the same places. What I have heard to far about Carson's travels to China and Japan are rather funny to me. Somehow the idea of him complaining about his conditions while traveling is rather funny. It have this connotation because of Carson being the man who was thrown in jail with Hunting in 1896, and remained his friend until they were old and long retired. He remained in the east from 1904 to 1907, writing back and forth to Columbia and to his friends back home, which must have been great to read his complaints. It's so pointless of him to complain so much, since it was inevitable that conditions would be different in Asia than what he saw on the East coast, and later when he was in San Francisco(wait what! He was near where I am? Hot damn! that's great!). I'm sure he got used to it over time, he was there for three years, and almost as soon as he got back to the U.S., he quit recording altogether, which remains hilarious to me. He quit all recording to become a poultry farmer! How strange...I guess when you've had enough--you've had enough. Carson still remained an advisor to his friends at Columbia after then, since he lived another 40 or so years after that. From what I've heard about his letters, they must be fascinating to read, especially since they must be scattered with scathing language, since he had the right to be bitter about the supposedly crap records he was getting out of the equipment the Columbia boys shipped to him in Shanghai. He had the right to complain about the equipment issues, since he was the man who invented the pantographing machine in 1892, along with his buddy Russ. And he made all those smut cylinders as well as getting thrown in prison for it, and managed hundreds of recording sessions at Columbia from 1896 to 1900. Remember...his name was stamped on many hundreds of record slips. He had experience that was envied by 1900, so he had some reason to complain, since he set his own standards very high from the start of his time in recording with one of the most important recording devices since the phonautograph. With all of this new found curiosity in Carson, I would love to see a photograph of him if there is one anywhere. And of course, more importantly I would love to see those very letters that he wrote to Columbia while in China and Japan. I'd also like to know more about his relationship with Russell Hunting, since they remained good friends for their entire lives, it would be interesting to know how they fared while doing all the smut cylinder business from 1892 to 1896. Their trust must have been monumental for to be together for so long. They seem like a fantastic pair in that progressive era!





I don't want to keep rambling on about new stuff, but I ought to say that my next post will be on that great book A Voice in Time which is the biography of Fred Gaisberg that isn't his memoir. Since August 10, I have gotten over halfway through the book and am still captivated by the amount of stories and anecdotes from Gaisberg's travels. What an eventful life that man lived! Though it's interesting to see him evolve from a shy and less-than-confident teenager to a musically refined snob and intellectual. I would highly recommend the book! The detailed comments will be written in the next post. 

Okay, this time I mean it, i'll be getting back to normal by writing  every day to few days, since there's so much more new information to gather and write detailed posts about, with that, I hope you enjoyed this!