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:
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.
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...
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!
I understand the frustration regarding "well-heeled" bidders, especially when they snipe bid without ever having shown previous interest before the the last ten seconds (my own pet peeve).
ReplyDeleteThere was a group of Berliners and very early Victors about a year ago, )as in Consolidated and Improved label records from 1900 and early 1901). I did end up with three with orchestra accompaniment (sorry! they are so hard to find from those two years--only about sixty Victors from '00 and '01 have orchestral accompaniment) that I'd been looking for. But, you know, the same bidder "jacked up" the price on nearly every single record with a last minute bid (oftentimes uncomfortably high for a single record), and that person was nowhere to be seen previously. I forget how many this person actually won, but it was frustrating to say the least--really, he wanted every single record?? I think not. For once, I wish the old policy of not having an ID hidden was re-instated briefly as I would, who knows what...probably been banned for what I wanted to say.
Hopefully, once these people are out of the way with what they want, other copies show up for you who have a better mission as to the items.
Cheers!