Monday, July 30, 2018

Digging for Emerson's and Draft Cards

Yesterday evening I spent several hours digging around on ancestry for any amount of new information on Georgie Emerson. Unfortunately i didn't find too much on Georgie specifically, though in the 1900 census his disposition is rather interesting. 
So in 1900, it seems that Georgie is living nowhere near brothers Victor and Clyde back at Columbia in New York. In 1900, Georgie was living alone in a boardinghouse in Denver, Colorado, but working as a phonograph agent. It seemed rather random to find him so far out west, but since was was still closely associated with Columbia in 1900, it would make some sense why he was doing work for them out west. The next source of information on him came from the New Jersey state census in 1905. In this source it is stated that he is living with his wife Helen, his two daughters, and his old mother Elvira. In this his occupation is listed as "phonograph". 
heh?
That's kind of funny. Just phonograph. No specifics. In 1900 he was listed as "clerk phonograph" which makes sense. 
After doing some more painstaking and frustrating digging, I found him in the 1910 census as well. Unfortunately it seems that by 1910 Georgie was on his own, and by that I mean that he wasn't working with the phonograph under the shadow of his successful brother Victor. in 1910 his occupation is listed as working with factory machinery. Well then! What a step in a different direction! 
Even with all this changing around with Georgie, I still assume him to be the one who rambled around and looked real rough. He looked like he had some hard times, even in that picture of him at the mere age of 22! In that picture of him above it almost looks like that left eye of his is black. Those poked in flushed cheeks are also not a positive sign... The more i look at that picture detail of Georgie the more I think that this picture is of him:
Yep. That really looks like the same worn young face in that picture detail. 
Even though we still don't really know anything about Georgie, the little bits and pieces we have regarding him are tantalizing. He looks just as troubled as Victor, if not more so, judging by the amount of extra detail we can see on that face in the small cameo portrait above. Georgie also looked just as slim as a broom-handle, similarly to Victor, but with Georgie it's ever more exaggerated by his tall stature and slim face. All those features scream drug addict to me, which wouldn't come as a surprise in this era. But aside from all this, I still have no idea how long he lived, though we have a birthdate of May 1876, which is nice to save for now. We know Victor lived until 1926, but that would mean nothing when attempting to find how long Georgie lived. 
Speaking of Victor, while on my dig for Georgie, I did come across Victor's passport application from 1922, and a picture came with it!
There they are, Victor and Kittie. 
And you thought brother Georgie looked rough!
Like most of these old phonograph freaks, Victor did not age well at all. You can even see bits of freckles all over his face, which always catches my attention. I'm pretty sure Victor had some kind of red in his hair, though it must have been darker red, as in no pictures of him does his hair look light and shiny. His brother Georgie was the one with the vibrant red hair, and it can well be seen in the two pictures of him we know of. 

All-right then!




Before looking around for Emerson's, I started last evening looking for more draft cards of familiar faces. Of course while doing this I had to make sure I looked up those who were born after 1872. That proved rather difficult! Most of the early recording stars we love were born in 1872 or before that, so it proved rather pressing to think up those who missed that cutoff. Eventually a few names came up and I did find a few curiosities along the way. Finding James Hager's draft card was a great source of happiness for me, so imagine my reaction upon finding brother Fred's!
He was just 2 years younger than the cutoff! 
That physical description is a bit unexpected, much like his brother James'. It's funny though that it's basically exactly the same as his brother's. 
Tall, stout, brown eyes, and graying brown hair.
Well then!
Certainly he had gone beyond his idealistic beauty by 1918. 
There's that pretty, distinct signature of his at the bottom! 
(from the LOC manuscript collection)
While digging for Fred Hager's I also found Justin Ring's, just keeping with the Hager pattern, as they worked together for an awfully long time. 
A little while ago I was able to find Justin in the 1880 census, and it stated that his parents were Prussian immigrants. Ain't that something! Prussian! Now I still have the suspicion that Ring could potentially be an important missing link in the area of the earliest studio pianists. If there was ever one of these guys who could have been a Zon-O-Phone pianist, Ring is it. Of course I would have nowhere to start really in attempting to extract his style from the other Zon-O-Phone pianists. Anyhow, here's his draft card:
I like that he never even attempted to write out his full name on most things, and even attempted to reason with whoever was taking down his name. His full name was Justus Ringleben; not quite your easily written American name at that time. 
Now that we know what he looked like, it's time to get drawing! What a lucky guy he was, with those bright blue eyes and blond hair, and supposedly those great piano skills that we have yet to dissect. 

Now here's something curious, it seems that Hager and Ring died at exactly the same age, 87. Hager died in 1958, and Ring in 1963(whew that's quite a lifespan!)

While on this dig, I also found Joe Belmont's draft card, which was rather unexpected. 

I couldn't have imagined Belmont with blue eyes and dark blond hair. Well then, I guess that's it for that, I'm all set for drawing Belmont if I need to in the near future. There he is. 



Before I end this post, I want to share one of the recent acquisitions of my record travels. 

This record is prized to me now. Ain't no one taking this from me anytime soon.

When I got the thing, I had no idea that Hager was the violinist, so imagine the heightened joy it brought me upon playing it when getting home after the quest. Immediately I knew that was Hager, no way could that have been the skilled and peerlessly slick Charles D'Almaine. I had listened to the few Hager violin solos buried out there on the internet, particularly finding his Columbia's the most attractive, as Fred Hylands must have been the pianist. This particular record is outstanding in that way, and comes through surprisingly clear for being a spotty record condition wise. 
Here's the transfer: 
It's such a lovely record. The sound of the piano paired with the echo of the recording room is just as charming as the violinist being matinee idol Fred Hager. This record combines the talents of my two absolute favorite early recording stars, and they pair together rather out-of-whack, which is to be half-expected, but it's what especially attracts me to it. Rarely do we get such nice crossovers like this. There are such a thing as crossover movies and Television shows, but this is what I would call a crossover record! It combines the two different worlds of the early recording business in such a graceful and unique way. All this is so while at the same time not being an outstanding record musically. Hager wasn't the best violinist, and Hylands wasn't the best pianist either, but when together these things cancel out. 


The next post should be more about recent record acquisitions, as I found too much on the Emerson's and similar recording stars yesterday to pass up a post on that. The Hager record find was really nothing less of a miracle. There's this junk shop/antique store I've been frequenting for the last few months, and one time I went there were albums and albums worth of 78s. They were sitting outside in the hot sun catching excessive amounts of heat, which worried me as I began thumbing through them. I just about screamed when I saw that Columbia. 
I thought "could it be? Hager? A Hager? No way in hell..."

It seemed too good to be true. But indeed, that's what it was. 
The story of these records I got at this one antique store is miraculous really, and it's one for the books. All the items i found were really the strangest coincidence. In the next post I'll get into detail about all that. 




Hope you enjoyed this!







Friday, July 27, 2018

The Brothers Hager

As stated in the last post, I promised to do a post on the Hager's, so here goes.

When that big panoramic picture of Hager's orchestra was sent to me almost a year ago, it shocked me at the amount of detail there was in the description. Every single person was identified, even the recording engineers. Even the mysterious Charlie Carson was identified in the picture(he was Russell Hunting's right hand man with the smut cylinders in the 1890's). 
Just to give you an idea, here's the picture in its entirety:
That looks like a fun group!
Hager is stated as being no. 10, right in the center. 
There he is! ❤
A lot of Hager's musicians were part of Victor Herbert's orchestra(what a surprise!) and many were also symphonic musicians. Of course Hager had the most diverse orchestra in terms of each musician's extraction, in considering his wide range of friendships and partnerships. He knew everyone in the Symphonic and operatic community to the highest regarded vaudeville performers. Hager clearly knew what's up, in terms of music that is. So in considering this, we would assume he got the best percussionist he could find. 
Well, that turned out to be his brother. 
Yes indeed folks, that "James Hager" that is listed behind Fred Hager is indeed Fred's brother. Those two looked too similar for them not to be related, so after I did a little digging on Ancestry, it turns out that James was the youngest of the Hager's. Fred was the oldest, and James was the youngest. There were four Hager's:
Fred(b. 1874)
Lena(b.1878)
Georgina(b. 1880)
James(b. 1882)
Fred couldn't find a better percussionist? Well, I guess it's always good to get a sibling some work. 
There they are! They so look like brothers!

So there you have it, Fred's brother James is that percussionist on all those records. For years I had wondered who that weird percussionist was, since they weren't always great, but when they were it formed perfectly to the orchestra. Fred started the orchestra in 1896, and it seems likely that he wouldn't have forced brother James to play all their gigs until at least 1898. Rather than having him join at 14, waiting until he was 16 seems a little better. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe Fred got him to join just as he started high school in 1896! Of course to illustrate this I have a cartoon!
Yep. 
I was thinking back to those stories that Fred Van Eps recalled to Jim Walsh about him pulling Frank Edgar Banta out of high school to make records and play gigs with the Van Eps trio. The Hager thing reminded me of the Van Eps-Banta story. 
There's some sort of gratification now going back and listening to all those Hager's orchestra(and Zon-O-Phone orchestra) records, knowing that the percussionist is Fred's brother James. To make things a bit more interesting, James Hager is listed on a few Edison records around 1903, which is around the time of that panoramic picture, and when the Edison catalogs were raving over Hager taking over their orchestra. Here's the most popular example:
It's funny that the Edison people were consistent with the "James W." in identifying him, even though that's not really what his middle initial was. That must have been used to closely place both Hager's, and maybe make it more assumed that they were related. 

When going back and listening to those Zon-O-Phone records by Hager's orchestra, it becomes clear that brother James improved as the years went on. 
By 1909, James was playing spot on with the group:
When we dig back to 1900 however, it's still a little bit out of whack, but of course still far surpassing all the other studio groups at the time:
And to think in 1900 the Columbia orchestra still sounded out of whack because of Hylands! 
I'm sure with the exciting motivation of making records brother James was determined to improve, and make the records sound much better, which they did by 1906 or so. With this in mind, Fred wrote many arrangements that were heavy on the percussion, and it seems evident why this was so now. 
His pieces were strange, but very fun and complicated at the same time. Recently I got a two sided mint condition Columbia of two Hager pieces played by Prince's band. 
Here's the more famous Hager piece side:
His tunes are deceiving, they sound solely novelty and playful, but are endlessly complicated and require a skilled percussionist! (no sitting around back there counting!)
Here's the flipside:
This particular side was a modern marvel of its time. It clearly exhibits how advanced the quality of recording was by 1915, and it shows also that Hager had tried everything to create a symphonic natured recording without an entire symphony. Hager wrote these highly descriptive pieces around 1907, and it would make sense that he did. Being a dad with three young daughters, it would seem almost expected of him to write such sweetly novel pieces as these. It also makes sense now why there's so much percussion on these; to exhibit the talents of his brother James, and to show off all the weird sound effects they had dug up after almost two decades of recording. 

In keeping with the Hager subject, I have been on the lookout for some of his illusive Rex records. Those records were essentially the first of their kind, the first very successful American vertical cut records. Here's a nice example floating around on the internet:
These records sounded particularly nice in their day, and they seemed to have had the strangest titles associated with them. This label shows Hager's true colors, very expansive and diverse. The Rex label recorded everything from Grand Opera to Rag-Time piano solos by Roy Spangler who learnt them by ear.
Don't Believe me? Well here you go:


How about that?
Just like he did with Zon-O-Phone ten years before, Hager made sure the widest range of music was recorded, and recorded well for that matter. I have a single Rex record, and it sounds okay, but of course without the proper apparatus to play it it's bound to sound crappy. 
I don't have transfers yet, but here are the pictures:
That is the later edition of the Rex label, from 1915. 
The music is really nice on these though, as expected of Hager, the orchestra accompaniment is definitely more interesting than other studio groups of the time. Since it's 1915, the accompaniment is a pseudo-"Jass"style, which makes it particularly interesting. This is more so on side B however. As it turns out, these records are very uncommon, which is strange considering the circumstances of which I found the Rex record I have. I stayed in Los Angeles a few years ago and went to the Amoeba records in Hollywood and found that record buried in the old timey section at the back of the store. 
I was just in LA this last week and found nothing nearly as nice as that Rex record this time at Amoeba. I have gotten some nice Zon-O-Phone and Ossman records there in the past and recently, but the Rex record is the sole standout find from there. 

With that, I return to the Hager's. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more digging to find more on James Hager. On the entry for Fred, everything is there, but the information on the rest of the family is very vague. However, when I did a little more deeper digging I eventually found his WWI draft card! You can imagine how happy I was to find it, and definitely be assured that it was the right guy. 
Here you go:
How about that?
Tall, Stout, and brown eyed. 
Hmm.
That's quite different from how his matinee idol brother Fred looked. I do find it curious that his hair is stated as being already somewhat gray by age 36. Usually thats an indicator of red hair, but let's not get too set on that idea. Just keep that in mind with him. Finding this card also proves a much more exact birthdate for him, as well as that he was working as a musician long after the Zon-O-Phone era with Hager's orchestra. 


Anyhow...
I wanted to do a section here on the new phonograph I just got, but I will have to save that for the next post. I have a handful of really nice records to play and eventually get transferred. The machine I got is a really early Columbia Q with some nice eartubes to go with it. The discussion of the records will also be done in the next post, as there's quite a lot to talk about surprisingly. 



Hope you enjoyed this! 










Monday, July 9, 2018

"33" and Ossman intrigue

What is meant by "33"? 

Well, when I use that number, that's what I use to refer to where Fred Hylands lived as a publisher in 1899 and 1900. In the past few weeks I've had a few important realizations about Hylands and the place that he was known for around the Columbia studio. 
When I first joined ancestry a few weeks ago, I didn't immediately go for the Hylands family, since I had already a very detailed understanding of them, and had most of the important paperwork to back up most things regarding them. The first family I went for was the Hager's(who originally spelled their name Hagar which makes sense). After a few hours of digging for other recording stars, I finally decided to test my knowledge of the Hylands family by digging a bit on them. Turns out that was a good idea. A few interesting things came up that I could never have guessed. 

So the name of this post is pertaining to 33, which was the house number for Fred's publishing firm on West 27th street in 1899. The building still stands there today as far as I know, and is currently awaiting someone to up and rent it. 
From the advertisement that Fred placed in The Phonoscope in 1899, it seems that his 33 had a few purposes, and not just limited to publishing. In his ad, we see Burt Green's name dropped in there as his main assistant. Here's a link to the ad just so you can really see it in all its glory:
Just as we see often in Hylands' endeavors, he was always open to having company at his location, and remaining ever social. This weakness of his led to a lot of issues, but it seemed that this was his source of extra income while working at Columbia. I had seen the 1900 census record before where Hylands and his wife were before, but until recently I hadn't been able to see whether or not he had some interesting guests crashed there.  Fred, Marie and his father Charles were listed at almost the very bottom of the page, so only two other boarders were shown to be there, a traveling salesman and his wife. Out of my burning curiosity, I flipped to the next page to see three more curious renters there. These three men weren't your typical laborers either. 
Here's who they were:
Noble Allen, a single Draper from the state of Georgia.

Louis Crotan, a single Traveling Salesman extracted from French Canada. 

Max Packer, a single Russian ladies' tailor.

Those aren't your typical young men of that time. When flipping to that page, I half expected to see someone from Columbia, whether it be a performer or engineer, but it's perhaps more interesting to see these rather Bohemian men living there with Fred and Marie at the time. Now what can we gather from these interesting people? Well, take notice that all these men are single, and they were all basically exactly the same age as Fred(27-28), and the wife of the first traveling salesman was English like Marie. Now try and put the pieces together. Clearly this was a partnership of its time, experimental, hot, and new. With Fred's father running the place, and collecting some of the rent from the young men(not including any songwriters or performers), it makes more sense what the dynamic of 33 was. This is a very progressive idea, but it was similar to the fashionable French way of living at that time. 
Father took care of the money, so that left Fred and Marie to run loose. This makes so much more sense now. Imagine 33 not too long before then, when Len Spencer was much more invested in the business, and likely crashing there at least twice a week, and getting to work with Fred much more often. By the middle of 1900, the firm was winding down, and things weren't looking so bright for Fred's vision. So I would imagine the time around when the census was taken was a wild time for Fred, aside from being at Columbia all the time. In the succeeding months Fred would sell most of his stock to a larger publishing firm and lose most of the love and trust he had in the Columbia staff and management. 
But with all this in mind, we can now apply this suspicion to other songwriters he worked with later, and as well as the ones he worked with around the same time. Speaking of that, I have tried multiple times to track down some of these illusive songwriters that Fred worked with, but have achieved no success in digging. I tried J. Grant Gibson, and Will J. Hardman, and wasn't able to find a thing on either of them. These two objects of Fred's affections will remain mysterious until something shows up on them. I know nothing and suspect next to nothing about Grant Gibson. I only know that Hylands and Gibson were both white rats, and that Gibson had known Fred far longer than the year of their 1912 piece:
Gibson's name shows up here and there when digging into Hylands' Broadway history, which almost guarantees Gibson was a white rat that Hylands bossed around while in his leading position. 


Anyway, I hope you all get the drift here regarding Hylands. Just think of how popular experimental types of marriages were in the 1890's, and that now it seems that Fred's was no exception, and this particularly makes sense considering their theatrical line. 





Now to move on to some intrigue!
(Ossman around 1891-92)
Vess Ossman will forever have a special place in my heart, because his grave was the first of these recording stars I visited. It was particularly emotional for me to set those roses on his modest headstone, after it had been covered in dirt for decades--almost forgotten. 

Before I searched up Hylands on ancestry, I of course wanted to see what there was on Ossman that I didn't already know. Turns out there's quite a large family out there. Not only are there lots of Ossman's, but there are plenty of Ossman's wife Eunice's family out there too. That's a good thing, that means there are plenty of people to potentially talk to regarding Vess. Hopefully I'll work up the nerve to do that sometime rather soon. While it may be good that there are plenty of Ossman's out there, this can also lead to issues trying to cross reference the information to make sure everything lines up alright. There are multiple entries for Ossman, from different sides of the extended family, so it took me awhile to really get the information right. 

I had known before that the Ossman's had unfortunate luck with their children. Only four of their seven children lived to be older than 5. Yes this was common in that time, but it's still hard luck regardless. It makes sense why they were so avid with having children when considering where Eunice ended up being buried. Just today I visited the location where Eunice was buried in 1930, and it happened to be at the nicest Catholic cemetery nearest where I live. Her grave was unfortunately unmarked, but I did find the exact location. I had some time in peace to think about their marriage, and how it was similar to one that I have already tried cracking open. Thinking over the scandalous skipping of town by Ossman, it reminded me of the whole running joke that was passed around the Columbia staff regarding Spencer's love life. In Walsh's Spencer article(the longest one), it is recalled that the boys at Columbia made fun of how Spencer had run off with his first wife(Margaret), without getting the go-ahead to marry her. 
This is actually similar to Ossman. He pulled the same thing with Eunice, though in his case the girl was younger, in fact too young to legally marry him when they skipped town in 1890. The more I thought about this, the more similarities I saw between Ossman and Len Spencer. Both of them went through quite a lot to be with the women they married, and at first loved them truly. As awful as this may sound, hear me out with this...
After all the trouble they went through, they ended up fulfilling the religious rite of their wives, basically just using them. This would be in typical fashion of the time period of course. Do not assume that I am calling offense to this, as it is common to see such a thing when studying this period of time. In this case, I call for the observation of another other than Len Spencer pulling this, the similarities are astonishing. With this in mind, it becomes clearer why Ossman and Spencer were good friends for so long. 

Now let's step to some more interesting intrigue, rather than theoretical musings. While digging around on the most reliable and detailed Ossman page on ancestry, there didn't appear to be any surprises, until it seems that old Vess had a son with an unknown woman that wasn't his beloved Eunice. 
How Scan'lous!
This is exactly the intrigue that I'd expect from Ossman. While it initially came as a surprise, it made sense and didn't jar me so much. It's curious also to see the date that all this intrigue came down, which was in 1917, rather late for Vess to be fooling around. Consider that 1917 was when Vess was performing with the Eight Victor Artists along with Arthur Collins and the crew. Such fooling around I would expect from Ossman in the mid-1890's, while he was touring with Banta as his accompanist, not in the later teen's while his performing was winding down. This paints Ossman to be much like a Mike Bernard type, but a little less wild and quick to make decisions. With this in mind, we can now consider Ossman as one of those authentic Rag-Timers of the 1890's, just like many of those rag composers we love.




Whew! The analysis in this post ended up being heavier than expected...
Just to diverge from all of that, here's a great new transfer from Santa Barbara with some fantastic Banta piano accompaniment: 
The beginning and end of this record is really where it's at. Banta plays some typical schottische melodies and rhythms, but they're played so aggressively and quickly that it attracts much of the attention on the record, even more than much of Dudley's singing to be honest. It's always nice to hear Banta play song and dance tunes such as this one. His strange sense of rhythm also comes through very well in his intro on this record, with the measure counting and rhythm a little out of whack, which adds to the eccentric charm of Banta's playing on many records. 


Next post I will dig into the new Hager discoveries! Stay tuned everyone!




Hope you enjoyed this!