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!
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