Recent Ancestry Digging

So...In the last week or so, I went back and refreshed my memory of many previous findings on ancestry. Since my last post on the Hager brothers, I had kind of forgotten a few things regarding James and Fred. 

While I went back and refreshed my memory, I found a few interesting things along the way. When I went digging for James Hager last time, I was able to find him in 1900, 1920, 1930, and 1940. Just like with Justin Ring(who I still have not found anything new on) there's a period where nothing shows up on him, but it just happens that the period I'm looking for is quite essential. Luckily on this last dig, I found Hager in the 1905 NY state census, and something very curious came up. Here's the record:

Look at that! 

Even by 1905 James was living with the family, Fred more specifically. That's quite hilarious to me for some reason. I was really hoping that by at least 1905 Jimmy was living on his own but still working for brother Fred at Zon-O-Phone. Well, I guess not. Furthermore, I'm sure Jimmy and his wife Isabelle couldn't have gotten much privacy with old Fred and Clara poking around in their business. So now we know that the Hager brothers remained together until at least 1906, which is interesting. That also makes it more likely that they were both working at Zon-O-phone at that time. That helps. 

I was hoping that Fred still employed Jimmy at Zon-O-Phone, even with the queenie Eddie King overpowering the percussion section in the orchestra, so that turned out to be true. 

So staying on the Hager matter, a few days ago I combed through the many issues of Hobbies that Walsh wrote in, just to see where I could find Hager. Well, well, that was a good idea! Just like Joe Belmont and Billy Murray, Hager was one of Walsh's most valuable sources of information. It was entirely heartwarming to learn this bunch of new information from and about Hager. According to the many letters that Hager wrote to Walsh, Hager was determined to go out and find any information about his buddies for Walsh. He was deeply concerned about his fellow recording stars, and made sure to get his information right. This really warmed my mood for the last few days, as there were so many of these folks who were too bitter and uncaring of their fellow studio workers, but at least one of the most major figures who led them all cared even in his fading years. 

Hager provided most of the viable information we have today on Cal Stewart, which is quite interesting. He just happened to work closely enough with Stewart to have a lot of information to share on him. He also had plenty of information on others close to him, proving himself a very valuable and industrious friend of Walsh. 

That really raised my respect levels for Hager(not that they weren't already high!). 

So after refreshing my memory with all that, I decided to take a shot at finding Charles Prince. 

I know in the past I have proven quite well that I am not a big fan of Mr. Prince and his band, but now that I have the chance to read more about him, I'm so intrigued that I have gained respect and interest in him. The only thing I knew about Prince before my recent dig was that he was born in 1869 in San Francisco(which is already appealing to me as I am partial to California born folks). So as I started digging, I found a few very interesting things. 

The first thing  I stumbled upon was a voter registration list from 1892, and he was still living in SF then! 

Soon I will go out to that address to see if anything Victorian is still there. 

So that's interesting. The fact that this was from 1892 and he was still living in SF means that he wasn't yet working for Columbia. It was around 1892 that most scholars conjugate that he began working at Columbia. So that got me curious, it made me confident that I could find when he moved back east, and maybe debunk the whole "early Columbia" ties altogether. Well, that didn't end up happening. I wasn't able to track when he left SF, but for sure his date of going back east would be around 1896 at the latest. At least I have a hint now, and it's looking promising to debunking the old idea. 

The man himself at the center. 

(I still think that clean shaven young buck in the right corner is Justin Ring)

So that was great to find, but the findings didn't end there. I found Prince in the NY state census in 1905, and something very interesting came up. I found Prince housing a familiar studio face:

What! Prince was housing Henry Burr? Well then! 

So this actually is a very significant find for me. For years I have theorized that these studio managers and musical directors took in some of their less fortunate fellows for say a few days or weeks. Well, seeing this exactly proves that this happened. Never would I have grouped together Prince and Henry Burr, but there ya go folks. So this is exactly what I've been saying about Hylands in the past with "33", where he lived in 1899-1902(or so). Hylands always had extra space for his fellows(though in 1900 we see that he chose to have some wayward young men staying over rather than fellows from work). And thanks to the recent findings on Hager, we know that he also had extra space for a similar purpose. Someone like Justin Ring probably rarely crashed at Hager's place though, as he lived(or at least I think he lived at a certain address) just a few blocks away from Columbia(and Zon-O-Phone, wherever they were in the same area). 

So maybe the Ring-Hager thing went the other way around more often. Hager crashed at Ring's place as he was very close by their work. 

So anyway, that's all I found on Prince really. I found a few more census records from later with his name there, but I didn't really learn anything new or surprising from them. I did find it interesting that Prince was divorced by 1920. Not very often do I come across these fellows who are listed as divorced in census records. Hopefully I will get to the point where I can definitively debunk the previous knowledge that Prince had early ties to Columbia. 

So before I close out here, I'd like to mention a funny anecdote from the article on Charles Prince that Jim Walsh wrote. As the Eddie King stories keep-a-coming, Walsh even had a handful of good ones to tell to add to the pile.

One story goes, that Eddie King was engaged to lead his Victor orchestra in a few pieces before a big baseball game in the mid-1910's. All the Columbia and Rex folks were also there, as they were all good friends and avid fans of baseball. Eddie got out there and did his job, and herded all the boys off the field quick in that insistent way of his. 

As they were marching out, Billy Murray stopped Eddie for a moment and asked why he was leaving so soon, and not sticking around for the game. 

Eddie replied thus: "I'm not a fanatic, like you fellows! I've got work to do."

Of course with that in mind, I drew a cartoon to illustrate this idea. 

Of course there he is with his Zon-O-phone buddies. Again, I have not yet seen a picture of King yet, but am hoping to sometime soon. 

Also, just one more point to make about the cartoon above, in that same piece on Prince, Walsh writes out that Billy Murray recalled Eddie King as "a saturnine person with what the non-smoking Murray calls a 'chronic cigarette cough'[and] was a zealot for hard work". 

So there goes that cartoon explained. 

Anyway, I was in Los Angeles last week and got about 20 interesting records ranging in date from 1902 to 1922. There wasn't anything too outstanding in the mix, though I am proud to own a copy of one of Eddie King's xylophone solos! His mallet playing was really something, quite odd and inconsistent, somewhat similar to his drumming on all those Victor's with Van Eps, so to close out here's one of them just because they're entertaining to listen to. 

https://archive.org/details/78_chinese-picnic-and-oriental-dance_van-eps-trio_gbia0005729a

Hope you enjoyed this! 

The Bowery boy

In the last few weeks, I tried once more to find any new information regarding Justin Ring. Well, just as last time, I didn't really find anything new on paper. well at least in the essential time frame that I am attempting to dig on. However! On my dig, I was curious to see if I could gather anything from seeing what neighborhood Justin Ring grew up in. I compared a few locations of some of these early recording stars, Banta, Issler, Eddie King, etc. The most curious thing I observed is where Justin ring grew up. 

Never could I have expected what I was to find. 

Justin Ring grew up right by the Bowery. 

Well there ya have it folks. So apparently what I had assumed prior to this research on Ring was entirely not true. I guessed that Ring was(based on his relationship with Hager for so long) a more reserved and focused character similar to Banta. I assumed Ring was the more quiet and obedient type, as he did so much work for Hager, Prince, Hylands, and who knows who else. 

Well, none of these could have been true considering where he grew up. 

This finding has completely changed my thoughts on Ring, and as I pointed out in the last post on Ring, maybe that bruise on his face was a common thing with him. There's almost no way he was a submissive obedient little pianist like Banta was, considering he essentially grew up on the Bowery. There's so much lore around those folks who grew up in the Bowery, so many songs, so many sayings and poems. And there's a reason for this. This neighborhood is where all the thugs and fallen folks lived, going way back. Many unfortunate tenement camps were out near there as well in the 19th century. Considering all of this is exactly what is so intriguing about learning that Justin Ring grew up there. 
So, now that I know this, what can we do with it? 
Well, we can place a little Justin Ring amid all the rough folks and lore that we hear on so many records from this era. 

Just as a side note, I observed this piece of information from the 1880 census. 

So, as expected, this has been on my mind a lot lately. As I still don't have any information about Ring in the 1880's and 1890's, though something clearly was intriguing and troubled about him. Observing his childhood neighborhood says a lot. 

(a cartoon I did illustrating my new discoveries on Ring)

But once again, what can we actually do with this information? 
This could be tied to his accompaniment style. I have always been wondering where in the world Justin Ring could have learned to play the rough and wild way that he did, but I guess we kind of have our answer. 
So without a doubt Justin Ring would have heard a lot of interesting music growing up in the Bowery. A lot of that uneasy and wild playing of his was developed from all the rough places he passed through in that area. It also couldn't be helped that he's hear all these things because his father was a musician, who likely played in venues in the area. 

But where else would he have heard such interesting music to develop that style?
It's certainly evident that Ring heard some really rough music. Based on the kind of things he often played on Zon-O-Phone records, he heard black and white musicians. 
Here are a few good examples that illustrate this well:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YUmpBODV5dXpxbHhjYzlGUmZKdEJDelZCQmtn/view?usp=sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVP33Ix8sp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi8K8iKZyXM

So there's a lot to take in with Ring's accompaniments. I have been meaning to write a little bit on how I am almost certain which pianist is Ring. Thanks to a few people sending me transfers of records Ring was on in the 1920's, I have backtracked that style back to most Zon-O-Phone's. In fact, this record here was the one that made me realize which pianist was him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EzduEIiVd0
It hit me like a slap in the face. It became instantly obvious which pianist is him on all those Zon-O-Phone records. He's that extremely pushy and aggressive pianist. I can hardly believe how anyone could keep up with his rush, I've tried dozens of times and always get lost. 

This didn't just mean I was checking all the Zon-O-phone records I knew of, I would be checking Columbia's from post-1900. Since that hit me, I have been listening to Columbia's and Zon-O-Phone records back to back so much more often. It all makes sense(kind of). When I did that post a little while ago regarding company crossover with Justin Ring, it turns out that it wasn't just a crazy idea. Ring may or may not be in that Columbia band(or orchestra) picture, but he's in that big group portrait of Hager's orchestra, that was taken in the Columbia lab.

That sweet young face up in the right corner might be him. I am still unsure, though I do think it is him. 

Despite that, we do know for sure that's him labeled as no.7, and that this picture was taken in the Columbia lab. 
So we know he was at Zon-O-Phone all the time, but what about Columbia?
Just this evening I went back and did some more Columbia-Zono comparisons, and noticed more striking similarities than I have before. In fact, I would wager that the fact Ring worked at Columbia is why he picked up so many Hylands characteristics in his playing.  This all makes sense now, as for a long time I thought I heard many similarities between the pushy accompaniments at Columbia and Zon-O-phone in a certain time frame. I was a bit timid to say anything definitive about it because I would have no ideas as to why these similarities would be present. After looking to see that Ring lived a short walking distance to Columbia, the likeliness of his employment there keeps-a-coming. 
I am not certain when he would have started at Columbia, but I'm thinking it goes as far back as 1900. In 1900, Hylands once again became engaged more often with Pastor's, and was still determined to keep his publishing firm with Spencer going. So this would mean that he'd be at Columbia less than the previous 3 years. So who would they have instead? That little, tanned, blonde headed Bowery boy of course! 
I mentioned in my last post about Ring that he would be the most likely pianist on Zono and Columbia around 1900 to 1905 because he had little responsibilities. Unlike Hager, Ring had no family at home, and was willing to take any money and work that was offered. He'd also be content crashing anywhere for the night where he could work(remember I still haven't found him in the 1900 census).  He kind of pulled a Banta, taking on multiple studio responsibilities, not realizing how tiresome it would become. 
Considering the amount of work he did between 1901 and 1908, I'm surprised he didn't drop dead like Banta, but anyhow, I'm really happy he got himself together and abandoned the double company life by the 1910's. 

Anyhow, that's all I got on Justin Ring since the last post I did on him. I am still determined to find the information I need!  

Anyhow, I would highly recommend digging around on the UCSB disc site, as they have finally added all the lovely Zon-O-Phone's and Columbia's. As expected, I have been quite busy listening to those, as i keep finding new one's every day! 
Just to give you an idea of what I went searching for first, here are a few that I have already saved:
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000261902/Zo_cat_C_5260-Little_Nell


https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000135456/140-Ill_follow_thee

This is one of my favorites so far:
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000137335/1101-Turkey_in_the_straw

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000254687/5315-Reels_and_jigs_Selection

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000263984/Zo_cat_G9467-Melodie


Anyway, that's all I got, I have been engaged to write some more, so I haven't so much to write about here right now. Hopefully I'll find some more new stuff pretty soon. 

Hope you enjoyed this!