Hager as a character and the dilated stare

In the last few weeks, a few interesting things have come along in my research. About a week and a half ago, a descendant of Charlie Carson contacted me, and they sent along a bunch of really nice pictures that he and his friends took. Before i get into the Hager story here, I must talk about a single picture that opens up a lot more discussion about Fred Hylands. 
Since becoming immersed in this Ring and Hager project, a lot of my research on Fred Hylands has been put off to the side. Occasionally I do dive back into the Hylands project to add things and revise some information, but this picture has gotten me even more curious about his relationship with his Columbia co-workers. 
So here's the picture:

 Yeah that really does look like someone we know. So before I did any analysis on this being Hylands, I initially thought that it could be Hylands, Cal Stewart, Byron Harlan or Clyde Emerson. After ruling out Stewart and the others, I decided to stick with Hylands. Okay, it REALLY does look like Hylands. Yes, in the past I have gone on rants about other pictures of guys who look similar to Hylands, such as that other studio picture from 1897. I mean this one here:

Okay, I know now that that pianist is not Hylands, that's actually one of the engineers sitting in the piano chair for the shot. 
So that slim guy at the piano may not be Hylands, but that one exhibited first in this post IS. from what I can see in that picture of Hylands, he's wearing quite ill-advised cuts for his shape(this coming from someone who draws him often), and he looks like a rough mess overall. 

 The one thing that really put me over the top thinking it's Hylands was that stare. The one eye that is very visible through the blur is just as piercing and dilated as the other pictures I have of him. I compared the picture back to back with all the other confirmed portraits of him and everything seemed to line up. The hands, shallow but angled shoulders, collar and tie, leg structure, ears, nose, up-curled brows, crooked mouth, feet, smokers' cheeks, and especially those eyes all matched the other portraits. The moment I saw the picture the first time I thought that large tall man was Hylands. He even had a smile similar to that of Etta Hylands. 

Those legs look very similar, having the same structure and shape as the Carson picture. When I did my comparison I also noticed how the trouser legs gathered in exactly the same places as the one other confirmed picture of him standing. The trouser legs wrinkled at the knee and unevenly gathered at the ankles, creating a slight inward curve(the guy had interesting legs). See folks, this is how advanced and detailed my study in appearances has become. If you ever wondered how seriously I take my photo identification process, this is a perfect example. I have come a long way from that picture of Steve Porter at the recording horn with that slim "accompanist" behind him. At this point I am really studying the smallest details, and oddly enough the leg and feet aspect of this new Hylands picture proved very crucial, as the face is difficult to decipher from the suddenness of the snapshot. This picture was taken in front of the Columbia lab(1155 Broadway, exactly where I stood nearly two months ago), and it is entirely candid, completely unposed unlike the other early lab pictures. This snapshot was not taken for a phonograph publication, so it is very much a scene from life. With this in mind, it is fascinating to see Hylands without any theatrical air about him. He's looking like a stereotypical rag-time pianist would in the late-1890's(the picture was taken between 1897 and 1900), though he isn't wearing a waistcoat. One thing I noticed about his clothes in the picture is how much it looked like this here:

(The portrait of Hager on the cover of his Handsome Harry)

That is completely unrelated to this but it did remind me of that, and we know that Hylands and Hager worked together at Columbia from 1901 to 1903. 

I literally spent hours staring at that Carson picture, making sure that what I was seeing was indeed Fred Hylands. It's lucky that Hylands was captured right at the very second before these two random guys zipped by the photographer(you can kinda see them in the cropped version listed above). That does however make it a bit creepier than Hylands already was. Everything else is in motion while he's staring right into the viewer's soul. Anyway, that's about all I got on that topic. Hopefully more will come of this picture find, as it's really extraordinary to see Hylands in a family history still left intact. He can be found nowhere else, but Carson and his family kept that picture of where he worked, and Hylands just happened to be there. 

Moving on!

Yesterday I received a book in the mail. Only last week did I hear of this book's existence. last week was the 100th anniversary of Mamie Smith's first records, so naturally the 78 records Wordpress blog posted about it. If you are curious to see it(which I highly recommend reading and subscribing!), here you go:

https://78records.wordpress.com/2020/02/19/100-years-ago-at-okeh-mamie-smith-gets-her-break/

So, I read the article, and I was intrigued by this book that was quoted, Born with the Blues. With this burning curiosity, I asked a few friends about this book, whether it would be worth my time and money to grab a copy. Those I spoke to about it recommended that I go get it. With the best of luck, there was a first edition copy on ebay for pretty cheap. I snagged it, and got the book yesterday. I immediately started pouring through it for the Hager story. To my surprise, Hager wasn't just some background figure in the story of getting Mamie Smith on record. For once Hager wasn't mentioned once and moved on from. This book is Perry Bradford's autobiography and his perspective of the transitional era from the black America of reconstruction to the Harlem renaissance. I read Nat Shilkret's book last year, and when doing so was overwhelmed with so much information that I am still attempting to work through it all. Bradford's book is very similar in this way, but it is a little better organized. I read only the chapter about Bradford's association with Okeh, but even that on its own was dense.

 So...Bradford had lots of difficulty getting Mamie in the recording lab and getting though the management. This isn't surprising, but he went to Columbia first around 1917 attempting to get his stage partner Jeanette a deal, but this didn't work. With the rise in recording authentic black southern blues, the white record boys were starting to feel the pressure to take action. Columbia in 1917 had just recorded several sides by W. C. Handy's Memphis orchestra, and with that, they were starting to dabble in the idea of recording more black artists playing authentic blues melodies(even though I have heard exceptional examples of pianists like Justin Ring play authentic 12 bar blues before 1905, but that's beside the point). Here is the beginning of his adventure in getting his dream realized:

After Columbia gave Jeanette the works, I contacted Mr. King[Eddie King]. the Victor top man. he wasn't so hard on us and set a recording date for Jeanette, but we went out of town to do some vaudeville dates. As soon as we came back I doubled back to see Mr. King again, not for Jeanette, but for Mamie Smith who sang in the show Made in Harlem. Mr King let Mamie make a test record of "That thing Called Love" with me playing piano for her, but it was never released. 

...

 I told Joe[a record store owner in Harlem], that [Wilbur] Sweatman tried Columbia first and Mamie Smith made a test record for Victor of "That Thing Called Love" and was turned down, but Joe countered with , "I've had a long discussion with the Victor salesman about you working with some other colored girl for the Victor Company." Then Joe suggested that I go back and see Mr. King, which I did, and Mr. King played the test record of "That Thing Called Love"and admitted that Victor had a better recording of the song than Okeh, but that Victor just couldn't lower their prestige by following these small companies. 

Then I went over to Bert Williams' office, where he and Will Vodery listened to the two records. Mr. King had loaned me the Victor test to let Bert hear them both. Instead of Bert Williams commenting on the records, he told me about the treatment Victor had put on him before he finally started making records for Columbia; how he made a test record and was refused. "Now you realize what I told you would happen," were Bert's parting words. 

So this is where Hager comes into the story. 

So I woke up on a cold February morning in 1920 and put on my lead-sheet(meaning my topcoat), because I'd hocked my overcoat(what the actors called--my full orchestration), and walked from 135th street in Harlem to Ford's saloon at 40th street and 8th avenue downtown. There I had all the free lunch I could devour and was feeling nonchalant, so I strolled aroun' to the Okeh studio at 145 west 45th street to see Mr. Fred Hager again, with the intention of making my last stab at trying to sell  a colored girl singing on records. All other attempts had failed, I'd walked out two pairs of shoes going from one studio to another, and my friends were begging and pleading with me to give up my fantastic dream and go back on the stage where I could always "mess-up" some plates every day, even if I had to stand off the restaurant man for my meals. 

Just as I showed my head in the door of Mr. Hager's office, before I could say good morning, I was confronted with the same old stock answer of:"Leave your name and address, if anything turns up, we will notify you."

No one except a fellow who has been in the same fix can realize how it feels when you're getting a square meal not and then, mostly then, to hear those "disappointing blues" sung to him everywhere he goes. 

 Seeing that I had been given the run-aroun' and I had been pestering Mr. Hager's secretary for a whole month and could never get past her desk, I finally did get a chance to see him(the only recording manager I seemed able to reach) and we had a "heart-to-heart" conversation and he admitted that his hands were tied. With all these setbacks i was slowly making uo my mind to throw in the sponge and call it quits, when Bill Tracy, the white writer of "Play that Barbershop Chord", gave me the key which opened up the prejudice door to my thorny problem.

So there's already a lot to take in here. Eddie King was at least kind to Bradford's offers, though ultimately he was little help. As Bradford elaborates on Hager, he paints him to be a sympathetic good hearted country boy. Applying his extraction to this descriptor portrays him to be a considerate and oddly thoughtful executive. I am unsure how much of that to believe, considering that Hager was aggressively selfish and ambitious, even in his middle and old age. Here is more of the story before I dig deeper into my analysis:

Here's how it happened. I'd kept on "gum-beating" in the C.V.B.A. club every night that something ought to be done to crack that solidly entrenched recording monopoly wide open, until it seemed to be getting on the members' nerves. But as soon as I mentioned Mr. Hager's name, Chris Smith told me, "I've known him for a long time and he's a regular guy." Then Bill Tracy, a song writer, butted in with these words, "next time you talk with Fred Hager, tell him I asked that he give you an audition for your colored girl singer."

As Tracy's "Barbershop Chord" had been published by the Helf and Hager's music firm, that's how I got to see him this time. Because when I entered his office, I told the information girl, "Don't worry, I know there's nothing today, " but I shouted out loud, "I have a message for Mr. Hager from Bill Tracy." And right away Mr. Hager poked his head out the door and wanted to know, "What's that about Bill Tracy?" After telling him that Chris Smith and Bill Tracy had given him a big build up by saying he's a regular guy and would give a struggling songwriter a break, then I spread this new approach. "There's fourteen million Negroes in our great country and they will buy records if recorded by one of their own, because we are the only folks than can sing and interpret hot jazz songs just off the griddle correctly."

 ...

What really got the butter and sold Mr. Hager was the big surprise of hearing about that big Southern market that no one up North had ever thought of. So he asked, "What songs have you in mind?" I showed him "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down". After reading the lyrics and the music, he okayed them and promised an early recording if i would take them over to Sophie Tucker and tell her Okeh would record the two songs if she would sing them for us; because nobody could so justice to this material like she could. ...

Bradford went to Tucker with the songs, but she was contracted to Vocalion at the time, so she was to record them there instead of at Okeh. Bradford went back to Hager at Okeh and told him of Mamie, praising her so highly. This was Hager's reaction:

...Mr.Hager got a far off-look in his eyes[folks who have been following my Ring and Hager project can probably imagine this vividly as I do] and seemed somewhat worried, because of the many threatening letters he had received from some northern and southern pressure groups warning him not to have any truck with colored girls in the recording field. If he did, Okeh products--phonograph machines and records-- would be boycotted. 

And so this is where his praises for Hager begin. When considering this perspective in this topic, it must have been a difficult decision for old Hager. He had already made so much history and done a lot of people right and wrong to get where he was, but he ultimately took a chance on such a heated topic as this. Never have I seen such aggressive praise for Hager. Even with all of this I do wonder about what significance Hager actually thought this decision had in his own history. I cannot find any scrap of this story in Hager's papers(they may have been thrown out with the rest). 

May God bless Mr. Hager, for despite the many threats, it took a man with plenty of nerve and guts to buck those powerful groups and make the historical decision which echoed aroun' the world...

So I shall remember Mr. Fred Hager as long as there is any breath left in my old carcass.   

That is indeed some very rather religious praise there if I've ever seen some. The one question I had going into reading this book was exactly what angle Bradford took to move Hager's ego. Of course, not so surprisingly, it took some massaging of that ego to get the ball rolling. He took it from the Helf and Hager angle, which seems like the perfect way to get his ears perked up. While reading this dense chapter, I literally threw my hands up when a certain Mr. Ring was mentioned. He's also mentioned in conjunction with Hager. 

Clearly I'm not the only one who sees this Ring and Hager thing. 

Anyhow, there is more on this topic to write about, but there's already so much here. I'll have to cut if off here. I have only read though this chapter once since getting the book in the mail, so I will have to go through it a few more times to really get a better analysis together. Reading this chapter really has been making me think about the entirety of Hager's personality. I think that he must have been a slimy sort of executive to get where he was by the 1920's. Without a doubt he had to be a serious hustler with freak ambition to get to that position, though I have often wondered how he was once he got to those high ranks. This chapter does shed some light on what he was like to deal with as a businessman and executive. i will have to think about this some more as I go back through Hager's papers that I have. One thing that is very much solidified from reading this chapter was that his massive ego was the key to him. I had guessed that before based on the content of what remains in his papers, and how he dealt with Walsh and poor old Ring. 

Nothing new to report in the world of new transfers, which is unfortunate, but hopefully I'll get to hear some new interesting stuff soon. All these Ring and Hager discoveries are burying me in their music and I'm starting to get tired of Hager's simple composition style and Ring's experimentation. 

Hope you enjoyed this!