The Scrapbook

In the last post I mentioned the recent news regarding the Hager scrapbook, so it seems fit to do a post solely on this matter. 

After spending several years of knowing about its existence, I had been so anxious to at least one day see what was in it. Never would I have expected to own it. Not only do I have Hager's scrapbook, but I also have what is left of his papers. 
When Jim Walsh contacted Fred Hager in the mid 1940's, he had no idea what he'd be getting himself into. Since the late 1930's, Hager had once again teamed up with Ring to write some music and do some radio work. When the war was over Ring finally decided to retire, and leave the intense side of the music business entirely. Hager didn't want to abandon his life's work just yet, though after the war it seemed dire. Luckily, not long afterward Walsh contacted him, and this sprung Hager back to life, giving him a sense of blossoming hope. With this correspondence with Walsh, Hager became determined to preserve his legacy as well as the other history that he had been part of. Walsh was mostly inquiring of Hager regarding Cal Stewart and of other recording stars he knew(of which he knew them all at some point). 
In the decades prior, Hager kept a scrapbook, with the little spare time he had to do so. He started it around 1900, and kept it pretty consistent until about 1907, from there he hadn't the time to keep it up. Despite not keeping his scrapbook from that point onward, he did keep lots of important papers on himself and of his friends, Cal Stewart and Byron Harlan being two. By the time Walsh was contacting him, Hager had amassed a very complete and vast collection of papers and other ephemera from his fifty years in the business. Hager's writings to Walsh were clearly very passionate and rosy, as you read some of Hager's writing to Walsh, one could easily picture him going on about the past as he looked for things through folders and bound booklets(of which I have a few). You could easily see Hager so fondly going through his scrapbook.  

So what about the scrapbook? Well, I mentioned how Hager was so excited about Walsh and other young collectors like Quentin Riggs being so interested in early recordings that he made, so Hager presented himself to be one of the most generous of the old guys. After a life of aggressive selfishness, Hager wanted to give it all away to those who would appreciate it most(because his family didn't), and for generations to come. With this in mind, he took out many pages from his scrapbook, and gave away dozens of other papers to Walsh and Riggs. So, what's left in the scrapbook is curious. Most of what Hager took out was related to recording, so what's left is everything else regarding his live performances and publishing from 1900 to 1907. 

Hager died in 1958. He moved out of NY to Florida in 1956, and it was at that time that he was forced to rid of a good majority of his papers, but he kept that scrapbook till the day he died. When going through the pages, there are very minor tears at the bottoms of most pages where he grabbed it with his fingers. So he definitely handled the book a lot. He must have gone back and fondly reminisced the past often, wishing that Justin hadn't left the business when he did. 
Remember how Ring didn't attend any of the gatherings hosted by Jim Walsh in the late 40's and 50's? Ring became secluded after 1946, and he refused to write to Walsh(and we know that Walsh wrote to him many times). 

So what exactly was it what Hager was so fond of to leave in the scrapbook?
Well here's an overview...

What the front cover looks like. It's pretty unimpressive. Unlike scrapbooks such as Louis Armstrong's, this one is quite messy and not professionally organized. It was likely better organized when Hager had it, but even then it wasn't anything too special(its literally just a small notebook from the late 1890's). 
The first page:

So...there are dozens of these programs in this scrapbook. Each one does give us a pretty good idea of what his orchestra was playing live, and that what they did play mirrored their Zon-O-phone and Columbia records of this era. 

There's no way I could list out all of these in the scrapbook, but each of them includes interesting selections. This one includes Banta's "Ragged William". At another one of these concerts they played Banta's "Halimar". 
Someone who unexpectedly shows up often in the scrapbook is Bert Morphy. 

(from my collection)
Bert Morphy was known for singing with Sousa's band, and apparently, Hager's as well. No one has any idea where he came from, but he started making records around 1895, and remained a somewhat popular baritone on records until about 1902, then he disappears from there. He didn't disappear from music however. He stopped recording in 1902, but he remained a popular attraction with Sousa and other bands as late as 1913. 
Here's one of his records: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2R0wislt0Q
So he shows up often in the scrapbook. As he was a popular singer but his catch for the musicians was that he was an excellent and renowned cook. 

This is one of about 6 clippings where he is mentioned. 
Before I move on to more about the scrapbook, here's one of my absolute favorite cartoons of the period(from the 78 records wordpress blog)

I have drawn Sousa only this way after seeing this cartoon(because it's brilliant and just the right amount of grotesque). 
So, not surprisingly, there are many portraits of Hager in this scrapbook(which is nice for me). He was very much proud of his looks, so it doesn't come as a surprise that he kept several nice portraits of himself in this book. 
Here are a few:

(those beautiful eyes *faints*) As you could probably guess, I stared at this page an awful lot when I got it.

and here's the least flattering one:

Anyway, you get the point, the man was quite vain. If it wasn't clear before all this, it sure is now. 
Here are a few more great odds and ends from various pages:

There are many pages dedicated to clippings on "Laughing Water". 

Shared this in the last post, but it deserves to be shared again. 

Before seeing the scrapbook, I had seen this particular piece. In the near future I hope to do a post on "Handsome Harry", as in the last month and a half or so, I came to discover that this particular term means more than just a popular Hager hit. Stay tuned for that!

The very last page of the scrapbook includes some of Hager's scribbles from who knows when. A particular name is mentioned here that I am interested in. 

So this begs the question, is Ring all over the scrapbook? Well, the answer is yes. As I had suspected, Ring is everywhere in the scrapbook. The thing that is quite striking about what Hager left in the scrapbook is what little there is on anyone other than himself. So of course someone he so admired would be given a full two pages, and from the marks of wear on those two pages, Hager opened to it often. These two pages are this: 

 *rolls eyes*
Gee no surprise there. At this point in time I still stand by my opinions about the two of them, in fact, the evidence keeps piling up. This is no exception to the mound of evidence regarding their relationship. Hager couldn't let go of Ring, though Ring had moved on when he knew it was time to. Hager kept this portrait of Ring to the day he died, something about it must have especially captured Ring's personality and spirit, at least to what Hager thought. 

Anyhow, I'll leave it there for now. There is a lot more to discuss within the scrapbook, but I should split up the information to a few posts, as I'm still currently processing it all, even a month after getting it all. There are bits of Zon-O-phone and Columbia catalogs buried within the pages, which is especially nice. I had never seen an early Zono catalog before seeing the scrapbook, as they are so uncommon. If there is anything in particular you'd like to see or wonder if it's in Hager's papers, do contact me here in the comments, I'd be happy to dig it out. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Digging into Leachman, and other Chicago Eccentricities

(Leachman, c.1898-1901, from Charlie Judkins)

Under the kind obliging of a friend of mine, I will do another post outlining Silas Leachman, including all of the new information on him that has been found within the last few years. 

When I mentioned that "treasure trove" of information in my last Burt Shepard post, I meant all of the basic background information on Leachman was made available to everyone, as before that, he a was very mysterious figure in the early recording business. It seemed someone did all of the census record findings and newspaper searching to find everything. Whomever that was, you cannot be thanked enough! Much like Burt Shepard, there's a lot about Leachman we will always wonder about, and will probably never know. Leachman was one of the few early recording stars who was genuinely a genius musically, and technically, which was very uncommon. You many argue that the Spencer's deserve that spot and title as well, but Leachman really takes the prize on this matter. 

It's really fascinating to consider that Leachman was not only just a local eccentric in Chicago, but he was also involved with the show business in the area, as he knew all the other famous eccentrics, and just others who passed by the city while he was there. Chicago seems more and more like the true Rag-Time melting pot as I study these encounters, as pretty much every one of the earliest Rag composers lived in Chicago at some point in the early or mid 1890's, which includes some of the popular New York performers as well, not just composers. Leachman just happened to be right in the middle of it, and luckily for him, all of these composers, performers and publishers found him interesting and took quick interest in him. It's not that strange to see a piece of Chicago music published in 1893-1896 mentioning Leachman on the cover, or anywhere in the music's pages. Local Chicago talking machine advertisements would mention him often as well. I have mentioned before in my Chicago posts that Leachman encountered "Bill" Krell, as my dad called him once(It was strange to hear someone call him that!). This was W. H. Krell:

Krell in 1895 

As I have come to notice recently, Krell actually had a Fred Hylands-like figure, which is strange to think, but if you really take a good look, you can notice it. Of course, at first glance, Krell looks like a handsome-faced, blond-haired German chap, it doesn't help that this is the only photograph there is of him, so far as I know.

A cartoon I did mocking several Chicago eccentrics of the mid-1890's, including Krell, Fred Hylands and Bert Morphy(who was also a famous cook!)

We Rag-Time freaks know him as the man who wrote "Missisippi Rag", which was the first tune to formally have "Rag" in the title, in the use of music terms that is. Krell was a young and new bandleader in 1892 and 1893 in Chicago, dearly wanting to get on the same terms as the other local military bands, since he had grown up among band competition of that sort. In 1893, he met a kind local eccentric named Silas Leachman, and wrote a tune dedicated to the former mayor of Chicago who had died during the Exposition of that year. Leachman must have sung this tune at performances by Krell's band in 1893 at the fair, in memory of the mayor. From there, Krell and Leachman had connections, and among the performers Krell endorsed, Leachman was probably one of them. Fred Hylands and Ben Harney were others among the long list of performers.  Leachman's connections earned him a lot of work with the local Chicago Talking machine company, and performing work in the city. Those thousands of brown waxes he made at home from 1892-1899 really give you a idea of how busy and demanded he was by Chicago record-buyers. The fact that he was mentioned more than once in The Phonoscope also tells you that he was a popular subject of gossip among the Columbia clan. He was not involved in all of their antics, but he was experimenting much like they were at the same time, in fact, he was doing things that none of the famous Columbia studio geniuses thought of, such as recording his voice in four different ranges and creating a quartette from only his voice(you can read the section from The Phonoscope here.)  
Other than being a famous recording star, Leachman was also just a local gambler and enthusiast. Among his local activities included owning a race horse, and being the epitome of a Kentucky dandy(of which this is personified in Roger Harding's hilarious 1901 recording here). He would dress in his best and go out to the races, being one of the warmest society swells at the track (Hmm, sounds like some other swells we know from Columbia...), with this fame and wealth from recording and horse races, he also became a policeman, for which he became even more well-known. We know that once he became chief of personnel for the Chicago police, that was when his recording career faded away. He was making all of those Victors when this new era in his life began, and when the pervious one was slowly ending. 

It's hard to believe that when he was making all of those Victors that just after then, he wanted all of that to be forgotten. Every one of his Victor's is amazing to hear, since they seemed to catch more of him than the few surviving brown waxes he made. It would seem that his brown waxes allowed him to be more wild, but the Victor's made him become someone else sometimes, though still keeping some of his prized humor from the brown wax era. His times at Victor were also where he could reconnect with some of his old Chicago eccentrics, like Fred Hylands, and Frank Banta(though Banta only came for a brief time in 1895, and maybe in passing before that while touring with Ossman). It is certain that he was able to reconnect with Hylands, as without a doubt, he was one of those strange and young "rag" pianists of the mid-1890's. I have always had the feeling that Leachman must have been hard to work with in the studio, and not really in the same ways that Arthur Collins and Henry Burr were. Leachman's issues in the studio came from how he remembered songs and recordings, as it's important to remember that he learned everything by ear. He was also constantly imitating other popular singers that the studio pianists would have known, which must have really been a kick to the pianists. Among the singers he imitated, I've heard Len Spencer, George Gaskin, Billy Golden and Arthur Collins. He was certainly good at imitating them, as Billy Golden was the hardest to imitate of all of them, and he did that often. 

I can tell that he heard a lot of Len Spencer. Heh! Who didn't? 

Many of his records imitate things that Spencer did only, and it helps that many of Leachman's Victor's were of Coon songs. Billy Golden is also another to consider that he heard often, as he did a recording of "Turkey in the Straw" in 1901, and he certainly took from Billy Golden's famous version of unknown origins. Here's Leachman's take on Billy Golden's famous specialty. It's funny that Banta's on piano here, as he would have known only how to accompany Golden's version, and would have been unsure of how Leachman wanted to do this. Leachman must have dissected every chorus of Golden's version to do this. Though as we know, the final verse was completely improvised on Leachman's Victor, which is extraordinary. That look on Banta's face when Leachman told him he was going to improvise the last verse must have been priceless. Leachman's ear must have been amazing, as he could probably hear things that most people couldn't, and could decipher Billy Golden's "Turkey in the Straw" better than anyone ever could. It has become a sort of pun how no one can fully transcribe Golden's lyrics to"Turkey in the Straw", and I think that Leachman could actually do it, so I wonder about how accurate Leachman's interpretation actually was. We will perhaps never know. Like I said, there's a lot about Leachman we will never know. 

It's frustrating how he wanted his whole recording thing to be forgotten, as that was why for so many years almost nothing was known about him,  and why much was probably lost since then. Leachman must have been like Len Spencer, complicated to the point of where none of us modern collectors will understand, and contradicting to many contemporary accounts. A lot of it doesn't make sense. With all of that about Leachman it's alright that he wasn't part of the Columbia clan, because if he had left Chicago earlier, he probably would have been, and that would have killed him, literally. 

Maybe we'll find more information on Leachman someday soon, and hopefully, some of his complicated nature will make more sense. That's not guaranteed though, much like Spencer's impossible personality. 

Hope you enjoyed this! Sorry about not posting for many days, staying on a single subject become hard to do within the last week or so. 

*Who ever you are viewing in Russia, I'm glad you're enjoying my blog! Thanks for the great heap of views within the past week!*

Character Studies-- W. H. Krell(1868-1938)

Yes, I know Mr. Krell wasn't a recording star, but he had connections with two recording stars of the 1890's and 1900's, and he's a fascinating character to illustrate and describe. Krell was born in Pennsylvania in May of 1868, to two German immigrants, who were not involved in music at all, but knew from an early time, that their son was. He first took up brass instruments, learning low the brass, trumpet, as well as a little piano. He wasn't primarily a pianist, which is a contributor to the fact that the first version of "Mississippi Rag" was only a band arrangement. It took a little while for the collection of melodies to become a piece published for piano. By the late 1880's, Krell was playing in local bands, but he wanted to move somewhere else, somewhere larger than his home town, where he could make a name for himself. He decided that Chicago would be the place to go. So by 1889, he was living out in Chicago, and beginning his own band. In 1890, he had formed "Krell's Band" and he was beginning to make a name for himself as a local bandleader and cornetist. The local eccentrics ran into him at the big World's Fair of 1893, and this is why he wrote a bunch of music in '93. This is where he ran into Silas Leachman, Ben Harney, Fred Hylands, Bert Morphy, possibly Byron Harlan, and a host of others. Krell's first known piece is a remembrance to the former Chicago Mayor who died in 1893, with the music primarily composed by Silas Leachman, as well as the lyrics. He wrote the "Cake Walk Patrol" in 1895, and then by the end of the next year, had written out his arrangements for "Mississippi Rag", only to get them published in January of the next year, 1897. He remained conducting his band until the beginning of the 1910's, and from there faded into complete obscurity.

Willie Krell was a classic German bandleader. He not only had the looks, but the competitive and organized means of a Germanic brass player and bandleader. He was about 5 foot 8, strongly built, had small blue eyes, and hair that was golden, very light, and seemed like the lightest gold that a person's hair could be. He was a short-tempered man, much like Sylvester Ossman, and wouldn't take any "B. S.", from anyone. If something wasn't done his way, he would speak out against the opposition and make them think his way, and abolish all others who thought otherwise. He was determined to have the best band in  Chicago, at any means possible, even if it meant beating up some members of his own band. He was the most determined and destructive bandleader Chicago ever had before the Jazz age, only because he was desperate for the best band he could possibly have, and have the best Chicago music-makers by his side, which at his height in the mid-90's, he certainly had. He was also a drinker, some one too, not a terrible one, but one who went out and drank after those "society shows", and maybe took a few band members along with him. The record managers of Chicago avoided him, as he was too much like banjoist Ossman, and that wasn't always the best thing, also because nothing would be able to be done his way in a recording studio. He probably had offers, as the Chicago talking Machine company was gaining a reputation by 1895, and was looking for better staff members. Of course, he refused this, even though it would have been interesting if he had accepted. With the help of the few Rag-Time performers he knew left in 1898, he wrote his third rag, "The Piccaninny Rag", this Rag was much more true to the actual style of the pianists he heard around him in Chicago, even if it was composed after many of them had left for New York. He had become especially evil toward his band members by 1900, as a few incidents of injured band members and filed arrests really showed that he was even more determined by then, as the business was becoming very crowded and full of competition. He was great at what he did, but a terrible man at rehearsals and after shows. By 1905, he was starting to wind down a little bit, and somehow, he knew that he hadn't too many years left in the music business. How he knew it, by the one-step era(or just before the starts of the Jazz age) he was out of the business completely. It was good that he did that, since he was going to end all of that inevitably, so no more of that competitive atmosphere could kill him. He lived out in Florida for the last few decades leading up to his death in 1938, where he died in complete obscurity. He was remembered for decades afterward as just that bandleader from Chicago who won that music-writing contest with his "Mississippi Rag" in 1897.

I hope you enjoyed this!