Joe Belmont, the information hub and "human bird"

Joe Belmont, the great whistler of early recorded sound. A great amount of the information about the early recording artists came from Belmont's very candid and informative interviews with Jim Walsh in the 30's and 40's. In fact, he may have been the one who spoke of Hylands being Columbia's pianist in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Belmont lived a hell of a lot longer than most of his fellow recording stars, as he outlived everyone from Ada Jones, to Fred Hylands, to Arthur Collins. 
Jim Walsh visited Belmont several times in the 30's and 40's at his Bird store in Union square, describing Belmont's place as just like a comical bird store that they poked fun at back in Belmont's recording days. Belmont was a happy old man living amongst the wild cockatoos and parrots. Belmont somehow knew where most of his living old recording friends were at the time when Walsh visited him. As he was aware of who was still around and who had been dead for years. As he knew where Harry Spencer was, what Russell Hunting was off doing, and knew Byron Harlan(also Collins) had been dead for a few years. He was slightly like old Dan Quinn, except for the fact that Quinn didn't know what Harlan was up to, he was apparently very shocked upon hearing about his desperate disposition from Walsh. Belmont told all sorts of funny and queer old yarns and anecdotes, just like Ossman trio harp-guitarist George N. Dudley:

Now Dudley lived a long time. If I can remember correctly, he lived to be 88 I think. But Dudley only had yarns of the terribly vain and hot-tempered Vess Ossman from the only 4 years of working with him. 
Back to Belmont, so amid all of these tales and recollections of old friends, he also tried to remember the old recording studios, and the old records he made for Columbia, Victor and Edison, with that great whistle of his. He was not only a wonderful and extremely talented whistler, but he is a largely underrated singer. He had a powerful and very pleasing voice, that was of quite a contrast to his puckered mutters. There's not a doubt in my mind that he would have at least mentioned old Fred Hylands once in the interviews and letters, maybe remembering the old quick and improvised things that he played at the end of many of his Columbia cylinders, such as this one:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/4000/4679/cusb-cyl4679d.mp3
Belmont could have just remembered general records with Hylands like this one from 1902:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/4000/4686/cusb-cyl4686d.mp3
These aren't examples of Rag-Time, but they are perhaps the clearest examples of Fred Hylands' feel on the piano, not his Rag-Time, but how he played everything else. Belmont recorded from around 1898 to 1920, and disappeared for a while, until Jim Walsh found him a little over ten years later, working at his own bird store in the center of New York. 
His love of birds must have just started out as a childhood pastime, but then it seemed to stay with him as the years went on, then becoming a professional whistler in the early 1890's and gaining fame on the vaudeville stage by the late-1890's, just about the time that Edison had just employed him on their staff. As he can be seen here in that famous picture of 42 of Edison's artists from 1900 here:
(sorry the picture isn't very good)

It's very odd how he was numbered 1 when identifying everyone on that list from 1 to 42. Belmont was number 1 and Jere Mahoney was 42. He almost outlived everyone in the picture. Fred Hager takes the prize on that one. But Belmont knew everyone in the picture, just for the hell of it, here's the whole picture:

If only Columbia's staff took a picture like this...
(see some interesting and long forgotten faces there!)
Everyone here recorded at Edison in 1900(even though some of them had singed with Columbia not too long before this picture), and the three women present is very surprising. As I have said, Belmont is number 1, as it's odd to think that at the time he had full-fledged whiskers above his lips, but as we can see, he rid of them quick. Belmont was one of the few loving friends of old Frank P. Banta(i.e. they are both in the same picture above)  who survived long enough to have been interviewed and remember Banta well enough into his later years. Belmont remembered Banta fondly in his later years, as they wrote a few sketches together when back at Edison's studio. 
Well, to close off this post, here's two fun records with Hylands on the piano behind Belmont's very bird-like warbles:
https://ia802606.us.archive.org/35/items/DatWhistlingYallerDinahByJoeBelmont/DatWhistlingYallerDinah_64kb.mp3
(Kill it Hylands! Absolutely perfect tempo and feel!)
https://ia802302.us.archive.org/18/items/JoeBelmont/JoeBelmont-WhistlingSusannaCoonSong.mp3
(Very Ragged Freddy! He kind of plays it like how a "Rag" would have been played back in 1895 Chicago, as Hylands would have been THE one to know of such a thing...)

I hope you enjoyed this! Sorry I haven't posted for so long...