I meant to share a few more things in my last post, but I just really wanted to focus on Vess L. Ossman, as I hadn't any time to do a post yesterday. I have had a lot of different early recording artists on my mind lately, so it's been hard to stay on a single one for an entire blog post. The first thing I would like to point out is a record by Ruby Brooks:
That's Brooks cropped from the 42 Edison artists picture from 1900. Now this cylinder is great in many ways, but Brooks was not the best banjo player in the world. Brooks' time was all over the place and he wasn't nearly as smooth on the banjo as Ossman or Fred Bacon. Anyhow, here you go from 1902 with Frank P. Banta's piano accompaniment:
Did you hear it?
Banta counted them off at the beginning! Oh my god! On an Edison cylinder! How rare.
I was going through my music on my Ipad during art class yesterday and I came across this one, which I had heard before, but I had never noticed the weird sound between the announcement and the start of the music. It was identical to the sound that can be heard on many Metropolitan orchestra performances on Victors, and that has been identified as Frank P. Banta counting them off. This cylinder is great all around, and the strong bass notes really make the record have a unique sound.
The next thing I would like to talk about involves my friend Craig's favourite early recording artist:
Burt Shepard.
I love his records just as much as my friend Craig, minus the fact that he has practically ALL of Shepard's Victors. He was a man of jovial disposition, and loved what he did. He was beloved by all the crowds with his almost dirty parodies of popular songs and comical piano accompaniment. So to start with my spiel on Burt Shepard, here is the first example:
I love this record. The piano accompaniment is wonderful, and Shepard really makes it perfect. His monologues are also an interesting mix of comedy and odd dialect. Such as this one here:
Stutter-stutter-stutter. Love it.
He had the most queer speech. I just don't know how to identify it. I know that he's from the mid-west, but where exactly, he never disclosed. His dialect sounds similar to Byron G. Harlan's thick slurred speech from his Kansas origin of birth. This next one really reveals his crooked speech and all else:
Oh yes, he was a hick alright. Just listen closely.
I just found this record as I was writing this, so now I really know how he spoke. Hmm. I can't really think of much to say about this record, it's pretty extraordinary. He really executes it perfectly. You can just see the crooked words by how he says them. They cannot exactly be written in the dialect, but you can hear it. Other than Shepard being a female impersonator in the 1870's and 1880's, his recording years were really great as well, as that's the only way we get to hear him. We never will be able to see him in his full female attire, which is really a shame. He must have made a great lady. As he can get that way sometimes:
This is an example of his parody skills:
Hmm, that piano is not normal to the usual style, or balance. That gets me slightly suspicious. He was a good pianist I have been told. I have also been told this about Dan W. Quinn, but that doesn't really mean that Quinn can be heard playing piano on lots of his records, even though I never can doubt what records exist to-day from this time period. There's plenty of records from the earliest days that aren't supposed to exist, but they still do. Records like this include Russell Hunting's only surviving smut cylinders, and the one record that S. H. Dudley's wife made in 1900. It's surprising really, "all" of Russell Hunting's smut cylinder were destroyed in 1896 and 1897, except for a few. Thanks to Walter Miller(the manager of Edison's company)for some reason, for keeping them in his private collection. Why did he do this? We all really want to know, but we probably never will. Hunting probably didn't find out that any of his smut cylinders survived until years after he left the recording business, or he kept some to himself and never told anyone about them, and now they're hidden somewhere waiting to be discovered. It's hard to know. I still don't understand how a copy the record S. H. Dudley's wife made still exists. There's so many things that would object its existence, but it's managed to beat the overwhelming odds. The record's existence in the first place was under Dudley's command, so whatever it was to make him delete the record from the catalog permanently, it was sudden and all from his odd impulses.
I hope you enjoyed this!
Hi Ramona! My name is JR and I'm a student at St. Mary's College of Maryland! I'm actually doing a primary source research paper and presentation on "The Boy and the Cheese" by our friend Burt Shepard! It's hard to find some information on him but you seem to have quite an extensive knowledge of him! Could you possibly help me out with some information?
ReplyDeleteI would be happy to do so my good man. I will do a post this evening with all the information on Burt Shepard I have as of now. He is certainly a fascinating and slightly mysterious character in this area of early recordings. Make sure to watch my page this evening for a post
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