We all know Columbia's pianist Freddy Hylands.
And we very well know of his "Rag-Time" playing on all of those brown wax cylinders and early disc records. Since he was the main studio pianist over at Columbia, he would have to play literally everything that was recorded there. Everything from the sacred selections of Steve Porter to the raucous coon songs of George W. Johnson. I was digging through the Santa Barbara cylinder website last evening and found some interesting selections that relate to the title of this post. They do have to do with Fred Hylands.
Since he was a rugged pianist by heart, he naturally put in all of those weird saloon-like things into the songs he recorded, even if they had nothing at all to do with the Ragged nature of his style. This first record is an absolutely perfect example of this. It's a recording of Thomas Clark playing a popular piece by Franz Schubert in late-1897:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/7000/7959/cusb-cyl7959d.mp3
The cornet playing is great and it is a beautiful piece of music, but the terrible sounding old piano of Columbia makes it a very weird record. Hylands is playing slightly Ragged, which adds to the queer nature of the record. Really take a listen to the piano. It is also a very awkward record in a way. It is only because Hylands and Tom Clark were both in the Columbia orchestra and often fought over who would do the count offs and arrangements(before Fred Hager came along). So Hylands tries to do some of what he did best behind the man at the record company that he didn't particularly favor, which must have been a little odd for Clark. Hylands was probably drunk when this round was done, with the terrible sounding piano not making it any better. Hylands was still rather new there at Columbia when they recorded this though, so he was still trying to figure out how to be heard better behind the blaring artists in Columbia's big recording room(as heard on this very cylinder!).
Hylands ragging the old favourites and sacred songs must have been only slightly ludicrous to the singers at first, and even must have been so a little while after getting used to him. He was doing this years before is really became a craze(other than Banta's "Ragged William two-step" from 1899). It was still weird all the same.
This next one I have shared on this blog before, but it's a great example of several factors that went into making records in the 1890's. This next one is an example of Hylands making an old piece unnecessarily Ragged. This time he's playing behind singers that were actually more friends of his than Clark. Here you go from early 1899:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/11000/11858/cusb-cyl11858d.mp3
I have always had a mix of thoughts about this cylinder.I know that Spencer is really drunk, and I'm sure if Spencer was that Hylands would be. But that solo at the beginning, it's Ragged and very odd in general. They wouldn't mind Hylands doing that with the tune though, because they all sounds like they were absolutely hammered when they did this round. You can really tell sometimes, and on this one, it's particularly clear. Heh, and the engineers said they couldn't tell the difference between drunk and sober, pffft!
This next one is by the duo we all love of Hylands and Spencer.
This one is a funny old song that was recorded a multitude of times between 1898 and 1906, but it's odd to hear Spencer sing in an Irish dialect. Here you go:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5218/cusb-cyl5218d.mp3
Hylands' Ragged time is very slight on this one, but it's there and he's pretty scattered. Doing things that don't exactly make sense. It's an interesting but quiet cylinder where you can actually hear the deep bass notes on the piano, even if the cylinder is very quiet. Hylands speeds up and slows down throughout the cylinder, which may or not have confused Spencer, though he must have been used to it by the time this was recorded, which was 1898. It's just a good a collaboration as any of the Hylands and Spencer cylinders were.
This next one is a very odd one by someone who I don't get the chance to speak of too often,
Since he was a rugged pianist by heart, he naturally put in all of those weird saloon-like things into the songs he recorded, even if they had nothing at all to do with the Ragged nature of his style. This first record is an absolutely perfect example of this. It's a recording of Thomas Clark playing a popular piece by Franz Schubert in late-1897:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/7000/7959/cusb-cyl7959d.mp3
The cornet playing is great and it is a beautiful piece of music, but the terrible sounding old piano of Columbia makes it a very weird record. Hylands is playing slightly Ragged, which adds to the queer nature of the record. Really take a listen to the piano. It is also a very awkward record in a way. It is only because Hylands and Tom Clark were both in the Columbia orchestra and often fought over who would do the count offs and arrangements(before Fred Hager came along). So Hylands tries to do some of what he did best behind the man at the record company that he didn't particularly favor, which must have been a little odd for Clark. Hylands was probably drunk when this round was done, with the terrible sounding piano not making it any better. Hylands was still rather new there at Columbia when they recorded this though, so he was still trying to figure out how to be heard better behind the blaring artists in Columbia's big recording room(as heard on this very cylinder!).
Hylands ragging the old favourites and sacred songs must have been only slightly ludicrous to the singers at first, and even must have been so a little while after getting used to him. He was doing this years before is really became a craze(other than Banta's "Ragged William two-step" from 1899). It was still weird all the same.
This next one I have shared on this blog before, but it's a great example of several factors that went into making records in the 1890's. This next one is an example of Hylands making an old piece unnecessarily Ragged. This time he's playing behind singers that were actually more friends of his than Clark. Here you go from early 1899:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/11000/11858/cusb-cyl11858d.mp3
I have always had a mix of thoughts about this cylinder.I know that Spencer is really drunk, and I'm sure if Spencer was that Hylands would be. But that solo at the beginning, it's Ragged and very odd in general. They wouldn't mind Hylands doing that with the tune though, because they all sounds like they were absolutely hammered when they did this round. You can really tell sometimes, and on this one, it's particularly clear. Heh, and the engineers said they couldn't tell the difference between drunk and sober, pffft!
This next one is by the duo we all love of Hylands and Spencer.
This one is a funny old song that was recorded a multitude of times between 1898 and 1906, but it's odd to hear Spencer sing in an Irish dialect. Here you go:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5218/cusb-cyl5218d.mp3
Hylands' Ragged time is very slight on this one, but it's there and he's pretty scattered. Doing things that don't exactly make sense. It's an interesting but quiet cylinder where you can actually hear the deep bass notes on the piano, even if the cylinder is very quiet. Hylands speeds up and slows down throughout the cylinder, which may or not have confused Spencer, though he must have been used to it by the time this was recorded, which was 1898. It's just a good a collaboration as any of the Hylands and Spencer cylinders were.
This next one is a very odd one by someone who I don't get the chance to speak of too often,
Edward M. Favor.
This is one of those popular 1890's "Tearjerkers" that someone like George J. Gaskin or early Byron G. Harlan did as a semi-specialty. Here you go with an unusual Favor record with an unidentified record company(though it might be and early Leeds and Catlin or Consolidated cylinder):
Apparently, Will F. Denny did a version of this on Columbia around the same time, which would man that there is a clear example of Hylands playing this tune, and bet it would be an interesting comparison. This is a very odd cylinder in the sense that it's one of those very sad 1890's songs, but at some points, Hylands goes off on his Ragged and slightly jarring left hand a few times. It's almost distracting really. But that's what his point was, he wanted to be heard, and by 1899 and early 1900, he had known well how to do that. It's still a very fine cylinder by Edward Favor, changing a bit from his usual comic Irish songs.
Hylands doesn't really make this next one really ragged, but it's very much so in the feel and great tempo he keeps on it behind George Schweinfest. The date for this one is not given, but by the fact that Joe Belmont is the announcer and the overall sound, it is certainly from 1903. Here it is:
This is a pretty good cylinder, with very good on time collaboration of Schweinfest and Hylands. The rhythm is absolutely pristine. Hylands wasn't drunk and he was feeling slightly Ragged.
This next one features a rare and great announcement by:
Roger Harding!
This is another one where Hylands didn't need to be the way he was playing when he did this round:
It's played a bit too fast, but at least the piano can still be understood. Not much to say here, the piano is loud and is says all for itself.
These final two are organ accompanied Columbia's. So Hylands would be on the organ here. Hylands was a pretty lousy organist, probably because he hadn't experience on the instrument. This first one is pretty messy, and it is a tune that us old record collectors have all run across in our collecting travels:
The boys at Columbia couldn't figure out how to balance their burly pianist on the organ, clearly by how loud the instrument was compared to the singers. The funny thing is that I can just hear Hylands playing a sea shanty like "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor" on the organ just for fun between takes and making everyone laugh. This one is one where I can really imagine this happening:
He's still a lousy organist, and you can hear him even more on this one than the last one.
You can hear faint organ playing by Hylands here on this odd "talking specialty" by Harry Spencer from 1898:
This cylinder is still slightly haunting to me.
Ha! Two Spencers and one big Hylands playing a little organ...
I hope you enjoyed this!
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