Sorry it's been a few days, I've been dealing with some important doings within the last week, and I cannot really share everything with everyone. Eventually, I'll be able to spread the treasure trove of information I have gathered over the last few days. The time will come.
Anyway, within these eventful few days, I have listened to some fascinating recordings, none of which I will share just yet, but I will say some of the strange things I observed from these records. One of these things is the irony that surrounds Dan W. Quinn's notorious repertoire.
We know of Quinn being the one who recorded "Glorious Beer", and "The Streets of Cairo", which were romping popular songs of the mid and late-1890's. If you know anything about the "Midway" at the Chicago world's fair of 1893, you certainly have heard of the "Hoochie Coochie" craze that originated from this affair. It was a scandalous dance that imitated popular dances of the middle east, and was danced originally at the fair by authentic Arabian dancers. As expected somewhat, the song "Streets of Cairo" was about a country girl going out to the place out in Coney Island with the same name. This song also popularized that "oriental" motif in music that is still often used not so politically correct nowadays in reference to Egyptian or middle eastern context. This motif I mean can be heard on this 1898 cylinder here, toward the end.
Now to further this "Streets of Cairo" tune, the lyrics to the second verse are really interesting:
She was engaged,
as a picture for to pose.
To appear each night,
in abbreviated clothes.
All the dudes were in a flurrie,
for to catch her they did hurry.
One who caught her now is sorry,
poor little maid.
The song in its entirety is really great, especially since it's pretty raunchy for 1895, similar to Russell Hunting's sense of humor from the same time!
Now for the irony. We know of Dan Quinn:
Yes indeed.
Quinn was part of the "Columbia Clan" in the late-1890's, though he must have had some shame in being part of this group's despicable doings of 1899 and 1900. Of that we know is true, as he certainly would have denied that sort of thing if he was asked about it, according to what he said to Jim Walsh in his letters. The irony of Quinn is that he was a devout Christian, yet he followed the crowd at Columbia who went against most of his good beliefs. The most ironic of these being that he was a strong member of the temperance movement. While this is admirable, it's ironic since he was known for singing "Glorious Beer", and other popular songs about the liquor habit, particularly many of his Irish songs(go figure...). I can always imagine Quinn in a situation much like this one:
(Drawn by the author)
Quinn would give a scowl to any of his drunk friends, though here, it be Hylands.
He did contradict himself a little bit when writing to Jim Walsh in the 1930's, as he said that he was not too fond of comic songs, and thought of them as just frivolous and unnecessary, and that he preferred hymns and religious songs. That is very strange, from the first time I read that, it did not seem true to me. He sang literally every comic song that was popular in the 1890's, and he learned everything that was new, since he was a sight-reader. How ironic that all is, since he considered himself a good Christian family man in the letters to Jim Walsh. This must also have been why he god along so well with Frank P. Banta, since they were men of the same vein and respect. He was most likely one of those recording stars who were friends of Russell Hunting, and wholly disliked his "smut" cylinder idea in 1892. That would say a whole lot in this irony. All of this might mean that Quinn was a little more complicated than we've been led to believe, as his writings to Walsh are a mix of truths and fixed tales.
Now for the second part of this post. Record slips for brown waxes are a mixed bag usually, and most of the time they don't even come with one. I have explained before that Edison's record slips all look the same, and when one is seen, a specific time frame can easily be assigned to it. The thing about Columbia's is that none of them looked the same, with varying styles, prints, colours, and means of identification. I saw another one within the last few days, and found it very strange. It was a Columbia slip of course, with a similar format to others, but very different in appearance. It had the record number written in faded pencil at the very top. This is pretty much the order:
7375 -V
Vocal Solo
By
Len Spencer.
Warmest
Baby.
It was very strange, as Spencer wrote the title(well, half of it that is...), in his pretty hand of ink. It was written rather quick though, as though he was rushed to get to another take or record. Also, I noticed that the ink was smeared as well, which is really funny, just to think that Spencer probably had to shake out his hand and pen to write out the title. it's so funny, because unlike other slips I have seen, this one really gave a great image of Spencer actually signing it. There was this other slip that I used on this blog, one of these in fact:
I mean the one in the center and on the right, as they were both signed hastily by Quinn.
The middle one is a Columbia, though it looks very different from the one I saw recently. The shortened title is the same though, and is still funny that they did that. Just to prove that Quinn signed the two slips, here's an example:
Now for the irony. We know of Dan Quinn:
Quinn was part of the "Columbia Clan" in the late-1890's, though he must have had some shame in being part of this group's despicable doings of 1899 and 1900. Of that we know is true, as he certainly would have denied that sort of thing if he was asked about it, according to what he said to Jim Walsh in his letters. The irony of Quinn is that he was a devout Christian, yet he followed the crowd at Columbia who went against most of his good beliefs. The most ironic of these being that he was a strong member of the temperance movement. While this is admirable, it's ironic since he was known for singing "Glorious Beer", and other popular songs about the liquor habit, particularly many of his Irish songs(go figure...). I can always imagine Quinn in a situation much like this one:
Quinn would give a scowl to any of his drunk friends, though here, it be Hylands.
He did contradict himself a little bit when writing to Jim Walsh in the 1930's, as he said that he was not too fond of comic songs, and thought of them as just frivolous and unnecessary, and that he preferred hymns and religious songs. That is very strange, from the first time I read that, it did not seem true to me. He sang literally every comic song that was popular in the 1890's, and he learned everything that was new, since he was a sight-reader. How ironic that all is, since he considered himself a good Christian family man in the letters to Jim Walsh. This must also have been why he god along so well with Frank P. Banta, since they were men of the same vein and respect. He was most likely one of those recording stars who were friends of Russell Hunting, and wholly disliked his "smut" cylinder idea in 1892. That would say a whole lot in this irony. All of this might mean that Quinn was a little more complicated than we've been led to believe, as his writings to Walsh are a mix of truths and fixed tales.
Now for the second part of this post. Record slips for brown waxes are a mixed bag usually, and most of the time they don't even come with one. I have explained before that Edison's record slips all look the same, and when one is seen, a specific time frame can easily be assigned to it. The thing about Columbia's is that none of them looked the same, with varying styles, prints, colours, and means of identification. I saw another one within the last few days, and found it very strange. It was a Columbia slip of course, with a similar format to others, but very different in appearance. It had the record number written in faded pencil at the very top. This is pretty much the order:
7375 -V
Vocal Solo
By
Len Spencer.
Warmest
Baby.
It was very strange, as Spencer wrote the title(well, half of it that is...), in his pretty hand of ink. It was written rather quick though, as though he was rushed to get to another take or record. Also, I noticed that the ink was smeared as well, which is really funny, just to think that Spencer probably had to shake out his hand and pen to write out the title. it's so funny, because unlike other slips I have seen, this one really gave a great image of Spencer actually signing it. There was this other slip that I used on this blog, one of these in fact:
The middle one is a Columbia, though it looks very different from the one I saw recently. The shortened title is the same though, and is still funny that they did that. Just to prove that Quinn signed the two slips, here's an example:
Yep. That's the same signature alright, this one is just not rushed like the other ones.
Some of the other record slips I saw had a similar format to the Columbia's above, and it seems that having the recording engineer identified was very important to the identification of the records. It's really frustrating that the accompanist didn't sign the slips. Most of the time, they easily could have, it was just not found important to the engineers for some reason. The exact dates are stamped on many of the slips I have seen, which does help me understand to some extent what months Hylands just happened to be at Columbia, and as I see more of them, I will hopefully be able to figure out what months and weeks exactly in 1899 that Hylands was in their studio. It's frustrating how they didn't put exact dates on Columbia slips in 1897 and 1898, that would really be helpful then. 1899 will just be a place to start.
I will speak more of these discoveries in the future, for now that's all I have. More will come.
Hope you enjoyed this!
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