A perfect caricature and more slowed down transfers

We begin to-day's post with a caricature.

Who's that freakishly tall weirdo with the music?

IT'S FRED HYLANDS!

This morning, Charlie Judkins sent me this fantastic cartoon from Judge magazine mocking much of the Union work that Hylands did, and other things of that sort, as he stated that the cartoonist, Art Young, was a prominent leader among the new unions that were sprouting up in New York from 1902 to 1910, and it seems that he at some point encountered Hylands as one of the blunt leaders of the White Rats Union. 

Everything about the caricature is right! Everything about Hylands there is exhibited at its best, and makes it just as funny as it needs to be. The real thing that made me convinced that this was Hylands is the fact that he's wearing the costume in this picture:

Yes indeed. 

This caricature exhibits everything that I do when I make fun of how weird he was! And yes, finally a way to at last end the glasses debate. 

This cartoon will be used as a final addition to my seminar on Hylands for next month.

Many of these newly slowed down transfers that Ryan Wishner and I have been working on are being uploaded to the Internet Archive, for all to access, and with that, I will share some of the latest additions to the collection of these that he and I are amassing in our files. The first two files that will be shared are two different recordings of the same song by Len Spencer. The older take is is terrible shape, but the first half of the cylinder can be heard somewhat well, though I would advise to give up on the second part, because it's such a bad and messy transfer. It's by far the most interesting version I've heard of the song though, regardless of the awful mess of mold. 
Here is the older take of "My Gal is a High Born Lady":
https://archive.org/details/MyGalIsAHighBornLadywHylandsc1897
It's awfully messy, but it's a genuinely interesting take as far as these records go. It almost sounds like it's from 1897, but really can't be that early because of the prominent syncopation, and that was almost nonexistent on Columbia records from 1896-1897(it was there, but not as lumbering and powerful as when Hylands was there). It sounds like a Columbia record more than anything else, but it doesn't help that Spencer says not any company name in the announcement. In fact, it sounds like those pirated Columbia records from 1897-1899, and since no company is announced, that's likely. Also, it must be noted that Spencer's singing sounds like it does when he was tipsy, as it's not very in tune with the piano, and the dialect is over-exaggerated(in the best possible way!), which are both aspects of his singing in that state. It's a great comparison of different takes to this later version here:
https://archive.org/details/LenSpencerMyGalisaHighbornLady1898
They are completely different from each other, yet they are the same song by the same singer, and likely the same pianist believe it or not. This record also sounds like Spencer's a little tipsy(which is great!) but really as much so as the older take, his pitch is much better on this take, in fact, it actually very good compared to other records of his. Of course like most Hylands and Spencer records, these two are great examples of early Rag-Time. 

The next one is a record by:

and 

Frank P. Banta! 
(still love that look on his face)
This record has been on the Internet Archive for many years, and I have heard it so many times, really hoping to hear it at the correct speed sometime, and now it's so!
Here you go:
https://archive.org/details/MyMoneyNeverGivesOutwBanta1902
It's now at an even, slightly flat A flat, which is rather normal for a recording of  the era. Banta's playing on this record is phenomenal, with a good variety of syncopation types and characteristics, with that equalling and Rag-Time recording of Collins with Hylands from the same time. This record is just as good as this 1898 cylinder by Collins and Banta:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder8650
Banta was such a great Rag-Time pianist, though he was not as natural to the style as Hylands. There are times where Banta sounds just a good as Hylands, such as the record just above, and this one here(this record is among the top examples of brown wax Rag-Time out there). 

This next one is by

Dan Quinn! 
In fact, the image just above of him was taken around the same time that this recording was made. This is one that has had time to circulate around Youtube and the internet in general, but this is the superior transfer of this record from David Gionannoni's fantastic Grammy winning CD Dan W. Quinn, the King of Comic Singers, of which I have mentioned often on this blog, as it is a phenomenal CD with even better liner notes to accompany. Here's the best transfer out there of Quinn and Gaisberg's November 3, 1895 Berliner of "The Streets of Cairo":
https://archive.org/details/TheStreetsOfCairobyQuinnandGaisberg1895
I have used this record before to illustrate points related to Quinn's accidental involvement in the "Little Egypt" scandal of later 1896, as this is the song that really caught the essence of the "Hoochie Koochie" craze. It's a fantastic example of what Berliner record sounded like before their more commercial operation began in 1897, when each one was made with special care, and when it was essentially a family run business, with Mr. Berliner and a bunch of teenage boys running the studio to keep everything in line. 

This next one is also by Quinn, but this time he's with his "man crush" Frank P. Banta. It's one that didn't need that much slowing down, but the bass was turned all the way up and slowed down ever so slightly to turn out great! 
Here's Quinn's famous 1902 recording of "More Work for the Undertaker". If you listen to the original take, of which you can hear in this link here, it's a very slight change like that that will make such an immense difference. I have always envisioned this record sounding the way it does on the newly slowed down transfer, and now I won't listen to it any other way, since it sounds so dark, pure, and natural; as these recordings were supposed to sound. 

The final recording to exhibit in this post is the edited version of Johnson and Issler's 1891 cylinder of "The Whistling Coon", which sounds so much better now that it's slower, and all of the syncopation is very well heard and can be deciphered. Here you go:
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeWJohnsonWhistlingCoonIssler1891

It sounds just as it's supposed to now. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Underhanded Music Dealing in the 1890's

The name Fred Hylands is mentioned very often on this blog, as he was not only a prominent studio pianist at the prime of the early Rag-Time era, but was also an important part of the comedic side of early Broadway. His name and influence fits into many subjects that go into this line of study. One of these subjects is the title of this post. The under-the-table dealing of music in the 1890's is a very understudied topic, as it simply wasn't written about often. One of these strategies that we have all heard of is handing a singer or performer an advance copy before the music is published, and surprisingly, this happened more than most people think. There weren't specific publishing firms that were begun by recording stars to unite the two parts of the music business, early on in the 1890's that is. 

One famous composer-phonograph singer friendship was

Monroe Rosenfeld and

Len Spencer.
Most people don't know about this friendship, since it was well-hidden, but advertised occasionally in earlier editions of The Phonoscope. We know of many composers that Spencer endorsed early on, but one of the first would logically be Rosenfeld and also Barney Fagan. Rosenfeld came first, since his early "negro dances" were so popular, he also wrote lyrics to these pre-ragtime pieces, many of which Spencer became well-known for recording. Many of Rosenfeld's pieces from the 1880's were minstrel songs with slightly syncopated melodies, and with that, Spencer was bound to make hundreds of rounds of any of them. When speaking of this, I mean early on in Spencer's recording days, in the era where he worked regularly with Issler's Orchestra, 1892 to 1896 that is. The solos he made during this time were done under pseudonyms for the most part, but he was still known as the prime coon song singer on phonograph records. With this fame, the composers and publishers took an interest in Spencer, and kept their ears open for a time to hand him an advance copy of a new song. This probably happened with Spencer a few times in the mid-1890's, though it's not well-documented, according to others in the business, it did happen with Dan Quinn and J. W. Myers. Quinn stated in some of his letters to Jim Walsh that publishers handed him songs before they were published to singer before all the others got to it,he claimed to be the first one to sing 

This great early Rag song with a very racist cover(typical for 1896...). 
I'm not sure whether to believe that Quinn was handed an advance copy of this in 1896, but it's not impossible. I would believe it more if he said that Spencer was the one who got it first. I have seen so many advertisements that mention Spencer's record of "The Bully" as being one of his best records, and the most popular as far as his individual records go.  This had to be so, since it was reported that Spencer was making rounds of this tune into early 1898. I don't know who was handed the advance copy first, even if Quinn stated that he was the one who got it first, not everything he said is to be trusted, remember. Other than Quinn's "Bully Song" statement, there wasn't much early music dealing in the era before 1897, though there was probably more than what we are presented in this matter. 

It took until the "rag" fad to spread in 1896 for music publishers and composers to take more of a direct interest in recording stars. New publishers such as Joseph Stern took in some of the most popular studio stars under Russell Hunting's obliging with the Universal Phonograph Company. Many of their advertisements are in editions of The Phonoscope, here is their earliest one:

This came from the January 1897 issue of The Phonoscope. 
Their ads were often in pieces of music published by Jos. Stern in 1897, of which I have one of these buried in my sheet music collection. They were usually small triangle-shaped things that said simply that the song this is on can be found on records made by the Universal Phonograph Company. That's perfect in illustrating this point of publisher and recording artist, so early on in the era as well. 1897 would be toward the beginning of this idea of uniting the two aspects of the music business, as most people think of this happening in the 1910's and 1920's, but in reality, it began in the late-1890's. The Universal Phonograph Company didn't last to see the end of 1897, but it proved that a publisher could join with a record company to sell music and make records. This quick venture for the Columbia staff got everyone thinking about beginning something else like that, but they needed a better publisher for the job.
Composers still remained friends of many studio stars, such as Barney Fagan and Len Spencer or Quinn and May Irwin. It took until Columbia threw out their old pianist in mid-1897 for this idea to resurface. Fred Hylands was not yet a publisher as we know, but the ideas were formulating. There weren't any reports of music being dealt under-the-table in 1897 and 1898 at Columbia and Edison, but by early late-1898 and early 1899, the staff had begged Hylands enough to begin a publishing firm, and so he did. He was exactly the kind of publisher that Columbia's staff wanted and needed, since he worked there, it all seemed to work perfectly. 

No one saw their finish of course. 

But that doesn't matter just yet, it was the perfect everything for Columbia. If you really want to talk about some severe under-the-table music dealing, Hylands Spencer and Yeager is the firm to study. 

Pretty much everything that Hylands published was given to someone as an advance copy before he published it. This was especially so with anything he wrote(durr...). The instrumental music was given out after publication, but not the vocal pieces. Hylands handed his "You Don't Stop the World from Goin Round" to Len Spencer before he published it, so they could record it first, then sell the music, and he also did this with his "Prize Cake-Walker is Old Uncle Sam", and he gave that one to Dan Quinn of all people(that's kind of strange if you think about it). The ladies that Fred took a liking to eventually were ones who got music before it was published, such as Ada Jones, Sallie Stembler, and some of his wife's friends in the performing business. As the firm began to fade by early 1900, Hylands stopped handing out advance copies, as someone might have told him to end his habit of doing that, or something else, I really don't know, but it seemed that he stopped doing that after the end of 1899. It was around this time that everyone involved saw their finish, or Fred's in this case since he was the one who was going to take the harshest blow after it fell through. After the firm's end in November 1900, the idea of publisher and recording star lost its novelty, and all the old Columbia stars didn't bother to associate themselves with specific publishers or composers any more after that. 
The second wave of studio stars adopted some of these ways, as many collectors are aware of the Collins and Harlan friendship with Theodore Morse, which lasted over a decade. Harlan had been part of Hylands' publishing firm, but after about five more years, Harlan was working not only with Collins, but found Theodore Morse a better asset than Hylands, which is many ways was a smart move on Collins and Harlan's part. This 1890's tradition carried on into the 1910's, 20's and even the 1930's in fact, and it seemed to become a much less hidden subject as the decades went on, making it not as sleazy and interesting as it was early on. 




*I just want to take a moment to send my love and regards to Tom Brier and his family, as he was recently in an awful car accident and will take many months to recover. We will miss you at Sutter Creek this weekend! Some of the soul of the festival is lost without Brier there.*

Hope you enjoyed this! 

14th Street Swells--Some popular New York Rag pianists

A cartoon I did poking fun at Burt Green and Fred Hylands as being "swells" who both lived and worked on 14th street in the late-1890's. 

Back in 1897 and 1898, East 14th street in New York City was a hub for several theaters, and where many of the pianists who played there lived. Among these swells included Burt Green, Mike Bernard, Ben Harney, and Fred Hylands. Pretty much the entire New York "rag time" scene lived either on 14th street, or somewhere around it. Much of these old buildings where the pianists resided still stand to-day on 14th street, including Fred Hylands' old flat while he worked at Columbia in his early era there. 

It seemed inevitable for all of these pianists to know one another, as they all worked at the same theater, and Hylands was their manager at one hot point. First, in 1896, Ben Harney broke the old traditions of vaudeville music by performing his "ragged" interpretation of his own "Mister Johnson Turn Me Loose", which really started a craze for music that was ragged in "Ethiopian songs" as they were often called at that time(that was actually a very old minstrel music term, that had been around since the 1830's). From there, all of these younger performers began taking up Harney's act and creating their own spin on it, adding all sorts of new and interesting things to it. Burt Green was considered among one of the best Harney imitators around, which believe it or not, was stated in an obituary for Harney in 1938. What was special about Green was the fact that he not only took up the piano playing style, but he also did some of the dancing that Harney was so well-known for. 

His dances included things like these:

There were so many more things he did, these are only two of several more that were photographed in 1911. Green did these dances well, as he was known for it it seems, and he sometime parodied them as well. From what we can hear on those handful of records Green made from 1911 to 1915, it is certain that he was one of those early rag pianists, and took much of his style from those other famous early performers. 

There he is around 1908. 

From the few pictures I've seen of Burt Green, I can easily see him being one of Fred Hylands' publishing associates, and since he was one of Fred's income sources, he remained a valuable asset for him for many years, even after the publishing firm. They met probably not long after Fred first came to New York, as they worked at the same theater in 1897, and Fred was at one point the music director there, so it's inevitable that they became friends early on. Their friendship worked so well in many ways, as what they were missing in their lives were fulfilled with one another, and they were easily both just as strange and eccentric. As I've said before, Burt's looks made up for Fred's, and it helped that most of the stars they endorsed on their music covers would encounter Burt first rather than Fred. Fred came next. The first impressions Burt made must have been much better than if Fred were there during recording days. During the publishing firm, Burt still worked on 14th street, at Huber's museum, and occasionally filled in at Tony Pastor's theater for Mike Bernard. But as could be expected, Fred and Burt learned early on not to mess with Bernard, and Fred knew him best, since he was his director for a short but busy time. 
Bernard must have been one of the 14th street swells who was auditioned for Columbia in 1897, as they probably tried all of these famous theater accompanists. Knowing how much of a peach Bernard was, he must have hated the idea of being almost quite literally a slave to the singers and performers who entered the studio. Harney was not very versatile, and would probably done well on all of those coon songs, but everything else wouldn't work. Burt must have been one of their second decisions, but he probably turned the studio job down. Of all these theater pianists other than Hylands, Green would have been another great studio pianist, and since he was so much like Hylands, he  was probably considered something like "Freddy's double" if they needed another pianist for something. In reality, the one who took that place was Ed Issler, and Issler was not a show-biz insider like Hylands, which meant for an immediately different approach. 

While Burt worked at Huber's, he met many of the famous faces pictured on Hylands' music covers, including these two:

(Fun fact! Spencer probably wrote her name on this picture!)

(These both came from sheet music covers in my collection)

I'm sure you all recognise these faces, especially the first one. Green probably found them first, and soon went to Hylands and Spencer about his latest findings. Where Harlan came from in this case it is not certain, but Ada Jones was a regular at Huber's 14th Street museum, and it is almost certain that he met her there. Wherever of whomever introduced Harlan to Hylands, that friendship lasted a long time, and it was randomly revived in 1901 when Harlan began recording at Columbia. Other performers like Barney Fagan and Sallie Stembler must have been Hylands and Spencer findings. Burt working at Huber's not only got him an immense amount of money, but it earned Hylands and Spencer some very important friendships, such as the Ada Jones and Spencer duo that made hundreds of records from 1905 to 1913. 

No Billy Murray, you did not find her first. Damn lie...

Anyway, you understand what I'm getting at here, 14th street was a fantastic place to live and work in the late-1890's. There were more famous stage pianists who came from 14th street, but that comes later in the era, around the gaudy time of Tin Pan Alley, of which none of these early pianists were officially part of. These great pianists were too good to be part of that mess. 
Max Hoffmann was another one of these pianists I did not mention, as he was performing all over those theaters on 14th street in 1897-98, which logically works since he was such a famous "rag" pianist. Hoffmann remained pretty well-hidden considering that all of these other pianists were not really writing all of this music, but they were playing it in that same Hoffmann-like style. He remained hidden because he wasn't exactly a show-biz character out front, he was a sort of behind-the-scenes type, since he married a dancer who made up for this. His slim and pretty wife was scandalous enough to keep everyone's hands off of him, so they could scrutinize her. 

Something like this is what I mean. 
That's his wife in the center by the way. 
Funny to think that Hylands was director at the theater where this was taken. Hehe...
Hoffmann's marriage was brilliant, in so many ways, and it really is funny to think of it as a strategic show-biz marriage, far more than just the typical Hylands and Green marriages of pianist and singer. Chronologically, Hylands' marriage came first of all these famous pianist-singer ones, with the intention of an act being created from it. It wasn't as famous as the others that came after it, like Burt's marriage to Irene Franklin, but it was the same sort of thing. Fred married a singer who was not really well known, and she became a little more well-known after being married to Fred for ten years, since it took that long for him to finally put her in one of his Broadway shows. 

(that's her! on his music of course)
Took him long enough...
 It would be interesting if he dragged her in to Columbia to make some records. Probably didn't happen, but we can well assume that he considered it early on. We know that he was desperate for attention from the Columbia staff in 1898, and something like this was probably laughed upon by the long-time studio stars. It helps that he lived on 14th street in 1898, though he was not within walking distance of the studio. The bouts with cable cars were inevitable!



Anyhow, I'm just going to keep rambling on about all of this, so that's where I'll end it. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Hylands and Spencer and Rag-Tyme mysteries

We certainly know about that gentleman. Even with all that is known about him, I still have many questions about Mr. Len Spencer, as many record collectors do as well. My dear friend Jack Stanley and I both fully believe that there's a side to Spencer that has long been disregarded, or maybe pushed aside for specific reasons? It's hard to know, but whenever I go out to the LOC, the first thing that I will look for is that little notebook of his I've heard tales of for many years. Who knows what that little treasure trove holds in its pages...

It would be similar to if someone found a bunch of Fred Hylands' letters from around the time that his firm collapsed. Speaking of that! I wonder if Spencer's notebook has dates from the time that he worked with Hylands in publishing, that would certainly be fascinating. I've been told that it has dates from the late-1890's, but I don't know if that means 1897-98, 1899, or 1900, or any configuration of any of those dates. If anyone knows, tell me!  Either way, that little notebook might be a hint into what this unknown/forgotten side of Len Spencer was. 

Anyhow, now to get into the main part of this post. I was listening to some cylinders by the Columbia orchestra while in art class yesterday

(some of the Columbia orchestra, including Fred Hylands in the right corner with his hand atop the piano)

While digging through these eccentricities of studio orchestra music, I stumbled upon somewhat of an atrocity of a brown wax cylinder. I am a great fan of the Columbia orchestra(the group that lasted from 1897 to 1905, not to at all be confused with the Columbia band what came a little later, and overlapped with the orchestra for a few years), but this cylinder was a real change from the many others by them I have heard. This record had the title of "The Village Orchestra", and when I saw that title, I immediately knew that this was going to be a comic cylinder of them imitating an unskilled and terrible-sounding country orchestra. Guess what, that's what it was! 

Here you go:

a not-so-great transfer of "The Village Orchestra" by the Columbia orchestra from earlier 1899

I was cracking up terribly when I heard this cylinder! They're trying to play horribly! I heard a familiar voice in there, hmm... That "Encore! Encore!" after they played "Pop Goes the Weasel" sounded an awful lot like that piano player. Fred Hylands! Also, that little thing toward the end:

Tom Clark or George Schweinfest:  Say! Do ye fellows know "Annie Low-rie"?

Fred Hylands: Why--that was "Annie Low-rrr-ie"! (there's a weird rolled "r" there, that's why it's written that way)

That, my friends, is real  1890's vaudeville! And that's also Fred Hylands' sense of humor at work(it was one of the things he was know for!). It's very clever really, and it must have been a popular act with those who asked the Columbia to play for them, as it was hilarious and perfectly terrible in its own ways. 

Now onto the Rag-Time mysteries part of this post. Just this evening, I was listening to Len Spencer's version of this here:

Yes, that iconic tune of early "Rag-Time" by Benjamin Robertson Harney

Yes indeed. 

Harney at last got this Louisville true "Rag" in 1895, after years of carrying the piece around with him as he played in saloons, boardinghouses, and playing the left-handed banjo occasionally. In 1896, Len Spencer got a chance to see Harney perform at one of the major Manhattan vaudeville stages. Harney not only did his specialty with "Mister Johnson Turn Me Loose", he also went for his outlandish "buck dance" along with his choruses of "Good Old Wagon". Spencer had to learn it, and so he did, mimicking Harney's rare and deceiving tones of voice, some dance movements, and his perfect dialect. 

His exceptional mimicking skills came very handy when making the rounds of "Good Old Wagon". When Fred Hylands came along, all Spencer wanted to do was to make hundreds of rounds of it with him. So he did. I haven't been able to heard any of the brown waxes he made with Hylands in 1898, but I know there must be at least a few of them out there somewhere. The one popular and somewhat overly-used take of Spencer's "Good Old Wagon" is the take from 1902 on a Lambert cylinder:

Everyone uses the cylinder quite a lot, on record blogs, history blogs, and music blogs, only because many would come to the idea that it only fully represents how Spencer was the main singer of Coon songs in the 1890's, and was the most cruel and shameless with the racism. While that is partially true, there are dozens of more things to consider when hearing this infamous cylinder. 

That piano accompaniment. It had been a widely debated item of interest since the first CD with the record on it was put out. It is one of the few records where non-record collectors I know have argued with me about the pianist. Even though there are hundreds of better examples of Rag-Time on cylinders from even several years before, this one seems to have kicked up the most discussion. It cannot be Frank P. Banta, and here's why:

-It's Len Spencer singing

-It's a Lambert cylinder

-Banta already worked for Edison and Victor in 1901-02

-Lambert was a branch off of Columbia(if you think about it for a moment)

So with that, the pianist would, most logically, have to be Fred Hylands. The style is also similar to that of Hylands, even if there's  hell of a lot of sustain pedal on is. His rhythm is good enough to be Hylands as well:

Len Spencer and Fred Hylands' "Good Old Wagon" from 1902 on a Lambert cylinder.

Yes, to those of you who had to do any liner notes for this cylinder on any CD, that pianist is not "anonymous" or "Unknown Studio pianist", nor is it when trying to sound all smart by saying the pianist is Frank P. Banta. It's Len Spencer's favourite pianist FRED HYLANDS. 

Now this next thing I would like to speak of is something I have hinted at on this blog before. It is the discussion of music written out by other composers that sounds like it could be imitations of Frank Banta or Fred Hylands. I would like to bring back Maximilian Hoffmann into the picture:

Yep. 

Hoffmann is still a reasonably unknown character in the history of Rag-Time, even though he was one of the first to string together extraordinary medleys of Rags and cakewalks. He can be considered one of the early "Rag-Timers". In that group(by the way) would include this:

Ben Harney, Max Hoffmann, Mike Bernard, Barney Fagan, Burton Green, and Fred Hylands(*keep in mind that these were the white performers on the east coast, and in the midwest, there was of course the group that the Turpin's and Joplin were part of at the same time*)

Hoffmann's Rag Medleys are still unknown in their true origins, the songs in them are known, but not necessarily the stylistic spectrum of them. When I hear either one of his medleys, whether his "Rag Medley" from 1897 or his "Ragtown Rags" from 1898, I hear the syncopated musings of Fred Hylands. Why? Well take a listen to all of Hoffmann's "RagTown Rags" here, and really listen to how the syncopation is written, and even how some of the left hand is played as well. Now after 6 minutes of Ragged mastery, listen to Hylands and Golden's "Roll on De Ground" from the same year as "RagTown Rags". It's got all of the same syncopation that the medley has, with that distinct style of Rags that disappeared mostly in 1904, but completely by 1906. 

It's a distinct style that can be very well heard on this one here from 1897, it's a little hard to describe, but it's very syncopated, quick, and stems from how the earliest cake-walks were played. It's a style that is hard to master, and what is forgotten about this specifically mid-late 1890's style is that complicated bass patterns were also played behind the heavily syncopated right hand notes. This can complicate the playing far more that it needs to be, but it's how it was actually played. No one knew how to write the walking bass patterns. That's the only reason that it is non-existent in written Rag-Time until Artie Mathews' "Weary Blues" from many years later in 1915. It existed, and it was played often, but it took a true musical genius like Artie Mathews to know how to write it out. 

That was the one thing that Hoffmann missed when trying to transcribe his medleys, after hearing Burt Green, Harney, and Hylands play. They all played it, but in slightly differing ways it seems. Another thing that was specific to few pianists of the 1890's, was the fifths and fourths in the left hand. That was something that Fred Hylands didn't do too often, but Frank P. Banta did, and Ben Harney did. Now, here's a piece that all of these aspects are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V97k-89c90A

Every one of the late-1890's Rag-Time stylings are present here. Minus the syncopation patterns from the ones above. Now, here's the one thing that's amazing about this piece "The Funny Old Fakir' as it's called. Walking bass patterns are present! That it truly astounding for 1898! That can be heard at about 1:20, by the way.  There's also quite a few fifths and tenths in the left hand, that's also curious. 

All of these characteristics can be heard on the cylinder by Golden and Hylands above, and also on this cylinder here( the first take listed) recorded in 1898 as well. 

All these Hylands characteristics(minus the broken octaves) are present in this piece I have shared on here before:

Laurent Dubuclet's("Larry Buck") "Freckles" from 1905

That Rag possibly might be named for Hylands, being a freckle-faced redhead. 

Anyhow, the piece is fantastic and is a true Chicago-Indiana Rag, that is not at all in the Rag-Time style of 1905, and it sounds more like 1896-97 to me. 

Like a "Chicago Professor" I have mentioned before on this blog. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Who Hylands Corresponded With

Composer Barney Fagan

Roger Harding

Three familiar faces. Faces that saw Fred Hylands' frequently in 1899. When Hylands began his "Hylands Spencer and Yeager" firm in 1899, he didn't realize that he would be corresponding with all sorts of famous performers and vaudevillians, of which ranged from the tremendously popular May Irwin to his close friend Len Spencer. He came across pretty much everyone you could think of in the early Rag-Time business in 1899 and 1900. His sheet music covers can show for it. It's not really the composers that really catch the eyes of a sheet music nerd with Hylands Spencer and Yeager music, it's who's on the cover that catches the eyes. Hylands advertised some familiar faces on his music, possibly by his own choice, or from someone else involved in the firm. It's why I question which one of the many involved in this firm decided to have Ada Jones on their covers, several times.

Was it Len Spencer or Fred Hylands? Who took the first fancy to her? I haven't any idea. It's either one of those two though, I do lean more toward Spencer on that one. When I mention Byron Harlan getting advertised on Hylands' music, I would say that that idea came solely from Hylands himself. Hylands must have found Harlan an absolute riot! I can see him now smiling and laughing at Harlan's comedic routines in the publishing office. Hylands must have really had a good time when he ran this firm, as hearing all the hottest singers in his own publishing office must have been great for him. As we can see from this here:

He really wanted everyone he could possibly have come to his office and sing or perform for him. From how many different people he advertised on his music covers, it seemed that they did come to him, and many of them did. More probably came than he and Len Spencer could have ever thought. Hylands, as I have explained before, was not too great with his money. This fact had terrible consequences. It certainly was one of the main causes of the collapse of this firm, and from the amount of partying and musical experimentation, it would seem that this drained his profits quick. 

It was very successful for a recording artist-operated publishing firm overall, as this sort of thing was destined for complete failure in the late-1890's. It didn't last too long, but it lasted long enough to be well-recognized in the whole music community of all New York in 1900. That's a big deal, if all the big publishers took a notice to Hylands' firm by how much fun they were all having there must have caught their attention. Since all the great singers came to Hylands', he must have been on to something. It wasn't just the foolish mess that the recording boys at Columbia thought it was upon first hearing Fred's ideas of this firm. 

May Irwin 

Marie Hylands 

Three ladies of Fred's liking for his firm. We know that the third lady is his wife of course, but the first two are ladies of similar profession of whom he came across in the phonograph business. I have a notion that Len Spencer introduced May Irwin to Fred in 1898, and she later visited the firm office to sing and play her 'cello or piano for him. Len Spencer had become a good friend of Irwin's back in 1895, as he was championing her songs for the phonograph, and she took notice to this and went to find him to genuinely acknowledge his skill. Sallie Stembler was a popular singer on the local stage in 1898, and later was given a phonograph job, which is where Fred took a fancy to her, and must have been shaken from his work to see her in his office the next year to introduce his newest publication. He later gladly had her picture put on the cover of J. Fred Helf's "A Picture No Artist Can Paint" which is where that picture above came from. It wasn't just the singers who came to Hylands, it was also the phonograph salesmen and exhibitors. The reason for this was because he wanted his sheet music covers to be shown at the exhibitions that had the records to go along with it. This got Hylands even more profits, as that was the advantage of being a recording artist and publisher. The advantage of this idea was that he could not only get money from the sheet music sales itself, but he could also get money from the phonograph exhibitors. The phonograph exhibitors offered quite a good profit in that time, especially if you were a publisher of music that they had on their records, even better if the publishers advertised the very singers on the cylinders just like Hylands did. It really was a fantastic idea, and it served well for everyone of the twenty or so people involved regularly in this firm. It was Hylands' irresponsibility that led to the overall demise of this great idea however.  It did create a great model for publishers in the 1910' s and 1920's though, because this sort of thing became much more common a decade after Hylands Spencer and Yeager blew to bits. 

This firm created some really important and interesting connections though, some that would not have happened had it not existed. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

From Sheet music

It's uncommon to find the old early recording stars on covers of sheet music, as this has become an important area in my collecting, but it's a very hard thing to come across, but once one is found, it's an immediate find. I know that the earliest artists of the 1890's all wrote music here and there, so it's not uncommon to find their names on covers, whether it's a song they wrote, or a song that was dedicated to them. I have mentioned this odd ball "Coon Song" on this blog auite a while back, but I just found it again:

Yep, that one. With this thing on the top of it:

Ha! That's just wonderful. Since this was written by one of Spencer's composer friends(of which included Monroe Rosenfeld, May Irwin, the composer of the song above, Barney Fagan, Fred Hylands, and probably Max Hoffmann). So there must have been several pieces of music from 1893-1899 that had this sort of recognition to Spencer on it. I would not at all be surprised to find another one of these. I have found things like this dedicated to Dan Quinn and especially Russell Hunting. Speaking of Russell Hunting, I have come to the thought that Hunting must have become a big figure generally in the whole New York scene after his whole "bust" with those indecent cylinders, as he was on several pieces of sheet music(not pictured unfortunately...) and was recognized in several communitites other than the recording community. By this, I mean something like this:

The thing at the very top is what I'm referring to:

Yep, that's it. This piece was composed and published the year after Hunting went through all of that commotion with the law, so it's interesting to think that it was alright for the composers to still be friends of his. Hunting was considered "esteemed" by Rosenfeld because of his bravery in the courts and against Comstack's laws, and continuing his "Casey" records after the fact. But in 1898, the idea that recording artists and publishers should try to group as one became a fad. By this, we have the firm of:

There it is. Under the ink pen of Len Spencer, came this beautiful logo. 
This firm was incorporated by Fred Hylands in March of 1899, as can be read here from that edition of The Phonoscope:

That's basically saying that Hylands' last two firms were a failure, so he used the extra money from those two to start this firm with simlar people he already knew. This firm was a much more successful one though. He published music to endorse the records they made and sent the recording artists advance copies of the music. Yous can see that he did this because I saw a song Spencer recorded listed in the "New Records for Talking machines" section the month before Hylands published it. That's a dead giveaway. I'm pretty sure that Hylands did this with many more of his songs, just like his "Darkey Volunteer" of which the manuscript he had been carrying around with him for at least five months before he published it. And by the time he published the song, had had already handed written arrangments to the Columbia orchestra and to Vess Ossman.  
This idea of recording artist and publisher always seemed like an easy deal, where both sides of the business would get their share with ease, and some of the money from the record sales went to the publisher, it seemed like the perfect idea, and this is why Hylands wanted this to happen. From what I have found, this firm was even set up in two out-of-country places as well, just like the Columbia company. You can see this here:

closeup of logo:

See it? Toronto, Canada and London, England. I don't know the story about the Toronto setup, but I have this thing here about the London setup:

Yep, that guy. I have only heard vague little things about him here and there, but I guess that he was one of the small empire under the dictatorship of Fred Hylands. Even with all this endorsing of recording artists, such as these two examples:

Hylands was still losing tons of money from this firm, and it was mostly him who was, due to his irresponsible spending, and anxious means to branch out to other countries, which was certainly a pricey venture. All the other members of the firm were wealthy from their inheritance or from recording, and they were mostly "partying" themselves, without Fred. When this firm collapsed, Fred was broken up, and had to sell all of his stock out to other publishers, further slipping him into debt and depression. Even with this failure, the idea of publisher and recording artist stayed with the music business, as you can see this on music published in the 1910's and 20's, even later than that as well. I have a piece of music from 1904 with Arthur Collins' picture on it, here you go:

Sorry the picture isn't very good, but you get the point, it's one of Collins' mst popular songs of 1904 and he's pictured on the cover, for a reason that's pretty obvious. So Hylands' idea wasn't all that bad, but the firm just didn't work out to well. I know of tunes from the 1900's and 1910's with Byron Harlan on the cover, Vess Ossman, Dan W. Quinn,Henry Burr, Harry Tally, Will F. Denny, and of course Billy Murray. So if you're looking for great reference for these songs just turn to the music, for the artists' picture, and maybe for changed lyrics, because it did happen.
To close off, here are a  few tunes with the sheet music:

This song is from 1890! 

https://ia902302.us.archive.org/18/items/JoeBelmont/JoeBelmont-WhistlingSusannaCoonSong.mp3

By Dan Quinn and Frank P. Banta:
https://ia800300.us.archive.org/17/items/edbw-6950/edbw-6950.mp3
I haven't the sheet music for this, but this is Hylands and Spencer's famous "Negro Song Success":
https://ia800300.us.archive.org/9/items/LenSpencer/LenSpencer-YouDontStoptheWorldFromGoingRoundCoonSong.mp3

I hope you enjoyed this!