Prince and new records

All-right folks, I apologize for not writing so frequently. It's been difficult to sit down and write  single blog post, and as you know it's holiday time. Here I have been stuck at home often recently with all the rain we've been getting here in northern California. So with that in mind, it seems like a good time to get a post in. 

In the last post I promised I'd write about Charles Prince, and so I will. A little over a month ago, I started doing some preliminary digging on Prince, thinking that it wouldn't lead to much. Well, I was sure wrong there...

In the past I had heard from a few collectors and notes in Jim Walsh's articles that Prince was a difficult person, but I never would have expected the amount of difficulty to be discovered. 

Prince around 1904. 

On previous digs I found bits on Prince regarding his early days in San Francisco, as that was where he grew up. 

So here's a summary of what I found:

Prince was born most likely in December of 1867, in San Francisco. In 1870 his family was living in the small logging village of Santa Cruz(it was difficult to get to this town before 1872). Prince's family had relative status to old California standards, being in the fruit packing business. They also prided themselves on being married into the famous Adams family, descended from presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. This is where the Adams middle name comes from. By the mid-1870's, the Adams-Prince family had moved back into SF, settling nearer to the Barbary Coast than to the "slot"(where the cable cars were to be built in just a few years). It is unclear when Charles entered in the music business, but it was likely very early on, and he played piano to start. In his mid-teens' Charles was working as a lifeguard of some kind along the north shore of the city. At age 20(1888), he married a woman whose name I could not track down. he lived with his wife and father Henry in the northern part of the city(toward the top of Larkin street to be more specific for you SF scholars).In 1892 he decided to head east to New York for better music work. 

Somehow he got tangled in the new-fangled business of recording sound. It is possible that Prince knew the four Emerson brothers in SF before they all headed back east, and this may have been how he got into recording. However he got involved, he entered in the exclusive crowd with some of the major recording workers, such as Frank P. Banta and Dan W. Quinn. He made his first batch of records as an accompanist on July 30th, 1892. It's uncertain when he left recording, but it was likely within the next year or two after that first few sessions with Banta. Sometimes between 1890 and 1895 he likely divorced his mysterious first wife, and left New York to go and live in the Kansas City area. While in Kansas city he hastily married an 18 year old girl named Sadie(there is a chance she may not have been 18 when they married). By 1899, he and Sadie were back in New York, and he was working in the family business of packing fruit.  

From his first experience in recording, Prince stayed in touch with the media and press around the then fast growing recording business. he was likely one of those few outside figures who had a regular subscription to The Phonoscope. His friends from the previous decade probably knew of his return to New York, keeping at the back of their minds that he was around and could be a candidate for a director's job in a studio. It took until the end of 1902 for Prince to finally return to recording as an accompanist. When he returned, he accompanied the first operatic Columbia records issued. Prince just happened to join at a very touchy time for Columbia, as Fred Hager was leading the studio orchestra, playing a regular weekly park gig, composing popular pieces, and Hager and Justin Ringleben were being mentored by the then fading studio pianist Fred Hylands. So, in summary, there was little room for Prince when he initially joined the Columbia staff. In early 1903, Hager's name was still being aptly advertised in Columbia's catalogs and supplements. It took until the middle of that year for Hager's stronghold on the Columbia lab to collapse. As with all of Hager's other ambitions, the other record companies he had in his control all came crashing down at once(this includes Columbia, Victor, Lambert and Leeds). Amid Hager's lamenting, Prince made his way in, and with that he brought in many new musicians, but also kept many of Hager's still employed. 

Prince received an awfully warm reception from the old Columbia guard. Len Spencer and Henry Burr took an especial liking to him. Prince wrote out several descriptive pieces with Spencer in the first few years of his employment at Columbia, such as this one here:

https://archive.org/details/DestructionOfSanFrancisco

You can hear Spencer's voice shouting throughout. 

Prince gladly employed Justin Ring as his chief arranger and assistant, much like Hager had. He also had Hager's brother Jimmy in the band as a percussionist. 

And as we know, in the next few years, Prince's band and orchestra became a respectable rival to Sousa's and Arthur Pryor's bands on records. While Prince was gaining fame in the record field, he tended to a few of the wandering record folks he employed. In 1905, Prince had Henry Burr boarding at his place, and it is likely that he also had Ring and Jimmy Hager stay there when they needed it. 

Once we get to the teen's this is when Prince's personal life gets complicated again. Between 1910 and 1925, he was married and divorced several times, and when I combed through each census and other public records in this period, he wasn't living with his wife most of the time. His daughter Catherine, from his marriage to Sadie, remained with him throughout these times, but the others living with him changed frequently, but all of these folks he lived with where strategic and somewhat related to his line of work, whether it be recording or performing in pit orchestras. 

In 1918, another orchestra director began making his way into the Columbia studio, much like Prince himself had nearly 20 years earlier. This new director was Robert Hood Bowers. It took until 1923 for Bowers to take Prince's place, but this didn't mean that he was gone from Columbia for good just yet. As his job at Columbia was fading out, he took a brief job at the company who made Paramount records. By the next year, Prince signed a somewhat brief contract with Victor. Prince conducted a bunch of sessions for the next year, and played piano accompaniments for singers such as Billy Murray and Ed Smalle. Prince may not have been at Victor for long, but he happened to be there at an essential time, amid the transition from acoustic to electric recording. 

By the end of 1925, he was out of recording for good. 

By the end of the 1920's, he was working in radio, likely due to his contact with Justin Ring, who at that time was getting steady work as a sound effects man on the radio. By the worst part of the depression, he moved back to California, settling in San Rafael with his daughter Catherine. In the years before he died, he conducted a community orchestra and worked as a music teacher. He died on October 11th, 1937. 

He is buried in Colma, California. None of his wives were buried near him.

Well there ya go. Never could have expected how fruitful that dig was. Adding all this to what Jim Walsh wrote about him creates a very solid story. Walsh described him as a sporty type, being very much into baseball and horse races. He was also a prominent member or sporting clubs, the Masons, and the Lamb's Club of new York. I guess this helps to paint the picture of why he was so difficult and couldn't keep a wife for many years. 

So after I did all this research and writing(this information was consolidated into an article for The Syncopated Times). I felt an aggressive obligation to pay my respects to Prince, so the day after all this digging I paid his grave a visit. 

His headstone even has the signature Columbia notes on it. 

So at least we know more about Prince now. 

Now moving on!

At the end of the last post I hinted at a record that was coming in the mail, and it has since gotten to me. The record was listed incorrectly, but it was definitely not a disappointment! This record came in a lot of three records I won in an auction, and all three of them are stellar copies. Here is that Climax record I was talking about:

That--is--a--beautiful--record.

It looks a bit rough, and its value was harpooned by a small crack, but these things do not take from the historical importance of the record. 

First of all, this is a 10-inch Climax record. Those are much more uncommon than the 7-inch Climax records. A collector told me that for every 50 7-inch Climax records, there is one 10-inch. The next thing that this record has going for it is the fact that the composer is specifically listed on the label. Only for very special occasions were the composers listed on the label. In the first few years of Columbia making disc records, they almost never credited composers on the labels. This record also has an announcer that sounds just slightly different from the usual Zon-O-phone-Climax/Columbia announcer(who I think is probably Hager). Anyway, here's a mediocre transfer of the record:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h_euXSsWVe3W_bxFydigZkI2DipxQ6ln/view?usp=sharing

I had heard a 7 inch version of this record, but never the entire piece as it is played here. This is one of Justin Ring's very fist pieces, published in early 1902. This record was likely one of the unissued takes that was saved to be issued on the Climax label. When they recorded this, they recorded 7 take of this piece. Takes 1, 6, and 7 were overtly issued, but takes 2 to 5 are nowhere to be seen. This unusual take is likely take 2 or 3. Keep in mind that on all Climax records they left out the take numbers. 

This record is a great piece of history amid the depths of my Ring and Hager project. No less were the other two records I won in this auction. 

This record here, was recorded in 1900, and is basically the closest thing you an get to an E condition record of this era. It includes some of the loudest and clearest piano accompaniment I've heard of this era. 

Here you go:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h_euXSsWVe3W_bxFydigZkI2DipxQ6ln/view?usp=sharing

Other than the loud piano accompaniment, one of the first things I noticed about this record is how similar it is to the 1901 Climax recording of it. You can hear that here: 

https://soundcloud.com/john-schulien/climax-62-intermezzo-sinfonica-cavalleria-rusticana-mr-fredrick-w-hager

The similarities are astonishing. 

This Zon-O-Phone record did not disappoint, and it makes sense why it was so much more expensive than the other two I got. 

So here's the third one:

This record was made on the same day as the previous one. It has the number right after the last one. It looks to be in much rougher shape than the other, but it's actually not nearly as bad as it looks. In some ways it has a fuller sound than the other one. 

Here you go:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oC4S3PH5mSGBCggJFr22s_VFUN1f9qtf/view?usp=sharing

Before I got this record, I was only able to hear a crappy transfer of it online. 

Both of these Zon-O-phone records are exceptional examples of the height of their sound quality. Both of these are also prime examples of Ring and Hager's relationship, as well as their great chemistry musically. These were recorded before they really got into composing together, but you can see that the foundation for this decades long friendship was already there. 

Anyway, I was going to dive into a longer subject on Columbia matrix numbers, but I don't want to get into that just yet. This subject deserves its own post. 

Hope all your holidays are going well so far!

Happy holidays.

Back to 33 and Levels of Preservation

It's been awhile since I've written about Hylands, Spencer and Yeager. With all that I've written about them so far, I still haven't completely exhausted all there is to know about them. It would be good to spend some time speaking of them, as I have been so buried in Ring and Hager material for the last few months. 

So, we all remember them! 

In the last few days, I have spent a lot of time thinking back to the old stories I read about them in The Phonoscope and the brief mentionings of it throughout Jim Walsh's writing. 

I observed something very curious while doing this. 

I hadn't really thought long about how Roger Harding set up a publishing house across the street from Hylands in 1900. The more I spent thinking on it, the whole thing seemed more odd and interesting. 

So just to refresh, in 1899, Hylands and Harding were the main driving forces for the Hylands Spencer and Yeager firm. Harding was essentially the fourth name in the firm. Hylands and Harding collaborated on a few songs they published in 1899, and it seems that they were working together perfectly. But, in early 1900, Harding picked up and left Hylands and the crew to set up his own publishing firm across the street from the Columbia studio. 

Something odd happened. And in this last week, I really started thinking about how odd this was. Hylands and Harding abruptly split up, and considering what came about in the time succeeding this, whatever happened couldn't have been good. But! Harding wasn't the first to jump ship. In mid-1900, it seemed that all the tight knit Columbia studio community started breaking up, all jumping ship one by one. In the few 1900 editions of The Phonoscope that I have flipped through, I noticed that slowly it seemed a lot more the community who wrote for and were mentioned in that publication were starting to split up. One of the pieces I recall  from around mid-1900 stated that Hylands himself was beginning to take jobs elsewhere, and working in vaudeville again(as he had been doing before recording).  That particular statement seems odd to me. 

There's that section!

So the "big sales" thing doesn't seem to fit too well. By mid-1900, the publishing firm thing was starting to wind down, and it was doing so quite fast. It was in that time frame that Roger Harding picked up and left, and when folks were starting to become intrigued with the new fangled Zon-O-Phone. By fall of 1900, the fine Turkish carpet he had so hardly worked for had been torn from under Hylands. Everyone had abandoned him and the publishing firm. 

But why?

For a year, the Hylands Spencer and Yeager thing was booming, and Hylands had made his way up to the top from being the deadbeat rag-time pianist Columbia hired in 1897. Keep in mind that he was a nobody when he started at Columbia in 1897, in 1898 his significance became clear with the popularity of his signature rag-time accompaniments. Something devastating happened, and I have no idea what it was. It caused such important benefactors like Roger Harding and Steve Porter to quickly take their leave before the others. 

(Harding in 1895, from a friend's collection)

(Steve Porter at the recording horns in 1897)

Whatever it was that forced these close friends to all break up so quickly, it kept them apart. Hylands still worked at Columbia, as he had to, but a lot of the crew, like Steve Porter, Gaskin, Quinn, etc, didn't work together much after 1900. For example, the Imperial Minstrels records had stopped by 1901, no longer was the old crew working in big groups like that. Everyone started going off and doing other things, such as working for other companies and heading into recording management(George Schweinfest did the latter for example). Russell Hunting left in 1899, Steve Porter left for the far east in 1902, and Spencer started working for Lambert, Edison, Zono, and more. 

Something went seriously wrong with the publishing firm, and as I said, I have no idea why, and I don't really have any good solid guesses. 

One thing that came to mind however, is that this where Ring and Hager come in. Ring started working at Columbia right as the Hylands Spencer and Yeager thing was falling apart. So of course someone like him would have been so valuable at that point. The 25 year old Ringleben was as willing to work as Banta, had no place to live, was caring for an aged father, and willing to try anything to get decent money. The coming of Ring may also have helped out Hylands put out the fires that were still burning from the collapse of the publishing firm. 

 (most likely Hylands and Ring around 1902)

As Columbia was transitioning into the 20th century, it seemed that it was perfect timing for Ring and Hager to start making their way into the lab. Hager had his ambitions elsewhere, but Ring was working for the then orchestra director Thomas Clark, next Hager, then ultimately Prince. Hylands was taking jobs elsewhere by 1901, though he was still working regularly at Columbia. I suspect tensions were high when one of the old guard at Columbia had to work with Hylands then. Someone like Spencer would have been bitter working with Hylands after 1900, but it did happen, and luckily with the new talent acquisitions at that point, Spencer wouldn't have to work with Hylands as much. 

I believe I have mentioned that based on the sequence of studio pianists, each previous pianist was to mentor the next one, as it required very specific skills to become proficient as a phonograph accompanist. Hylands likely mentored Ring for a short period of time, this time being right after Hylands Spencer and Yeager.

Anyway, I'm starting to talk about something else, so I'll leave it at that.

Who knows what it was that split up the tight knit Columbia community in 1900...The fact that it happened so quickly is tantalizing, and because of this i will continue to look for hints. There's really no way to definitively find out why this happened, but there might be hints. I hope you recall that no one talked about Hylands in interviews. So all of this Hylands Spencer and Yeager nonsense was never well documented in the first place. Folks like Quinn and Porter didn't say a word of it, even though we know for certain they were part of it.

And that is a good transition to my next topic! 

Back to some Ring and Hager research!  One thing that has always fascinated me as a researcher of this very scant area of music history is how the characters involved in the history spoke of and interpreted it. Jim Walsh spoke with the last bunch of the original recording stars, Quinn, Joe Belmont, Byron Harlan, and Hager to name a few. Quinn's writings to Walsh are among the most extensive accounts of the earliest recording business. A long while ago I did a very detailed post where I pulled apart parts of Quinn's letters. As researchers now, we have everything laid out before us, but even with that being true, we have to spend many hours decoding all this information. A lot of things are mixed up and don't exactly go together the ways that the original participants stated. A few posts ago I detailed Hager's accounts of the OkeH field recordings of 1923-1925, and how his accounts are very valuable, but present issues. 

I just got an article on Justin Ring published, and it was a very difficult undertaking. It was this way for many reasons, and I don't even know some of them. I want to write a definitive article on Hager, but there's so much information on Hager, that a single article won't do. I ran into this problem with the Justin Ring project.

(Ring in 1903 and Hager in 1895 or so) 

I spent months getting frustrated about how I could find so little on Ring in that essential period after 1885 and before 1910. This is still proving true unfortunately. So as my mind works, I started asking the questions as to why it would be so difficult to find any information on Ring in general. Hager was easy to find information on, at this point I actually have a pretty good idea of what he was like as a person, and what interviewing him would have been like. With Ring, it has always been a dead end. 

So I keep going back and pouring through the primary sources(including Hager's own papers) to see if I could get some second handed hints. While doing this, it occurred to me how much Hager loved talking about his past and the projects he was part of. He probably had thousands of papers very meticulously organized in folders, and records and books too. This becomes very clear while flipping through Walsh's writings from Hager in his articles. When Walsh started writing to him in the 1940's, Hager realized that all his memories and written history would be important, and that's where he started gathering everything, and started to spend a good amount of time writing about the history he drove and witnessed. Soon he became consumed with the joy of reminiscence and digging through his papers and books. 

(a bit from Hager's writing published in the April, 1951 edition of Hobbies)

You can tell Hager loved going through his stuff. When Walsh reminded him of something, he would go and look for it, if he couldn't find it, he'd ask others who would probably have it. Hager had taken most of Cal Stewart's material by the time he was writing to Walsh, so much of the information we have on Stewart was from Hager's own very meticulous descriptions in his letters to Walsh. So, clearly Hager was very involved in and aware of his past. He knew that what he did was important. But what about Ring?

Hager wrote so much and very much enjoyed getting buried in his past, as he had a very carefully organized scrapbook to accompany the thousands of papers he kept regarding himself and others like Cal Stewart. When Walsh was writing to Hager, he mentioned his partner Ring a bunch of times, as even then it was difficult to separate them. 

(Walsh's September 1962 description of the photo below)

(from a friend's collection)

Even Walsh described them as inseparable. It's possible that Walsh wrote to the old Ring, but he didn't get anything back. Walsh unfortunately had the same situation happen with Arthur Collins. He wrote to Collins in 1932, but never got anything back. A few years later Collins' wife Anna wrote back and told Walsh that he received and pondered on his letter, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it to write back. 

So I'm thinking that a similar situation may have happened with Ring. Now this is where Ring and Hager were opposites. Hager kept everything, and Ring kept nothing. This is the point I was getting to here. This may be why it is so difficult to find anything on Ring. So consider how he lived while working for Hager and Prince. He had no place to live, he wasn't married, and writing arrangements and playing accompaniments wherever he could. With that frugal lifestyle, there was no way he could have kept anything. He was constantly adapting to the times, so of course he had little interest in preserving the past. 

So consider this...

If you were to go and visit Hager for an interview in say, 1953, he would so very much enjoy talking to you about history. He would gladly answer every question, and would tangent on that to tell another story, and another...and...another. He would go and dig things out as you spoke. the amount of information would be invaluable, and there would be so much of it you'd either be there all day and night or you'd have to come back for more. So the point being, that Hager would be the ideal person to interview about this stuff. You'd probably leave with a few things of his too. 

So let's say you made the trip down to mid-eastern Florida in 1960 to visit Justin Ring. You'd get to his place, and one of his daughters would answer the door. You'd be kicked off his property. Ring would quietly be sipping tea listening to the radio or thumbing through Variety, with his glasses tipped down on his nose. It would all be there...everything...all the sounds, people, words, and memories, but they were never to leave his mind. He wouldn't talk about any of it. He preferred to leave it all behind,  and being the sole survivor of his family by then, he had no business thinking about all his dead friends. 

But like the last subject I wrote about in this post, why?

Who knows?

Considering the amount of things he did, and the kind of people he had to work for and with in those 50 years, he probably had good reasons to keep-a-movin. All the way back to Hylands in 1898, he saw everything, and probably escaped death several times while all his friends were dropping dead around him, starting with Frank P. Banta in 1903, and ending with his brother Franz in 1960. 

Ring is a lot like how I'd think Banta would have been if he had lived long. Banta was perfectly content being the quiet and obedient accompanist, and likely spent little time talking about work with those who weren't in the business. He was so buried in work that many other things in life were not important. So interviewing him about recording would he difficult. 

This is why I study the neglected accompanists. They saw everything, and despite their lower reputations in the musical community(excluding issler), they got the last word. And you know what? 

Ring got the last word. 

He may not have spoke it, but he got it all-right. 

The accompanists we hear on these records were not famous in their day as accompanists, and they weren't famous in general. We always hear about these big names like Ben Harney, Eddie Foy, Anna Held, even Mike Bernard, and they were so highly regarded in their day, but, with the exception of Bernard, they aren't the ones whose voices and legacies were immortalized. It's the ultimate payback, the most neglected and overworked performers in the early studios got the last word back then, and even now. I'm talking about the accompanists of course. Issler, Banta, Hylands, Ring and the rest got the last word, the last driving notes, after the main performers finish. The accompanists and studio workers are the ones we can get to know better than even the main performers, as we hear them on everything, not on just some things. 

So, anyway, this has been a hell of a case study! Before I close out I'd like to share a pair of records that I believe are arrangements by Justin Ring. Based on the composition style compared to his accompaniments, these arrangements line up to that style. I am also thinking that after Ring and Hager split up from 1906 to 1912 or so, Ring worked for Prince at Columbia. 

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000138962/3405-Sliding_Jim

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000139001/3444-Dixie_queen_march

So there ya go folks! 

Hope you enjoyed this!

Recent Ancestry Digging

So...In the last week or so, I went back and refreshed my memory of many previous findings on ancestry. Since my last post on the Hager brothers, I had kind of forgotten a few things regarding James and Fred. 

While I went back and refreshed my memory, I found a few interesting things along the way. When I went digging for James Hager last time, I was able to find him in 1900, 1920, 1930, and 1940. Just like with Justin Ring(who I still have not found anything new on) there's a period where nothing shows up on him, but it just happens that the period I'm looking for is quite essential. Luckily on this last dig, I found Hager in the 1905 NY state census, and something very curious came up. Here's the record:

Look at that! 

Even by 1905 James was living with the family, Fred more specifically. That's quite hilarious to me for some reason. I was really hoping that by at least 1905 Jimmy was living on his own but still working for brother Fred at Zon-O-Phone. Well, I guess not. Furthermore, I'm sure Jimmy and his wife Isabelle couldn't have gotten much privacy with old Fred and Clara poking around in their business. So now we know that the Hager brothers remained together until at least 1906, which is interesting. That also makes it more likely that they were both working at Zon-O-phone at that time. That helps. 

I was hoping that Fred still employed Jimmy at Zon-O-Phone, even with the queenie Eddie King overpowering the percussion section in the orchestra, so that turned out to be true. 

So staying on the Hager matter, a few days ago I combed through the many issues of Hobbies that Walsh wrote in, just to see where I could find Hager. Well, well, that was a good idea! Just like Joe Belmont and Billy Murray, Hager was one of Walsh's most valuable sources of information. It was entirely heartwarming to learn this bunch of new information from and about Hager. According to the many letters that Hager wrote to Walsh, Hager was determined to go out and find any information about his buddies for Walsh. He was deeply concerned about his fellow recording stars, and made sure to get his information right. This really warmed my mood for the last few days, as there were so many of these folks who were too bitter and uncaring of their fellow studio workers, but at least one of the most major figures who led them all cared even in his fading years. 

Hager provided most of the viable information we have today on Cal Stewart, which is quite interesting. He just happened to work closely enough with Stewart to have a lot of information to share on him. He also had plenty of information on others close to him, proving himself a very valuable and industrious friend of Walsh. 

That really raised my respect levels for Hager(not that they weren't already high!). 

So after refreshing my memory with all that, I decided to take a shot at finding Charles Prince. 

I know in the past I have proven quite well that I am not a big fan of Mr. Prince and his band, but now that I have the chance to read more about him, I'm so intrigued that I have gained respect and interest in him. The only thing I knew about Prince before my recent dig was that he was born in 1869 in San Francisco(which is already appealing to me as I am partial to California born folks). So as I started digging, I found a few very interesting things. 

The first thing  I stumbled upon was a voter registration list from 1892, and he was still living in SF then! 

Soon I will go out to that address to see if anything Victorian is still there. 

So that's interesting. The fact that this was from 1892 and he was still living in SF means that he wasn't yet working for Columbia. It was around 1892 that most scholars conjugate that he began working at Columbia. So that got me curious, it made me confident that I could find when he moved back east, and maybe debunk the whole "early Columbia" ties altogether. Well, that didn't end up happening. I wasn't able to track when he left SF, but for sure his date of going back east would be around 1896 at the latest. At least I have a hint now, and it's looking promising to debunking the old idea. 

The man himself at the center. 

(I still think that clean shaven young buck in the right corner is Justin Ring)

So that was great to find, but the findings didn't end there. I found Prince in the NY state census in 1905, and something very interesting came up. I found Prince housing a familiar studio face:

What! Prince was housing Henry Burr? Well then! 

So this actually is a very significant find for me. For years I have theorized that these studio managers and musical directors took in some of their less fortunate fellows for say a few days or weeks. Well, seeing this exactly proves that this happened. Never would I have grouped together Prince and Henry Burr, but there ya go folks. So this is exactly what I've been saying about Hylands in the past with "33", where he lived in 1899-1902(or so). Hylands always had extra space for his fellows(though in 1900 we see that he chose to have some wayward young men staying over rather than fellows from work). And thanks to the recent findings on Hager, we know that he also had extra space for a similar purpose. Someone like Justin Ring probably rarely crashed at Hager's place though, as he lived(or at least I think he lived at a certain address) just a few blocks away from Columbia(and Zon-O-Phone, wherever they were in the same area). 

So maybe the Ring-Hager thing went the other way around more often. Hager crashed at Ring's place as he was very close by their work. 

So anyway, that's all I found on Prince really. I found a few more census records from later with his name there, but I didn't really learn anything new or surprising from them. I did find it interesting that Prince was divorced by 1920. Not very often do I come across these fellows who are listed as divorced in census records. Hopefully I will get to the point where I can definitively debunk the previous knowledge that Prince had early ties to Columbia. 

So before I close out here, I'd like to mention a funny anecdote from the article on Charles Prince that Jim Walsh wrote. As the Eddie King stories keep-a-coming, Walsh even had a handful of good ones to tell to add to the pile.

One story goes, that Eddie King was engaged to lead his Victor orchestra in a few pieces before a big baseball game in the mid-1910's. All the Columbia and Rex folks were also there, as they were all good friends and avid fans of baseball. Eddie got out there and did his job, and herded all the boys off the field quick in that insistent way of his. 

As they were marching out, Billy Murray stopped Eddie for a moment and asked why he was leaving so soon, and not sticking around for the game. 

Eddie replied thus: "I'm not a fanatic, like you fellows! I've got work to do."

Of course with that in mind, I drew a cartoon to illustrate this idea. 

Of course there he is with his Zon-O-phone buddies. Again, I have not yet seen a picture of King yet, but am hoping to sometime soon. 

Also, just one more point to make about the cartoon above, in that same piece on Prince, Walsh writes out that Billy Murray recalled Eddie King as "a saturnine person with what the non-smoking Murray calls a 'chronic cigarette cough'[and] was a zealot for hard work". 

So there goes that cartoon explained. 

Anyway, I was in Los Angeles last week and got about 20 interesting records ranging in date from 1902 to 1922. There wasn't anything too outstanding in the mix, though I am proud to own a copy of one of Eddie King's xylophone solos! His mallet playing was really something, quite odd and inconsistent, somewhat similar to his drumming on all those Victor's with Van Eps, so to close out here's one of them just because they're entertaining to listen to. 

https://archive.org/details/78_chinese-picnic-and-oriental-dance_van-eps-trio_gbia0005729a

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Piecing together Justin Ring

As with any of these new characters I research, it can be a very difficult start. It has actually been not too difficult to find information on Eddie King, but somehow Justin Ring seems to be the opposite. 

As long as this foxy guy lived, there's little information to dig  through on him. He's mentioned all over the place in newspapers and trade magazines, but there's not much substance to the places he's found. Unlike with Hager, where Ring's mentioned, he's only, well...mentioned. There's not much more. As I have become ever more attracted to Ring's music and lifestyle, finding any vital information on him has become a great source of frustration for me. I just can't seem to track him during the most essential period of time that I'm trying to dig on. 

He's easy to track after 1910 or so, but as you readers would know, I'm trying to piece together his lifestyle while he was at Zon-O-Phone. I have found next to nothing on my searches for Ring before 1910. All of the things I've found on him pre-1910 were solely regarding the pieces of his that were recorded or published by Hager. 

Well that's all great, but I want to know about how he lived outside of the studio. Since I have't been able to trace him in any local New York directories or censuses, I would guess that he lived in a basement or a loft of a publisher. This is the situation as to why George W. Johnson can't be found in many public records. I also have a feeling that this applies to why I have not been able to find Len Spencer in the 1900 census. 

As I'm writing this, I did a little bit of digging for Ring in copyright records, just to see how far back I can track him. The first things start to appear with his long poetic name starting in 1902, which is quite late from what I had expected. The first few things I saw however were very interesting. One of the first things I saw was a piece that was composed by Ring(Ringleben in this case) with lyrics by Cal Stewart. Yes indeed, you heard me right. Good old Uncle Josh. 

Cal Stewart not in his Uncle Josh rags. 

What's ever more interesting about these two first pieces I found with Ring's name on them is that they were published by Hager and Ring. The two of them were publishers for a short time! How interesting. While this is not at all surprising, it does add some kind of added layer of curiosity in the beginning of their nearly 50 year long relationship. Hager did not stay a publisher with Ring for long, as I quickly observed on this copyright record dig. But Ring stayed put as a publisher for a little longer. His vanity firm lasted until about the end of 1904, publishing a few things here and there, such as Hager's "Handsome Harry" and his own "Jovial Joe". 

Another interesting observation on this dig was how Ring kept his long poetic name until quite late. I assumed that he took the short version of his name Justin Ring, almost as soon as he joined Hager at Zon-O-phone. On the contrary, Ring kept the Justus Ringleben Jr on his music until 1905. Only by the time he wrote "Sweet Potatoes" in 1906 do we see slight edits to his name. Even at that point his name is seen as Justin Ringleben on the cover, which isn't too different from the previous covers. It's interesting that it took a little bit of evolution for Justus Ringleben Jr to become Justin Ring. I would guess that Hager was insistent on Ring getting his name a bit more snappy on the music, as he seemed constant with the idea of using his full name on their sheets. 

So, aside from all that, my biggest question is, what was Ring doing when he got scooped up by Columbia and Zon-O-phone? Well, since I can't seem to track him at all before 1902, he must have literally lived the life of a young and hot rambler. You know how the song goes, O, didn't he ramble. 

I'll have a conveniently dated Columbia by Collins and Harlan illustrate my point here:

(the pianist is good old Hylands!)

https://archive.org/details/78_oh-didnt-he-ramble_gbia0075013a

There we go! well, kind of. 

I'd hate to assume that Ring entirely lived that lifestyle, as he lived to be an old man(older than Hager), but it seems the most logical thing to say in considering his freedom and little guidance in life. 

Consider what I know so far about Ring other than the recording stuff. His father was quite old(like Banta's father!), born in Prussia in 1826. His father married a woman half his age in his middle age, having his first son Justin(or Justus) at age 50. Justin's siblings were born later, brother Franz in 1878, and half sister Rose born in 1880. Justin's odd father was a musician, a struggling one it seems from what I gathered from the single census and a few directories I found. So from all of this, I can see Justin and Franz having little supervision. Despite the limited supervision, the boys grew up around music, so naturally at least one of them would become the musician to follow their father. This was naturally Justin, who had his father's name after all. 

That whole story seems intriguing as it is. But there's this huge gap that I'm trying to fill. From about 1890 to 1902, I have no idea what Justin was up to. Maybe he went to music school? Maybe he lived as a rambler until Hager pulled him out of that life and into the studio. So who knows?

While I was digging around, I also went back and looked at that large group picture of Hager's orchestra just because I often do. I noticed something interesting while staring at that picture again. 

I zoomed in to where Justin Ring is of course, seeing if I can notice anything new about him or that interesting crowd right around him. 

Something seemed off when I darkened the picture.

Is that a bruise I see? 

What could that mean? The guy already looks rough, with those sunken tired eyes and thin face. Luckily he could still out-dandy the others with his wild cravat and blond hair. 

But again, what could this mean? Maybe I'm missing something that's more obvious than previously thought. Perhaps something really disturbing regarding him. Well, at this point I have no idea what it could be, and I have no guesses yet. I wish I had some of my signature crazy theories to explain here, but I'd rather not considering the possibilities in this case. Sometime soon I might figure out some ideas of what to say regarding this, but I'll have to judge whether they would be appropriate to share. 

So anyway...I actually would like to revert back to my post a month or so ago regarding Justin Ring's employment for multiple record companies. So I went back and did some staring at that Columbia band(or orchestra) picture from around 1902, just to be assured that that one young guy is Justin Ring. 

The more I look at it, the more I think it's Justin Ring. 

Just today, I went back and listened to more than a dozen Columbia orchestra records, to see what i could decipher of the piano accompaniment. I paired these Columbias from 1902-1905 with Zon-O-Phone's from 1901-1906, and there's definitely some crossover. Not only did I hear the distinct pushy syncopation of Ring in the accompaniment, I could also hear some familiar bad violin playing. By bad violin playing, I mean that of Hager. Three good examples I plowed through today were these: 

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder10947

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder6805

https://ia601406.us.archive.org/25/items/EdwardMFavor/EdwardMFavor-WhistlingReilly.mp3

These three stuck out because the piano is quite prominent, and especially on the last one, the violin comes through somewhat. The Columbia orchestra varied in overall musical quality during this short period, and I am still unsure why. Sometimes they were outstanding, other times they were a mess like the third record listed above. 

Before i say any more, here's my favorite line from that song:

"He's gifted with a whistle that is bound to give him pains, in fact he's like an injun on cocaine"

Quite funny still. I recall years ago using this record as an example for something else thinking it was funny then just as I do now. 

So I listened to a bunch more, In fact, I compared these two records back to back and noticed some striking similarities: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCGNmS7NUAU

(notice how the trio is quite swung and improvised, I would bet money that's the doing of Ring. And yes this is the only recording of dozens I've heard where it was played like that. It's quite ragged actually.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aLah2LkoME

and of course Justin Ring's cake-walk masterpiece that all the studio orchestras recorded. 

So the more of these Columbias I listen to from the post-Hylands period, the more I believe that Justin Ring worked for Columbia and Zon-O-Phone at the same time. It also seems possible that Ring may have been part of the reason that the Columbia orchestra and band recorded so many pieces of classic rag-time in that period(1902-1906). It's curious to note that this also happened at Zon-O-phone in this period(before Eddie King and Ring basically took over Zono in 1909). I mean, doesn't it seem odd that the Columbia orchestra recorded "harmony mose", "peaceful henry", and "Whoa You heiffer"(A hot New Orleans rag published in 1904) between 1902 and 1906? And after that, Prince only took on more basic pieces of rag-time, like "tempation rag" and "Silver bell". 

Similarly, but not surprisingly at Zon-O-phone Hager and Ring recorded pieces like "Cottonfield capers", "The gondolier", "a black bawl"(a chicago slow drag rag by Harry Thompson. Take a listen here!), and "Policy Pete"(a hot cake-walk ). 

So with all this in mind, there's no way that Ring couldn't have been partially the reason for all this really outstanding rag-time. 

Took this picture while at UCSB. This record is some really nice hot rag-time I tell you what! Played at the right slow speed, it's rendered at a perfect cake-walk tempo. 

So I'll have to look more into Ring's actual influence over the influx of classic rag-time at Columbia and Zon-O-Phone(and later edison mind you, they recorded Panama rag! Hear the Edison rendition of it here!) 

I guess I'll leave it here. I need to get another post in by the end of the week, because it's a certain someone's birthday. 

Anyway, hopefully I'll soon find more on Justin Ring, last night was another one of a dozen or so attempts to find him in early census records on ancestry. 

Not much luck, but I am not deterred! I am determined. 

Hope you enjoyed this!