A Cabinet Card mystery and Eddie King digging

A few days ago I went on my usual cabinet card/tintype dig online. Every month or so I go through hundreds of cabinet and tintype photos on Etsy to see if i can weed out anything worthy of saving and preserving. In the past, my digs haven't ever produced very outstanding pieces that are the gold standard, and reason for, my digging. That 1880's tintype of little Tommy Glynn is still floating around out there, but no one has had the stuff to try getting it for a reasonable price. Maybe sometime soon I'll see what I can negotiate regarding that tintype. 

Aside from that, this week's dig produced perhaps the most valuable piece I have ever seen and will soon have in my own collection. Last time I did a post on a cabinet card dig, it was awhile ago, and I found a portrait of a fellow I thought looked somewhat like Hylands. Now that I've had a pair of very detailed portraits of Hylands for nearly a year, I have a very solid understanding of what he looked like(after nearly a decade of research!). I can say now that that last card I highlighted was definitely not of Hylands. However, on my last dig, I may have actually found a very nice clear early photo of Hylands. 

This time I mean it. Last time I had no idea what I was talking about. So, here's the picture:

So there ya have it folks. 

Yeah, that really does look like a young Hylands. From the look and style of this portrait, it looks to be from the late-1880's to the early 1890's. This date range would indeed correspond with Hylands' age. Hylands would have been about 17-20 in that time, and that does indeed look like the fellow's age above would be. Now, here's the thing really take a good look at the two very clear portraits I have of Hylands for comparison:

Well there you go. 

So, this very modest portrait from the late 1880s's or so seemed like nothing when I first saw it, until I started to get a better look at it. This is exactly why I dig through every box of Victorian photos, is for times like these. 

Just take a look!

The weird slightly crooked mouth, the flushed cheeks, curly hair(at least in the back), the big oddly pointy ears, the pleading eyes, strangely long and prominent nose, and even the dimple chin!

Everything lines up, even the awkward broad shoulders. I'm getting all excited just writing about this! Finding this thing is absolutely unbelievable, but I always had the hope that I might find an early portrait of Hylands somewhere. The only thing that's keeping me from really digging into the detail of this new old picture is the fact that it appears to be quite heavily retouched. And yes, if this portrait is indeed of Hylands that proves that he was indeed slimmer when he was young, further pushing the possibility that he's the pianist in that 1897 Columbia studio picture:

Even with all the retouching on the 1880's portrait, I can still see the awkward young Hylands come through, if indeed that's a teen aged Hylands. 

What's funny, is that I have drawn what I have conjectured a young Hylands would have looked like, and I wasn't far off!

I sketched this one recently. 

To further complicate my analysis of this very likely Hylands portrait, you may have noticed the location. The location of this particular portrait was Erie Pennsylvania, not in Indiana or Ohio where I would assume a portrait of any Hylands to have been taken. But! The location of this portrait isn't too far away or removed for it to be Hylands. Erie Pennsylvania is right on the eastern edge of Ohio, up in a corner where music congregated to sound quite similar to Hylands' style. There is a single piece I know of published in this very town that does indeed actually sound like Hylands' "The Darkey Volunteer". This piece that I am thinking of is called "Moose Rag", and although it was published in 1910, it carries many aspects similar to that of Hylands' and even Hager's composing styles. The beginning of "The Darkey Volunteer" has a distinct rollicking melody, one that can be heard in many later popular "Indian songs", such as Hager's "laughing water" and "Hiawatha". The first strain of the "Moose Rag" has this same melody, listen below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd6mSmNY-ms

I also own a copy of the original sheet, so I have gone back and checked just to be sure. Much of the leading melodies of this rag are very similar to Hager's composing style, but at the same time are reminiscent of Hylands' somehow. 

Listen to Hylands' "The Darkey Volunteer", and hear that distinct melody at the beginning as in "Moose Rag":

https://archive.org/details/DarkeyVolunteerOssmanwComposer1898

The overall structure of the first strain is almost identical to the "Moose Rag", even with the rollicking, constantly going 8th notes after the distinct melody. 

So what has this to do with the cabinet portrait?

Well, this says that Hylands did indeed have some roots back in that corner of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and I might add that their family did end up there often after Hylands was recording. Also! In Hylands' bio in The Phonoscope , it states that he worked in theaters in Pittsburg before coming out to NYC in 1896. By 1888, Hylands' father had exited the saloonkeeper business, and settled with his job on the railroad, so that in itself would have gotten Fred and Etta going a lot of places. So there ya go! 

Well, I really hope this portrait is of Hylands, it sure as hell looks like him! I already paid for it and it's currently on its way through the mail. I am glad it happens to be in good shape too, so it's not any more difficult to try and identify crucial facial features in comparison. 

Now, moving on!

This evening I did some digging on Eddie King again. And no I still haven't found a picture of him yet. Hopefully a picture will turn up of him somewhere, the physical descriptions of him are too good to never see. I was finally able to track him quite well, and finally clear a few things up regarding him. I am certainly glad for all the stories people have told me about him, as they have actually helped me cross reference things and piece things together easier. Someone sent me a few pages from Nat Shilkret's autobiography, and all the little details that Shilkret puts in his chapter about Eddie King has actually helped me out a lot on my search for him. 

In these few pages that were sent to me, he talks about how after his first wife died, he remained single for a few years, which, believe it or not lined up perfectly with my digging on him. 

I was able to find him is all the appropriate census records, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940! what? Well, it seems that despite his rotten reputation, he outlived his recording lab years by many years. I was able to track down when he finally left the recording business, which was right around 1930, not long after his days working with Bix Beiderbecke and the crew in the late 1920's. 

I was able to find that he was married in 1894 or so first to a women named May, but she died around 1918 or so, he remained single for a few years then got married again to an "old maid"(I hate to use that terminology, but I want to remain historically accurate here) named Julia, who just happened to be his sister-in-law. Heh?

Umm that's strange.

But okay, whatever works, you do that. 

I'm seeing lots of parallels to Hylands if you know what I'm getting at here. I'm seeing even more than in the last post  I did on Mr. King. So I haven't yet been able to fine when he died, but the dates I have so far are thus:

Sept 1868-after 1940. 

That's a pretty damn good start on a guy with a pretty generic name and no previous information. And yes, I keep drawing cartoons with him in them, but of course not showing his face completely. His prominence in the early recording studios seems to correspond with Hylands and Justin Ring at times, form his early days at Columbia in the 1890's to his days at Okeh and later Columbia again. I hope the stories keep-a-coming, as he seems like a somewhat lovable eccentric who was too mean to die as some say. 

I also thought is quite telling to find that his father Ed Horatio King was a musician. Well, no surprise there, I guess he got started early like Justin Ring! No wonder the two of them seemed to click together so well under the Zon-O-Phone. Or maybe not, not too many studio workers has many nice things to say about him. I would like to finish with another cartoon I drew of him recently: 

That's King playing in a recording session with Hager's orchestra. 

Anyway...That's what I got for now folks. I will soon be writing for a certain rag-time related publication, so I may be taking a brief break from writing on here. Hopefully this new engagement turns our well, and hopefully some of you regular readers will see where my writing ends up going in this new gig. I hope to have some more digging on Eddie King done soon, but there are no guarantees on that, as I have done about as much of the basic research that I can to at least get a brief outline on this guy. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

More Studio pianist Digging and Hager's

In the last post I talked about the style crossover between a few of the early studio pianists, but in the short time since that last post I have found a few new things regarding studio pianists. When we get right down to listing the names of all the known studio pianists, it can get confusing when attempting to match the sound with the name. In case you're wondering, here's a list of all the pianists I have kept in mind in this process(in chronological order in which they started):

Theodore Wangemann(1888)

Henry Giesemann(1888)

Fred Gaisberg(1889)

Edward Issler(1889)

George Schweinfest(1889)

Frank P. Banta(1892)

 Noble McDonald(post 1894)

Christopher Booth(1897)

Fred Hylands(1897)

Fred Bachmann(c.1898)

Albert Benzler(c.1898)

Fred Hager(1898)

Justin Ring(1899)

Arthur Pryor(c.1900)

So that's about it for now, but there are very likely to be more names found in the near future. Some of these names should be familiar to the readers of this blog, Banta and Hylands included, but there are a few that are still very mysterious to me and other studio pianist scholars. Recently a copy of one of Mr. Noble McDonald's solos sold on ebay, who was one of the three Berliner pianists of pre-1898. I know nothing of Mr. McDonald, but he is likely the other pianist than Banta on many of those 1898 Berliners with rag-time piano accompaniment. I would place his name on many Berliners from 1897-98 that don't necessarily sound like Banta, but are still interesting to dissect. His style was likely the very mild one that we can hear on many Berliners around 1897, when Gaisberg was getting phased out as their main pianist. 

Soon we may be able to hear that piano solo by Noble McDonald, how that would definitely solve a lot of our issues with the Berliner accompaniments. Just like the succeeding company, Victor, Berliner's are a great source of frustration with me, as it's rather complicated with them after Gaisberg left in 1898. With Berliner, we keep seeing names pop up at accompanists, so at a certain point it becomes very odd and much more confusing than it should be. 

With Berliner between 1897-1899, about 6 different pianists' names have shown up, but only four of them have been confirmed as regular studio workers. 

Above I mentioned George Schweinfest, and I actually have come to realize something in the last few days regarding him. 

Schweinfest in 1898

For awhile now I have assumed Schweinfest to be one of the Columbia pianists other than Hylands. In 1889, Schweinfest and Issler made a handful of piano duets for North American, none of which are known to survive. Despite this tragedy, we can piece together a few things in terms of what Schweinfest did in the studio after Issler. While working with Issler, Schweinfest played piccolo, flute, and violin, but did not often take over Issler's chair. But after the orchestra broke up in 1898 or so(I know there are later ones from around 1899 of Issler's orchestra, but for the sake of keeping things in order, let's keep the idea that they broke up in 1898 or so at Columbia), Schweinfest remained at Columbia, even though Issler didn't. Schweinfest continued to make solo records for Columbia(as did the other Issler musicians, Tuson and Dana) until around 1903, but where did he go from there?

Actually, I don't think he went anywhere. Recently I saw a record listed that genuinely surprised me. 

There's a piano solo by Schweinfest floating around out here, and it's not one of the handful he made in 1889. Around 1905, Schweinfest made a piano solo of "Yankiana Two Step" for Columbia(it was issued on a 6 inch Columbia "twentieth century" cylinder). 

Wait what?

You heard me right. 

So I guess that Schweinfest didn't leave Columbia in 1903. So let's say that he hung around that changing Columbia crowd for a few more years, playing the latest piano accompaniments that we hear on Columbia. I don't think that Schweinfest is on those strange 1905 Columbia's of the 3000 series, but some of the others I would wager his presence. When you look up Schweinfest on findagrave, in his little bio there is an obituary from 1949 that states that he was a long time musical director for Columbia, beginning around the time that he stopped making solo records(c.1905). But what about those "20th century" records? Clearly he still worked for Columbia by then, doing more than just accompaniments and solos. With all that in mind, Schweinfest was also likely in the Columbia orchestra. 

I do not know how long Schweinfest was at Columbia, though his obituary stated that he was there into the early 1920's, which is quite late for an old-timer as him. 
So here's something curious, I was recently flipping through an 1898 Columbia catalog that was reprinted by a friend, I found myself looking whether Hylands' "Darkey Volunteer" was recorded that early. Turns out it was, but I found it rather curious who recorded it first(according to the catalog listings that is). Well it seems that Schweinfest was the first to record it. 
That was rather odd to see, as I always thought Ossman's take of it was the first one, a the piece was dedicated so highly to Ossman:

So with this in mind, and considering the amount of exceptional records Schweinfest made with Hylands, it would make sense that Schweinfest be one of the first musicians that Hylands befriended when he joined Columbia in 1897. Schweinfest may have been Hylands' studio mentor, as Issler was for Banta back in 1892-93. Even though we know Issler was still present at Columbia in 1897, Schweinfest is proving to have been more present toward the end of the 1890's after Issler left Columbia. 
Going through all of this begs the question, which pianist is Schweinfest?

Well, I do not really know yet. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this pianist may be him here:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder5349
The only reason I think it may be Schweinfest is because of the obvious quoting of the piccolo part at the end of the record. The year that this was recorded also helps, as it was most certainly recording 1897, with the loud and clear announcement by Len Spencer as they were. On any of those 1897 Columbia's where the piano playing is very good but generic sounding(not too much going on to distract from the main performer), I would bet that that's Schweinfest. Of course hearing one of his c.1905 Columbia piano solos or one of the 1889 piano duets would really solve this mystery, and until we have one of those to hear, we just won't know. 


Just before Christmas, I got a copy of Noble McDonald's 1897 piano solo "Little Nell", and luckily I made a crappy transfer of it very soon afterward. McDonald's playing is very similar to how Banta played a swung schottische, with bits of syncopation and more, here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iKbEjOLtfsHpWxA9sIXKRrNMWrtM8nZE/view?usp=sharing
It's quite a step up from the musicianship of Gaisberg's "Honeymoon March" and "Little Kicker" solos, also recorded on Berliner. 
For comparison, here's the record from c.1895:
https://archive.org/details/TheHoneymoonMarchByUnknownPianist1890s
Here you can also hear Gaisberg's "Little Kicker":
https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fapp.box.com%2Fs%2F6c4x0tenjw1xc7ssw6fvwty0eb5d1vdl
It's quite fitting that I speak of Mr. Gaisberg on this particular day, which just happens to be his birthday! 
Before I move on, here's my favorite picture of professor Gaisberg:

Happy birthday Mr. Gaisberg!








So now to move on to Hager's. 
Since digging up all that information on Fred Hager's brother James, I have come to wonder what his role was exactly with his brother's orchestras and such. 

Fred and James Hager. 
Obviously we can assume from that big portrait of Hager's entire orchestra that brother James was working for Fred in the orchestra around 1902(the approximate year of the picture above). But at some point Eddie King got into the orchestra and took brother James' place. When that happened I don't entirely know. From what I have gathered regarding this matter, and from lots of listening to records, Eddie King became the accompanist for Hager's orchestra around 1904. The later years of his orchestra on Zon-O-Phone had King's percussion, and the earliest years went to brother James. 
So if this is true, where did James go from c.1904-1913(he returned to work for his brother again for Rex)? 
Recently I went digging again for James on ancestry, but wasn't able to find anything between 1900 and 1913, just as the last time I did that. So unfortunately I wasn't able to find anything on him in that essential period, though we know he was working for Zon-O-phone as late as 1904. 
When I searched for him on the DAHR website, there were a handful of records that included his name, most of them were from 1918-1926, far removed from his young days at Zono with his brother. He was playing traps, drums, chimes, and xylophone, just as he was listed playing in the c.1902 picture of Hager's orchestra. James made his way to Okeh in the earliest days of their existence. That's funny to note because on his draft card around the same time it says that he's an independent music contractor. Rather than having the Okeh name sprawled in the employer section, his draft card has a generic employer's name. Later than same year he was working for Okeh, as the ledgers indicate. 
So with all this in mind, we can safely assume that James Hager is that funky percussionist on the earliest Hager's orchestra and Zon-O-phone orchestra( and concert band) records. 
So here we should be able to hear James Hager playing the percussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdrCRA6XVug
This record is from 1901, which fits perfectly into the period that James would be in the orchestra. 
So this record would have Eddie King's percussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHSm1YTCzxo

After listening to a few records from the 1910's with Eddie King's percussion, I can really hear his playing and understand it better, here are two good examples of him with the Van Eps trio:
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/200014888/B-14589-Chinese_picnic
(Van Eps quotes the old Ossman piece "Sounds from Africa at the beginning of this medley!)
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700000083/C-15093-Old_folks_rag

King's percussion was a little bit out of whack sometimes, but it's definitely good. From what I've heard of James Hager, he was quite talented as well, considering he was basically forced into musicianship by his brilliant brother. Keep in mind that Fred would have been teaching brother James to be prepared for the orchestra job when he was around 14(c.1896). 


Well, I have more things to share, but I don't want this post to get too hectic and complicated. So with that I will end it here. 

Hope you enjoyed this! Happy new year everyone! 

Tracking those pianists and questions

Since I've become so dedicated to studying and identifying all those early studio pianists, I've come to the realization of how frustrating it's become to keep track of them all. Now that the major parts of my Hylands studies have passed and I can now utilize, it's become ever frustrating to keep track of where Hylands was at different times and when he was and wasn't in the studio. 

Hylands will always be a source of madness for me, that's just inevitable. 

So, as of now, here's a list of the pianists and potential ones in date order(by the time they started making records) that I have to study and keep track of:

Edward Issler(1889)

(1889)

Fred Gaisberg (1889)

Frank P. Banta(1892)

Fred Hylands (c.1897)

Fred Hager(1898)

and Justin Ring(c.1899)

I must admit that this list isn't everyone, but I do also study Christopher Booth, as he is an essential component of those early studio pianist styles, as he's on so many early Victor records and was so well respected among the other pianists. 

As I dig deeper into identifying these pianists, the definitive understanding becomes much less clearer; that's rather the opposite of what I'd like to happen as I learn more. 

Of course, understanding Frank P. Banta's recording history is the easiest of this group. We know now that Banta started in 1892 at North American/Edison, under the training and supervision of Edward Issler. After the fall of North American in 1894, Banta remained at Edison and recorded for more regional labels with his orchestra, as this is where we get records like these:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder11738

In 1896 Banta returned solely to Edison, but soon he took a sub job at Berliner and remained on and off with them until 1900. In 1900 Banta, along with Arthur Pryor, joined the newly formed Victor company, and he took his Metropolitan orchestra from Berliner to Victor with him. Until 1903 Banta remained at Edison and Victor only, until he died in November of that year. 

Pretty direct isn't it! Banta's rather easy to identify in terms of piano styles, and his lineage in record companies entirely makes logical sense depending on what was the most stable at the present time. Banta was a union musician, so many of his moves from company to company follow a unionist mindset.Even with this very straightforward information, I still have a few essential questions recording Banta. 

Why is it that "Banta's orchestra" that recorded in the mid 1890's sounded outstanding, but Banta's "Metropolitan orchestra" sounded so awful?

Really take a listen to those Banta's orchestra records, they're really really good! He had some great musicians in the mid-1890's, seems he really took after his studio teacher Issler. Here's another one from around the same time as the above example:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder10472

Now that you've heard that, here's one of the worst Metropolitan orchestra examples I know of:

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100002306/Pre-matrix_B-3165-The_sleighing_party

What happened?

Who knows...It's one of the greatest mysteries to me regarding the brown wax era. 

also...

Did Banta write the music to "The Laughing coon"?

Banta was another one of those studio sharks who came to George W. Johnson's side when he needed it. But unlike Spencer and Gaskin, Banta stayed out of the serious issues like his abusive home life. Banta was wise to stay only in the music, but this begs the above question. In Tim Brooks' book Lost Sounds, he makes it very vague where the "Laughing Coon" came from, though he does make it very clear that Banta's name was on Johnson's original "Laughing Song". This is no small thing. As record collectors, and general enthusiasts of acoustic recording music, we see the many hundreds of versions of Johnson's "Laughing song" scattered all over the internet, and it can become annoying after awhile. The amount of takes of that song is quite tiresome for me to be completely honest, so I only listen to three specific versions on occasion. Even with all this, the tragedy and history that surround this bugbear of a song is worth noting. The fact that it was written down by Banta is quite significant. Sometime I really need to sit down with the original sheet music and see if there are any curious characteristics in the written accompaniment that are fit for Banta. This piece proves Banta's standing in the Edison studio, and that he reached out to Johnson in a way that was unique, in comparison to the more capitalistic approaches of Gaskin and Spencer. I would definitely say that the evidence leans toward Banta writing down "The Laughing Coon", as it's got the same kind of structure melodically as "The laughing song", and the takes I've heard by Banta are very clean and definitive, as though he wrote it out exactly the way that he's playing it. The exact arrangement is also very similar to the earliest Banta accompaniments we know of, such as the strange 1893 ish record I was raving about for its swung syncopation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjch0xipuDs&t=1s

So with this in mind, I would guess that Banta wrote down the arrangement of "The Laughing Coon" around the same time he did the "Laughing song", 1894. In thinking of these questions about Banta, I'm really hoping to sometime find out that he wrote out the music for "The Laughing Coon". Another piece of evidence to lean toward this is the fact that at Edison other artists like Cal Stewart took on this song with Banta's accompaniment, but this didn't happen at Columbia. 

The most difficult pianists to identify at this time are definitely Hager and Ring. With Hager I have some kind of foundation as to what his piano characteristics were, with Justin Ring however, there's very little to almost nothing. One thing is for sure though, those two sounded similar, no matter which style belongs to whom. Luckily with these pianists, I can group them together based on the record company overlap and time frames. Issler and Banta go together with Schweinfest, and Hager and Ring go together. Hylands is a stand out from the rest of course... There are a few Ring compositions floating around out there on records, to give us some kind of idea of his character in terms of rhythm and how he saw music fit together. Luckily with Hager, there are many more examples of written music and orchestra arrangements to help piece together a very dense and educated style. 

Hager's style was a crazy quilt of all the pianist styles on records in the 1890's. He clearly listened long and hard to all those pianists, and fully took advantage of his access to records from his connections in the business. He likely heard a lot of those nickel-coiners in the early and mid-1890's when they were the hottest ever, and became fascinated with them and the music that he was hearing. By 1896 he eased his way into a few regional east coast record companies, eventually by 1898 making his way to being a gold ticket for those who read and wrote for The Phonoscope. He rose up the recording food chain faster and higher than Fred Hylands ever did. Without doubt, Hager had the charisma that not even Banta could have, and that's really saying something, considering all the kind words the old studio stars had for Banta. Hager bridged the worlds of Rag-Time and opera with his style, with those very dense chords that sound really awful on some records, and the very quick technical strains of octaves to embellish the singers. For a rural Pennsylvanian son of a locomotive engineer he had quite a hot style. Occasionally his style outdid Banta's and Hylands'. 

With Hager we get everything, just like how he lived his life in music, always changing with the times and seeing beauty in everything. We get the hot stuff like these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi8K8iKZyXM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ITot33CDuo

Around the same time we also get painfully beautiful violin solos of his like this one(with Hylands!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9KxM62XJmM

I'm going to be completely honest, the first time I heard this record it made me cry. 

But there's also really upbeat and ear-worm inducing operatic gems he recorded on piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wH2A9kUcuw

I've awakened from sleep with this stuck in my head multiple times, thanks Hager!

It's the same pianist folks! This is the wonder of Hager, his ability to remain distinct throughout styles from the lowest of low down to the highest of high class. 

What about Justin Ring?

Well, that's where it gets a little more complicated. One thing I know about Ring's style without even having much to piece together sonically, is that it's weird, and rhythmically similar to Hager's. Ring's rags are very unique and melodically ramble sometimes, but that's not a bad thing like it usually would be. What's clear from Ring and Hager's music is that they definitely were playing a lot of the more obscure and underground rag-time of the day. By this, I would mean Scott Joplin pieces, and other mid-western rag composers(by saying this in regards to Joplin I am not attempting to demean his musical standing or composition in any way, I'm putting this in the context of what was being recorded before 1906, before "Maple leaf Rag" was recorded and other Joplin pieces were recorded in the years afterward. Joplin's Texas-Missouri style was not often played in the East before 1910). In considering this, it was Hager and Ring that decided to record such hot rag-time rarities as Joplin's "Wall Street Rag", "Jungle Time", and "Possum Hall Rag". Clearly these guys got their rag-time from the source, and didn't shy away from good music, regardless of the circumstances of its publication. Considering this background in true hot rag-time, Ring's rags reflect bits of that, as well as his classical background as the son of a musician:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvbqEUoZS-Y

I know little about where Ring was outside of the Zon-O-Phone studio (at least before 1910), though since he and Hager were virtually inseparable it seems, it wouldn't surprise me if the two of them were stuck in the studio almost all the time while working at Zon-O-Phone. 

I still need to find more information about Ring's work outside the Zon-O-Phone studio, but for now, he seems to have been stuck there much like Banta was at Edison in the late-1890's. In the picture above, Ring is labeled as the orchestra accompanist, meaning that he's that pianist on most of those Hager's orchestra records, at least as long as Hager had a pianist in the orchestra. I'll just keep listening to those Zon-O-Phone's to try and figure out the two distinct styles of Hager and Ring, i still haven't heard enough of them to completely piece together two styles. So far, I only have one partially completed, thanks to the reasonable amount of Climax records that are floating around online. This particular record is a perfect Hager example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvNiWY1Cj3c

The piano playing on this can help define that point I made earlier about Hager and Ring digging out and playing some of the most authentic and detailed rags(like "Maple leaf Rag" and "Jungle Time" by E. Philip Severin).

With all this written here, it's clear I still am figuring out all this pianist stuff, though I have been focusing more on Hager and Ring lately, as that's where more needs to be uncovered and understood. 



Anyway...
Before I close out, I'd like to share a mediocre transfer I made of my most prized brown wax. back in July, I finally got a phonograph to play my cylinders on; a machine that was made for brown wax of course!
With that machine I got a late-1897 early 1898 Columbia of Gaskin singing "Drill ye Tarriers Drill", and it's definitely not a take that's online anywhere. Here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tvo7CNJ-j1twYEyWwLyuzDvQpp39Owcm/view?usp=sharing
This cylinder was unmarked when I first picked it up, so of course I wanted to know what it was, to know whether it was worth my money. Damn well it was! It has two chips on the surface, but it plays just finely otherwise. This particular take features not only Hylands playing interesting cake-walk accompaniment with a syncopated jig at the end, but it features Russell Hunting speaking just after the 2 minute mark. I have heard a similar record to this one online, in fact it may have been recorded on the same day or close in time to this one, here's the twin record:
https://ia801409.us.archive.org/12/items/GeorgeJGaskin/GeorgeJGaskin-TheBestintheHouseisNoneTooGoodForReilly.mp3
That's part of where I got a better grasp of the date for this record. These two sound awfully similar, and definitely have the same pianist on both. 
In my next post I will exhibit another brown wax of mine, just as interesting and unusual, if not more so than this Gaskin gem. I will speak of my very productive meeting with John Levin in the next post, as there was quite a lot to process from that meeting...

Hope you enjoyed this! 

A Spencer Brown Wax

It seems Santa Barbara has been busy...
Two nights ago, I spent hours checking all of the records they had put up but hadn't transferred. That ended up being a great decision...since it kept me listening to many new records i had always wanted to hear. Among those were several outstanding transfers of George Schweinfest, Denny, and of course Spencer. The first person I checked however, as expected of me, would be Spencer. Santa Barbara has a few bundles of those 1897-1901 Columbias that Spencer made with Hylands, but next to none of them are transferred. When I checked, there were a few of them up, but one in particular has me perplexed. This brown wax has Spencer singing one of May Irwin's first hits. 

This tune, likely due to it being from 1893, is amongst some of the earliest overt "coon songs" of that era. See, consider this, I hypothesize the "coon song" era really started around 1895, as that's the point where we get the first hints of the specific term "rag" in the syncopated context. Anything before 1895 didn't really use "coon song" as a way to describe slightly syncopated(or overtly syncopated) songs about black America, before then we get the practically ancient descriptor "Ethiopian song"(ancient because it was used back to the 1820's-1830's). Before that we get more medleys of Negro Spiritual songs and reminiscent tunes of slavery days(unfortunately...).Here's a related example from 1895:

There we go! 
Even by 1895 Spencer was described like that on sheet music, not just records. So back to the record...
This record is mislabeled on the website, so it took a little doing to actually figure out what the tune really was, ending up seeing the sheet music pictured above to help. 
Here's the record:
(beware! it's really quiet)
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder13670
My first listen to this made me assume that it was recorded around 1897, thinking of the Columbia record number that it attached to it, but after a few more detailed listens, something changed about that assumption. It seemed that this record had more aspects of the earliest records Spencer made. Luckily, I have had the experience of listening to enough of Spencer's pre-1896 records to know that his singing style varied dramatically from say 1895 to 1898. So in first trying to figure this out, we've got to go back to the earliest example of Spencer that we know(or at least that I've heard). 
Spencer's 1892 Columbia of "A Curl from baby's Head"
Spencer's voice sounds very different from what we're all used to. I'm not sure if it's the record speed, but the way he's recorded makes him sounds almost like a different person. But there are aspects of the early record that are still present on the later record. One thing that I've pointed out before about Spencer's early singing is that it sounds much different, but the main thing is that his sense of pitch got better over time. There's no way to really know why his sense of pitch changed, any why the sincerity of his voice changed, but the clear difference is interesting to note. Now the fact that there are specific characteristics to Spencer's style on "Mamie...", this would indicate a date other than 1897 to be put on the table. The only reason my first intuition assumed 1897 was the heavy and clear syncopation. But of course, when thinking of these things, we cannot underestimate the years before 1897 in terms of records. With all this in mind, it seems even with the prominent syncopation that this Spencer record is likely from 1895-96. It's also helpful that there's no announcement(even though usually this would be a deterrent), as this would indicate that it's likely earlier than 1897. This is not always the case, but with rather early sounding piano accompaniment and great quality capturing of the voice and piano indicates an original record. Original records always sound better, no matter what any of the ads said in that time. Usually with originals, the quality is at least ten times better, and we sometimes get more worn down copies, such as the record being analyzed. This record has the classic issues with a typical original record, it's still high quality and sharp, but the fact that it was played quite often makes it quiet. 
Aside from trying to establish a date, if it is indeed from pre 1897, it's an important piece of Rag-Time on brown wax, and not just because all of May Irwin's specialties are. Other than more slight examples of early syncopation, such as Gaskin's 1896 Berliner of "All Coons Look Alike to Me" with Gaisberg, this particular Spencer record  takes the prize for the best example of overt Rag-Time before the craze "started" in 1897. Just about every line that Spencer sings in the verse is syncopated, really take a listen and tap something as you go along and see for yourself! Even before Spencer became fully immersed in the world of George W. Johnson and the black tenderloin lifestyle, his "negro" dialect was distinct and more untrained and lyrical than rough and slick. I mean, really listen to the overt and groovy syncopation of the first verse of the record! His younger voice is just so fascinating, especially because of the mystery that surrounds his early records, and the little bits we have of them only for reference. This particular example if full of syncopation, full on cake-walk rag syncopation, and it's loose and not unnatural or forced like Dan W. Quinn's often sounded. 
Now I have no idea who the pianist is on than Spencer record, since his singing is so loose and slick, the piano accompaniment kind of follows with that style. Since the year is likely pre-1897, this would mean Hylands had not yet changed the world of Spencer, and therefore the overt rough and unique rag style is not present in the accompaniment. Considering the date, it's most likely that Issler is the pianist. It's a bit more creative and strange to be Issler at first, but really, when we consider a few records we've heard with Spencer and Issler, it's not too far fetched. Issler, as we've come to learn, could get pretty wild at times, and had unexpected characteristics of a seemingly conservative bearded Bavarian music teacher. 

Even though Spencer and Hylands were unstoppable on records, we often overlook where Spencer started, working with Issler. Spencer was Issler's roadie for the orchestra, booking them for shows and helping them out all the time while in the studio and out. So it seems Issler and Spencer had something that wasn't really there while he worked so tirelessly with his musical lovechild Fred Hylands. Spencer was the more submissive part of the relationship while working with Issler, as opposed to his relationship with Hylands later. Issler took in Spencer at at time when the record companies they both worked for were brawling over patents, and provided both Columbia and U.S. with the most loyal and sure fire studio workers they could ever ask for. This is where we get records like that curious "Mamie! Come Kiss your Honey Boy" brown wax, that seems to stand out from most Spencer records, even from his gems with Hylands in 1899. 

Well, since that description took so long, I'll have to save the other records they put up on Santa Barbara for the next few posts, since it's quite a lot to process and discuss. This one record stood out, even though it's quiet and hard to hear, it's got the most fascinating aspects to it, especially to the quest for the earliest studio recorded syncopation, this one so far takes the cake. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Saturdays at Berliner and Little Swirls

Within the past few days, I've noticed some curious things. After doing some digging through Berliners, it is becoming more apparent that this label was the most accomodating for its artists. Despite rusty old Berliner himself presiding over the studio often, the days without Gaisberg were basically a mess. Gaisberg left the U.S. toward the end of 1898, and he rarely returned to the old studio, doing so perhaps twice a year at most after then. 

Amid the Berliner studies I've done recently, the specific Berliners that are of the most focus are the Berliners that Spencer made. As most of us know, Spencer joined the Berliner team rather late, as that was the first time Spencer associated with a non-Columbia affiliated Company. Most of his fellows joined with Berliner at the very beginning, that being around 1894 and 1895. Spencer was too busy running errands for the Emerson's and two timing with Columbia and U.S. to join when everyone else did. he didn't get on the Berliner boat until 1899, which is right near the end of their official existence. Hist first Berliner session was April 15, 1899. You can see what he recorded in the link below:

http://victor.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/date/browse/1899-04-15

This was a pretty nice session, as I have heard one of the records he made that day. The first one was a nice one to start off with. 

Okay, yes he may have had his first session there Mid-April 1899, but he was there with the others of the Columbia staff the previous year, as that's what this picture documented: 

They all took a visit to the Berliner studio, and luckily we have hard evidence that Spencer was there, even if he did not record for them at the time, and didn't actually do so until a year later. 

Now here's the thing about Spencer's Berliner's that are interesting. The bulk of his Berliner records were made on Saturdays in April of 1899. It's strange to notice this odd pattern, and luckily with Berliner, all of the ledgers are left so we can observe this. A few of them were made on Fridays, and after April, but in general, he wasn't there too often. He made just enough Berliners to be considered a regular for at least a month. 

But why Saturdays?

And why April?

Well, the first question leads us into the theory world. One theory I discussed with a friend is that the Berliner staff was very slim on Saturday evenings and at knowing this, Spencer took advantage of this to come in and make bunches of records with his faithful accompanist Fred Hylands. The reason this was hypothecized is because of how strange and out of whack his Berliners are, they're quite different from his Columbia records recorded around the same time(if not some of the same days). They're much less tame than the Columbia's. That's saying quite a lot in terms of Spencer and Hylands. Those Berliner's are rather wild, and are strange in balancing. The balancing usually varies record to record, which is also unusual. Many Berliner records are strange in these same aspects, but the Spencer Berliners are especially interesting. Here's why:

His singing is not particularly the best on these...

The piano playing is all over the place.

Spencer doesn't seem to do the usual moving back and forth to balance the tones of voice. 

The piano playing is very pushy and sometimes out of sync with Spencer. 

Spencer dramatically changes his tone of voice through the course of one of them I've heard. 

All of these factors make the theory of slim staff plausible. These records may actually be the best examples of how Spencer and Hylands sounded when they were pretty out of it. Spencer was already not the best singer on the earliest records, but on these Berliners, his limited skill shines through like chimes on brown wax. The accompaniment is almost certainly Hylands, because of specific characteristics of blending with Spencer, though the style is a little misleading on a few of them, since it's Hylands at his weirdest. I've heard quite a few questionable Columbia's of theirs, but all the Berliners are far beyond those. 

Imagine it, the two of them(remember that they were publishing partners at this time) stumbling into Berliner's back door(in the picture above) after recording most of the day at Columbia. They greet Mr. Berliner, or whoever was there at that time, already a little tipsy from work earlier in the day, ready as ever to record a handful of hot coon songs. 

It's interesting that most of what Spencer recorded on those Saturdays at Berliner were coon songs, there was very little room for anything else. That further points to the pianist on those being Hylands. Even though it rarely happened, to a certain extent, many of these artists had to cater to the accompanist, even though they were basically just slaves to the performers and record consumers. When Hylands was still relatively new at Columbia in 1898, we hear a whole lot of records where he's practically featured behind one of the singers. Artists with so much adoration for Hylands, like Spencer, would have catered to Hylands' distinct style as well, Spencer's Berliners being the perfect example of this taken to a different level than his Columbias from the same time.  To add to the catering point, there are plenty of examples of this happening with Banta, such as on Denny's 1901 Edison of "Go Way Back and Sit Down". 

It would seem incomplete if I just spoke about all of these records and not have any of them here to listen to. 

I'm just going to list a bunch of them here:
"Hello Ma Baby"
(notice how pushy the piano playing progresses to by the end of the record)
"Whistling Rufus"
"You'll get all that's-a-coming to you"
(one of those other voices has to be Hylands) 
"You don't stop the World from Going 'Round"
These are all coon songs. All of the others I've heard are also coon songs. 
There are others, but I can't share all of them, and haven't heard all of them. That's a goal though at this point, hearing all of his Berliners(that were issued). Since he didn't make that many, it's possible to hear them all. The overall quality of the music varies so much from record to record that hearing all of them would be fascinating. 

One more thing to note, while speaking with a friend about the Spencer Berliners, it also was brought up how much inspiration Spencer took from George W. Johnson. Not at all had this crossed my mind before this conversation. It makes so much sense. What's good about Spencer is that we can often tell exactly who he's imitating on certain records. Throughout listening to him, I've been able to catch Ben Harney, May Irwin, and DeWolf Hopper. The distinct way that Spencer whistled(that you can hear on the record of "Whistling Rufus" above) is very similar to how Johnson whistled on his records. It's interesting to hear Spencer's inspiration, directly on the same record labels around the same time. Not too often do we get to hear the performers' inspiration in the brown wax era. At this point it makes more sense why Spencer really started performing early "coon songs" around 1894. Before then, most of his records consisted of popular, comic, and sacred songs. It wasn't really until he joined forces with Quinn and Johnson that he really started performing coon songs as we know them. Also, keep in mind that the era of the coon song began around this time as well. By 1895, Spencer was known as the premier "Ethiopian delineator" on records. It's curious to see such as close friend of his and fellow recording star being partially the source of his inspiration. 




Now onto something rather different...
Digging through that 1888-1893 book of handwritten ledgers has been a recent obsession. While searching around in that book for the first George W. Johnson recording dates, I was bound to get stuck in something else amid the pages. That's exactly what happened...I noticed a few curious things throughout the pages, and it has to do with the handwriting on them. 

From session to session, the handwriting on the pages seems to vary here and there, depending on who's actually in the studio that day. What I noticed going through those ledgers is that the handwriting is specific to who's in the studio, which can indicates a few things. Most of the time this would point to a certain person's handwriting being all over the place in the book, after a certain point in time. After flipping through months of seeing that mysterious Henry Geisemann(it was spelled a few different ways throughout) as solo pianist and accompanist, by August 1889 we see Issler mentioned almost every day consecutively. 
These pages are fascinating, and the handwriting on many of them, while it varies in quality, is always the same person on each page that Issler is mentioned. 

The neatness of the handwriting varies from page to page. Here are a few various ways that Issler was signed in the ledgers:

What a cast of writing!
These were all written by the same person, but who that is exactly is what I'm wondering here. The writing is all over this book of ledgers, and since Issler was often running the studio when he was there, it wouldn't surprise me if that just happens to be his writing. One thing I noticed about this writing, is that it has that lefty look to it, much like George Gaskin's or Len Spencer's. It may depend on the way that he had to write the information, say at an awkward angle, but the smudges are often suspect. Issler was certainly one I would put as possibly a lefty. He was brilliant enough, and enough of a maverick to be put in this very special category. It's somewhat funny how much the handwriting varies from page to page, sometimes being very neat and well drawn, but other times looking a complete mess that's nearly indecipherable. 

Oh the days of the rounds, it seems even the handwriting in the ledgers shows the wear and tiredness. 

So now that there's the possibility of Issler being a lefty, it seems he joins the group that Spencer fit into. We know Spencer was a lefty naturally, and later at heart. Spencer's known signing of other people's names also becomes evident when seeing the names of George W. Johnson and Ada Jones looking in that weirdly slanted kind of out of whack style. Considering Spencer's status, it's likely he wrote with his right hand much more often, but when signing for others, he switched around. Also, it's interesting to note the similarities that lie in the names that were written on Hylands Spencer and Yeager music to that slogan on their logo:

Forget that I ever said all of that extra weird writing on the logo was Hylands. That was all Spencer it turns out. All of those beautiful little wind-like swirls and the little flying heart(or whatever that is) is all Spencer's hand. 

There are those little swirlies!

Well there ya go. That solves the mystery of who was responsible for that funky slogan as well as the little pen sketches that we know so well on Hylands music. Spencer was weird, as we already know, and seeing those little pen sketches in greater context puts that into perspective. This is really making me hope that he did more pen sketches...
Thinking of how adventurous he was, that wouldn't surprise me. 

Anyhow, those little swirlies are just lovely. 

Hope you enjoyed this!