More on the Our Tattler Contest

Yes indeed folks, this contest so far has become in need of some more submissions, though the ones I have received so far have been fantastic! 

Please! This contest still goes on, and for it to really turn into something great, i need some of the viewers of this blog to submit sections in the style of the Our Tattler column from The Phonoscope. 

To get you started, here are a few of the submissions I've gotten so far:

Congratulations Mr. Edison!  According to our estimation, you are well on your way to holding the record for starting the highest number of "patent piracy" cases against competition.

We recently heard a story about a boy whose father took him to a phonograph parlor.  The child, thinking that the phonograph was some sort of telephone, had a very one sided conversation with Mr. Michael Casey.  The boy's mother still does not know where her son heard such things as he has been asking about.

The Columbia studio resembled a pet store last week as Mr. Len Spencer was auditioning cats, dogs, and birds for use in a descriptive scene.  One of the birds got loose and "assisted" Mr. AtLee, who happened to be recording in the next room.

Contrary to popular belief, Lambert records cannot actually hold the wait of an elephant, as demonstrated by a recent experiment.

At a Columbia exhibition last week, a dramatic live performance by J. W. Myers of a sentimental song was greeted by George Johnson's laughing through a graphophone from the other side of the room.

After listening to a few Berliner disks, we thought that the Berliner recording machine must be as hand cranked as a gramophone.  To the workers of Berliner - if a record starts at a certain speed, should it not stay at that speed throughout its entirety?

After singing at a party, Mr. George Gaskin was approached by a lady who said that he sounded familiar, but didn't look familiar, and she never forgot a face.  She couldn't imagine how this was possible.

We recently received a letter from a record dealer in which was asked the question: "Does the inventor of duplicate records deserve credit or blame?"

The Columbia studio had an electrical issue last week that required outside attention.  Imagine the surprise of the Edison repairman when he arrived at the Columbia building!

Alcohol is allowed in certain studios - an obvious fact if you've heard a recent take of "In the Baggage Coach Ahead."

(Thanks for these Ryan!)

I have also created a few of these, with funny cartoons to accompany them. These ones above are perfect examples of what is to be expected from this contest, since they all seem like sections we would read when browsing through the Our Tattler and the General News sections of The Phonoscope. Here are the ones that I have done so far:

One of our correspondents recently heard the following conversation at the Columbia parlor:

-What makes you such a heavyweight sir?

--Sittin' in a broken chair fer ten dollars a week.

-Why's it broken?

--Cause I werk here.

Here's the cartoon that goes along with the one above: 

We've found Mr. Len Spencer's watch thief! Last month, Mr. Spencer went all around searching for his stolen watch, and found it at the bottom of the crate where the electric fans are kept, coming to find afterward that Georgie Emerson mistook it for his brother's studio timepiece. Len later had to repair the watch, since it appeared to have been stepped on while missing. 

The Columbia company's pianist, Mr. Hylands, was awfully sick last week from eating some rotten duck, and vows he'll never return to the restaurant that prepared the rotten quacker. He stated to the side that the drinks the place prepared made up for the ailment, despite little recollection of it. 

Edward Issler returned to the Columbia rooms last month, to repair the old piano he played in the good old days of five hundred rounds. One he approached the piano, opened his case of tools, his surprise was clear, with a loud crack of his wrenches on the bolts, and a whoop in shock,
-What have you done to this thing?
--Played it, that's all. 

Russell Hunting visited Mr. Roger Harding's Parlor last week, and when he found little Harding at the counter, a ragged old dark man approached them before conversation could ensue:
-You er Willie Fathand ern't yo?
--I was. Now I'm Russell Hunting. 


One of Berliner's new young employes dropped a crate full of masters recently and all the talent are being told they have to record all of the takes again, most of them are more than one. 

The new Zon-O-phone company has taken in Frederick Hager as their new music director, he has proved to be an established attraction at exhibitions and record demonstrations, particularly to the youthful girls. 

One of our popular correspondents was out for drink last month, and while sitting at the counter, ignorantly getting lost in thought, heard the racket of a familiar gang enter the saloon. He looked to his side and spotted Columbia's clan of Messrs. Spencer, Harding, Porter, Gaskin and Hylands. Imagine their surprise when they spotted the familiar face of the correspondent. At the studio door next day, Mr. Spencer could not recall who it was they saw at the saloon, neither could Messrs. Hylands and Gaskin. 


George Watson's wife, Marguerite entered the studio last month, causing all sorts of racket between takes, and attempting to sing along with her hubby during the session, further making George distracted while he yodeled. --She was an awful nuisance, so much so I couldn't fer the life a' me recognize her face. Thought she was horse in a dress, since my 'spects have been broke fer a few weeks. Thought I was hallucinating fer sure. Hope he don't bring her along again, though she's a pleasant singer.--Stated Mr. Hylands after the day. 

Mr. At Lee continues to be a strange curiosity at the phonograph parlors, a woman and her babe approached Mr. At Lee and stated(the woman) that she recalled him from back in the late-80's at a Messrs. Bell and Tainter exhibition, Mr. At Lee could not well focus on what the woman was saying because he was shooing away the babe's ever-curious hand from his whiskers. 






Anyway, hope all of these examples are enough to get some of your started! Once again, PLEASE send in some of these mock sections, they are so much fun to read and to write as well, a wider variety of sections would really be appreciated. This still has great potential! 

Hope you enjoyed this! Make some time to submit some sections for the contest by commenting on any of the two posts on this matter! 

Some Phonoscope sections, and picture guesses

From going back through many of my record books, books on recording, and Rag-Time books, I have come to really wonder how some of these things we know of were passed on through generations of record collectors. Many of these yarns are very hard to track correctly, as some were just told to me through geeks I know who aren't exactly record collectors, and just friends of mine. I wonder where some of those Hylands stories came from...

It's one of the major problems with The Phonoscope, you don't really know what to believe or not. Toward the beginning of the magazine, it was very candid about everything it had in its issues, but as the months went on, it began to change slightly, with new people in the business coming from everywhere, and strange things happening all around. What should we fully believe? Take this thing for example:

Hmm. I have always had suspicion around this one. It sounds like typical Spencer, truly, being one of the most highly educated members of any recording staff at that time(but not exactly naturally intelligent if you know what I'm getting at). Hmm, a lady friend? What slight scandal... It's a very odd thing really, that we want to believe everything we read in The Phonoscope because it's by all definition a primary or first-hand source, just as much as Len Spencer's notebook is. It's a very unusual specimen of primary source though. If you know anything about the people who began this magazine, you know why I'm saying this. Of course, there are also sections like these here:

(still makes me laugh every time I see it ^ )

Well, we get a sense of how they thought of and how they treated their pianist. Some words from the man himself certainly helps. These sections were specifically put in there for comedy, as they were both sections in their General News column. Well, one of them was actually the third thing listed on the news page after the beginning column. Well, they made me laugh when I read them, so that means they do exactly what they're supposed to, even 118 years later. Though of course, it needs to be noted that the first section above was the first thing about Fred Hylands mentioned in The Phonoscope, and it would seem that the last section about him is here:

That's fantastic, but who was there while he was gone? Hmm(he was probably gone for only two weeks). Clearly it's the Phonoscope people reporting this, so he clearly was still working for Columbia, but not as often, as I had expected from him around 1900. Though as we know, he returned to working there much more often in 1901 to 1903(especially 1902 and 03!). Now among the travels I have been having in looking through the 1900 issues of The Phonoscope(which the May, 1900 issue is where that section above came from), I found this curious thing here from the same page:

Oh! the terrible fights! How they were real.
That is pretty much the funniest thing I have found in The Phonoscope. It really doesn't get any better than this. Imagine it! It's fantastic. I can see any three of these studio stars fighting for them, either slyly or openly. 
 I can see Hylands coming in to the exhibition hall, looking around for one, and rather quickly taking one, dragging the wire on the stairs, hoping Len Spencer is not anywhere. But just as soon as he gets up the stairs to the big room----there's Len.  No fan for Fred. 
It's one of the best things to imagine really, you can think of any one of these studio regulars, and it would work regardless. There are times where not all of these situations would apply to all the artists, but this one does! Especially since there was this thing here:

(some of you might have caught that the scene being described here is an exhibition at their big hall on the ground floor)

107 degrees! whew! Yep, that sounds about right. 
It actually is a very good thing to know, because I was often wondering about this sort of thing after reading that 1898 section just above. But as Ryan Wishner and I have discussed before, we wonder about any sort of heater or furnace in the winter, which they did have, but it is not really likely they would have used it very much, due to any sort of racket it made. That was not wanted when making records. 

Now to move onward to the second part of this post, some guesses for that amazing picture from last evening. Here is that picture once again:
(I'm going to be using this picture an awful lot now...)

Still amazing. 

Now I had some guesses as to who I thought that man might have been when I first took a look at the picture, but it's not like the exhibition picture where everyone can be identified reasonably well. I still cannot believe that this is that  street corner that was so highly spoken of in The Phonoscope and in local newspapers. Of all the Columbia stores and headquarters, this is the one where all of those brown wax cylinders were made from January 1897 to about the end of 1905. One of the many questions I have about this picture is:

Where is everyone? This place was said to have been one of the busiest places in New York in 1898(around the time that this was taken obviously). If they're all crowded behind the camera, I swear....
Who is that there? Is that one of the studio artists? It looks like someone with the body type of Billy Golden, or maybe even one of the Spencer's(or Fred Hylands? Ooh, I hope not). I swear, if that's Fred Hylands...


There's so much to ponder when looking at this stupendous picture, though it would have been better if they took the picture like the 42 Edison artists picture here:

(Banta's no. 35!)
That very picture of the Columbia studio could easily have been taken in a similar fashion to the Edison picture from 1900 just above. That would have been amazing. Think of all the forgotten faces that would be seen there. 
They easily could have gotten everyone to stand in a long row in front of the building(because it was an immense structure!). Don't know how many people would be there, but somewhere a little less than 42 would sound about right. I bet we could pick out people really quick just like in the Edison picture above, if Columbia took one of those pictures on their street corner. What's funny is that you'd see a lot of the same people, you'd see Quinn, Denny, D'Almaine, Watson, Albert Campbell, Marguerite Newton(Watson), Geo. W. Johnson, J. J. Fisher, William Tuson, and Fred Hager. Wait a minute! I just noticed a mistake in identification here!  You see numbers 10 and 11:

Yep, them. 
I just noticed that the list of identification states this:
10; M. Guiarini, Tenor
11; Wm. Tuson, Clarinet
Wait, that can't be right. No. 10 is Tuson, not 11. Here's my evidence:

That's Tuson! Damn.  Never noticed how tall he was...The person who wrote out the identification mixed them up. The thing that really gives it away is the whiskers, the ears, and the intense and expressive gaze. Wow, did not come to notice that before. 
Anyhow, if Columbia took a picture like the "42 Edison artists picture", many faces we don't normally see would be there. These include; George Schweinfest, both Spencer's, Vess Ossman, Steve Porter, Tom Clark, David Dana, Edward Issler,  Charles Prince, Fred Hylands(notice I put three pianists here), Minnie Emmett, Russ Hunting, George Graham, Roger Harding, Edward Easton, Victor Emerson, J. W. Myers, Will C. Jones, George Gaskin, Charles P. Lowe, John Yorke Atlee and who knows who else. 
Well, I can't really figure out who that chap is standing there in that picture, but it was certainly not John Atlee, Vess Ossman, Dan Quinn, or George Watson. i am leaning more toward Will F. Denny, Billy Golden, or Fred Hylands. *Leave comments on this post on who you think it might be!*

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Some Great Women in the Business

Since to-day happens to be international women's day, I thought it be important to do a post specifically on the great women that were involved with the line of study I know of. I don't speak of these ladies as often as I ought to because they just don't come up that much, though occasionally the thought comes. 

To begin, it would seem great to speak of all those strong, progressive women that Len Spencer grew up around. I have explained before that Spencer had a fascinating upbringing, with many famous and prominent people probably coming his way within the first five years of his life. One of these great women was: 

Clara Barton

Yes indeed, the civil war nurse who began the Red Cross. 

The Spencer's had come to know Barton by the end of the civil war, and since this was so, it is not really surprising that Madame Barton probably held baby Len Spencer, or Harry a few years later. It is also very likely that Len grew up knowing Barton very well, occasionally seeing her come to their home or the Spencer College that was at that time run by their father Henry Caleb Spencer. Spencer's mother Sara Andrews was another fascinating woman of the nineteenth century, who was a rare breed of wealthy women in that time. Sara was a very passionate suffragette in the 1870's(which was the second wave of the women's suffrage movement, the other two were the 1840's and the 1910's), speaking at conventions and in great halls about the right for women to vote. In fact, in 1875, she, along with about 50 other women, registered to vote, but this was declined by the poll owners, for obvious reasons. With this failure, she still went onward with her protests. 
It wasn't just his mother and Clara Barton who he saw as the most influential women around him, he also saw many aunts of his who were very influential professors of law and even judges. If you look up the Spencer family(starting with Len), you will find that all the women in his family had some kind of higher education, degrees, or were prominent suffragettes. Not one lady in that family was just a housewife. 

Now another lady I would like to speak of is the very rarely mentioned Estella Mann:

(Anne of Cleves, c.1539)

Come on! She does very much look like Anne Of Cleves! Don't tell me you don't see it.

This Anne of Cleves-looking German beauty was not just one of the frivolous few early lady recording stars, she was also a company owner! As were most of these record makers in the 1890's, she owned her own label from 1898-1899, which was called The Lyric Phonograph company. It was, just like most of these companies, popular while it lasted, but then faded away rather quick. This was not really successful venture for her, which in most ways, is what led to her not really making any records after 1900. She faded out of the business quick, and stopped making records by the era of the gold moulded cylinder. She was influential and popular while she remained making records though, and would need to be remembered for this, as there weren't any other women in the 1890's music business that began their own record companies like she did.

Another fascinating lady I should mention is the wonderful May Irwin:

Now she had a very interesting role in the early popularization of Rag-Time. It is a little hard to explain, because she didn't make any records until ten years after she began in performing Rag-Time songs. Around 1894, Irwin was a performer who came on stage in blackface and performed "Ethiopian songs"(which was essentially the pre-cursor to "Coon Songs"), and starring in some comic opera. She became famous for her roles in big opening shows on broadway and on popular vaudeville stages. When Rag-Time came by storm from the genius of Ben Harney in 1896, Irwin became the first to introduce these songs in "Ragged time" along with Josephine Sabel:

Sable and Irwin became associated with Rag-Time starting in 1896, and in fact, Sabel's song was "Hot Time on the Old Town", and Irwin's was "The Bully". Sabel was pictured on many pieces of Rag-Time music from 1896 to 1913, which is quite a long period of time for being known as a Rag singer! Irwin had something along with her that Sabel did not, a great ability to write music. Irwin wrote several songs in her long-spanning career, which some were Rag-Time related, while others were not exactly Rag-Time, but were still very funny comic songs. Ben Harney was pleased to know that a popular lady singer(Irwin) was singing all of his Rag-Time songs, and was becoming known for them, further popularizing Harney, and Rag-Time itself, all before 1897. Of course, Irwin came across Len Spencer some time in 1896 and told him how great she thought his recordings of her songs were, and Spencer probably heard her perform these songs, so it is likely that he imitated her somewhat. 



Now to close off, I must mention the strong-hearted Etta Hylands. Etta was also a rare breed of Victorian lady, one who wasn't an outward feminist, but was a lady who proved that she wasn't a slave to any man that came her way. She had hard luck with men at first, as her first husband died of smallpox just a few months into their marriage, but at that, it is very likely that she married once more soon after that. With her very sharp wits, she became tired of many men, and probably had a beaux aside from her husband in each of her marriages. One of her children was illegitimate anyhow, so something like that wouldn't be very surprising at this. She must have been a very unconventional wife of the 1890's and 1900's, as she was a performer, and had many reckless ways. She was the kind of lady that many comic songs of the late-1890's poked fun at, such as this one by Dan Quinn here:
https://archive.org/details/colnyp-5121
Very good recording by the way! Fred Hylands is behind Quinn here. 
Many of these performers' wives were like the "Flossy" in the song listed above. Hylands' wife Marie was one:

Staying out late for shows, and sleeping all day while Freddy went to the studio.  That's actor's hours for ya. Not many of the recording stars had performers as their wives, like Len Spencer or Vess Ossman, but some did, like Billy Golden. Golden's wife May was actually a minstrel along with Billy, and they did quite a lot of vaudeville together in the late-1880's and early 1890's, which must have been very great to see! Another example of this would be the Watson's. By this, I mean George and Marguerite:

Heh, what a couple...

Now pretty much nothing is known about Marguerite, except the fact that she was married to George Watson the yodeler, and that she made some comic cylinders in the late-1890's for Edison. Now it's rare to find a married couple of recording artists in the 1890's, but the Watson's were one rare example. Later there was Burt Green and Irene Franklin, but that was much later in time. For those wives of these recording stars who are forgotten, they all must have been interesting ladies, as they lived with performers in a very hard and taxing business. Most of them stayed completely out of it, but some were either fully involved(like Marguerite), or were slightly part of the action(like Marie Hylands). I really wonder what some of their wives were like. Len Spencer's 

"Liz", Ossman's Eunice, Frank Banta's Elizabeth Riley, and all the other respectable ladies that went through so much with these wild studio men. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Character studies-- George P. Watson(1871-1926)

It's George P. Watson, the yodeler. He's a pretty obscure one in the line of the earliest recording artists, as he wasn't a very widely recorded singer. He was also a little late in the business, by that I mean that he came along in 1897, which is much later than some of his other friends who had been singing for the Columbia Graphophone since 1889 and 1890. Watson must have been a fascinating and comical character, as just by the look he gave in the 42 artists picture, seen here:

His expression was certainly one of the more interesting ones that came from this large photograph. The thing that really surprised me when I first saw that picture of him at the top of this post, is that he was so handsome! My father even attested to this! That was surprising, my friend who owns the Berliner catalog showed me the page with Watson on it, and I was blown away! I thought he was some creepy-faced eccentric(as beforehand I had only see him in the 42 artists picture). Not that he wasn't a creepy eccentric, he was just as weird as all the people he worked with at Columbia in 1898 and 1899. 

Watson was a short man, at maybe about 5 foot three or four, he certainly wouldn't be as tall as many of the others who worked at Columbia. He was handsome though, with a face that many on the staff could certainly be envious of, and his blond, wildly-styled hair was also just as captivating. His seemingly ecstatic cracked vocal style echoed through the long tall rooms of Columbia's studio, when, if the door was left open, he could be heard all the way down the halls. Even in the cold of dead winter at the studio, Watson's voice was still heard crystal clear, even if his breath could be seen when he set cracks in his voice. His odd choices of songs reflected his odd musings in the studio, with a drink of harsh liquor of some kind always at his aid to entertain his mouth betwixt the takes. Not many in the studio knew of what he did outside of his time there, but it was a sure thing that he went out and drank after many a recording day, his personal matters were disclosed for an unknown reason, or reasons. He looked like a drinker, more so than George Graham, as Watson had shown shadowy and slightly aged eyes by 1897 and 1898, where he would only have been 26 and 27 years of age. Occasionally, his dear Marguerite would come in an sit to hear him sing, how she wasn't the prettiest thing to look at, but somehow she was married to him. Between the takes, she would holler out to him anything she thought about the prior take or anything else, startling redheaded Freddy at the piano, who was just trying to get himself set up for the upcoming takes. Regardless of his looks and relative fame, he was still a mysterious man, of which is still he is still very much so to this day. 

I didn't realise until evening that Watson was married to Edison recording artist Marguerite Newton, who just so happens to be in the 42 Edison artists picture as well(durr...). I do not know anything about her, but she looks like Ada Jones a little bit. It can be assumed that the reason not much is known on her is because of George, as to this date, he is still a very weird and mysterious character of the early recording business. He must have really been an eccentric, as being only great at yodeling is a very odd thing in itself, even in his time. He must not have really wanted to say anything about his personal life, or no one bothered to ask, though it seems more likely that he skipped out on telling anyone. They just thought he was great at what he did, so they probably didn't bother to ask any of those personal questions. The only person I would think who would probably know about Watson very well would be Fred Hylands, as he was always there behind Watson, hearing all his troubles and worries. Hylands probably got his ears filled with sob stories and  cries for help from all the rather theatrical people he accompanied, and Watson was certainly one of these artists. 

Hylands can be heard behind Watson on both of these cylinders:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder6707

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder5331

If Hylands had lived longer, he probably would have spoken of Watson if any questions related to him were asked. Anyone he worked with for that matter. It would be wonderful if we knew more about Watson, because now, after doing this post, I have new theories going through my mind about Watson. Since little was said about him even back in the late-1890's, not much more will be known about Watson, and his very seemingly-odd marriage to Marguerite Newton. 

I hope you enjoyed this! Happy dia de los muertos!