Mid-night crooks and "The Voice in Time"

Who are these three funny guys? 

Well, we ought to know that first guy(Len Spencer), but the other two could stump some of us. The second is George Emerson, and the third is Clyde Emerson. These three rough-and-tumblers seem to have pulled off an interesting heist back in 1897, one that has been causing all sorts of buzz among the brown wax community this past week. This heist of a sort was pulled off in early 1897(just as the U.S. Phonograph company was collapsing), and in fact, speaking of the U.S. company, it seems that this was part of what led to their demise. So after reading the other record blog that was all read, it seems that Russell Hunting wasn't the only one of these studio stars who was arrested in the 1890's. Len Spencer and those infernal Emerson's were also taken out of that studio by the men in blue. 

The three of them crooks went to their U.S. Company headquarters in Newark(I hope late at night!) and took a hundred records as it says(around 100 would be my guess, keep in mind that it's just three guys...) from that company and brought them to be sold to a company of "rival concern",which is probably Columbia at this point of time. The case was brought to court, with them three handed $2,500 in bail(hot damn that's a lot of money!), but were soon discharged upon having no strong stance on the case. 

So that's it?

Yes, essentially with all the evidence. 

But hold on! There's more to it...This is clearly an inside job, a very complicated story, much more so than it lends itself to be. This is one of those things that just can't be a small thing, with a bail set over the amount that Victor Emerson put aside for George W. Johnson, something ain't right to me...As with anything Emerson or Columbia related, there's some really tangled up backstory that involves several recording stars, as well as deals between rival companies. The U. S. Company was a sinking ship in 1896-97,and everyone had to get their way off into the water. Spencer was in an uncomfortable position for sure, since he had such strong and long lasting ties to U.S., but was being led on a string back to Columbia, since that's where he started, and that's where they wanted him. A similar story must have been attached to Edward Issler, though Issler was not nearly as valuable to the management(he would be the most valuable if managers really cared about musicians), however, he did have an important role at U.S. that succeeding pianists hadn't, the knowledge of the technical aspect. Everyone eventually were saved by Columbia, but it was a long and almost deadly process, as it always was with Columbia during any transition. Spencer just after this heist had pledged his services to Columbia, which is also a little fishy. Come on, you can't just see this as being a smoothly moving thing that just happened. Spencer got busted for it, and so did the two "lesser" Emerson brothers. Victor Emerson may not have been charged, but it's got to be for certain that he had some hand in this late-night raid. 

(a cartoon I did parodying this heist)

Even with the lack of names(unlike the Johnson trial), there must have been at least a dozen other sleazy hustlers involved in this raid, they just sent out the best hustlers to go and steal the records themselves to be sold. I'm sure brother Harry(Spencer) had a piece of this too, since Harry at this point wasn't fully set as a recording artist solely. Recall that at this time (early-1897) Harry was more of a salesman and repairman than a recording artist. It would seem in this case that everyone we might think who would have a hand in this probably did. Considering Columbia's rampant legal squad, they were sure to brush this off quick no matter what happened. Hopefully we'll be able to learn more about his rather hilarious bust with Columbia. It's always fun to read about these stars getting into trouble like this, whether it has to do with recording or not.

Now to move to Fred Gaisberg!

We all have grown to love this crazy guy, and I have most certainly done so, along the course of reading this lovely book:

(Thanks Charlie!)

At this point, I am over half way through the thing, and the first night I started reading it got through 90 pages. I already have written about the first two to three chapters in a previous blog post, but this time, since I've the book right here, I will get to quoting some of Gaisberg's priceless and utterly snobbish remarks about those he met places he went. 

Here's one of the first lines from chapter three:

The man finally selected[to manage Berliner's London outpost]for this task was William Barry Owen, a legal assistant to Frank Seaman...

"Berliner could have selected no finer agent than Owen to exploit his invention. He was an opportunist of quick decision and a bold gambler...You would always find him sitting at the stiffest game of poker in the smoking room...and his eyes would bulge as he laid a full house on the table...He brought to London an infectious enthusiasm and energetic leadership which I believe was quite new to the conservative English city man of that day."

That's most certainly Gaisberg's writing at it's finest...his descriptions and diction were just fantastic to every degree. When he wasn't describing a type of foreign music with his European eye, the images he painted through words otherwise were unbiased and nicely structured, giving us a very real and somewhat raw vision into the early recording business. 

His description of the old man Giuseppe Verdi was just as intriguing as his vibrant imagery of his first visits to Milan and Rome:

I often saw the venerable Verdi, who would regularly take an afternoon drive in an open landau drawn by two horses. People would stand on the curb and raise their hats in salute as the carriage proceeded down Via Manzoni to the park. A frail, transparent wisp of a man, but the trim of his pure white beard so corresponded with the popular picture of him that one could not fail to identify him. 

That pretty much sums up Verdi. Gaisberg and Willie Darby were utterly overwhelmed by the culture and constant vigor of Milan the first and few times they went. Being ever surrounded by lovely art, music, and people seemed to overwhelm Gaisberg at first, though after a little while he grew used to the culture.

I hate to move a little out of chronological order, but this book keeps opening to other important pages with Gaisberg's unequalled descriptions, here is his rather cute description of Alfred Clark around 1897:

He was, I remember, a youth big an well-proportioned, perfectly dressed in a tailor-made suit which, in those days of "off-the-peg" clothes[what does that mean?] (which I and even Berliner wore) struck a note of distinction. Further, his dark eyes and curly brown hair set off by a boyish blush whenever he spoke, made him irresistible[hmm mmm...interesting choice of words there], quite apart from the shadow of the great Edison.[That's where he worked before then]

That's a lovely description, and makes me laugh, since he and Clark lived adjacent one another above Berliner's studio from 1896 to 1897, and went to all sorts of shows and got plenty of bonding time in, whilst also learning of the business and local culture in Washington and in Philadelphia. 

Gaisberg's time from August 17th and 18th of 1899 is one of the absolute best two days in sequence throughout his entire years of travel. In these two days, he was traveling with Darby in Spain to France:

Thursday Aug. 17th 99. Plaza de Montesino, Valencia...

Here again the terrible uncertainty of whether to proceed to Libson or return to Madrid seized us, and for two hours we sat discussing the pros and cons. Our fate was decided when we discovered out luggage was already placed on the relief train and we sprung aboard...[then] the station-master informed us no connections for Libson would be made that day, but if we waited for Mañana('tomorrow') connections would surely be made. 

Already knowing that a Spaniard's 'tomorrow' means 'never'[haha], we quickly had our luggage transferred to the Madrid train and at 7 o'c p.m. we re-journeyed over the same ground travelled last night--sad, tired and provoked. However, before starting we invested 9p. in a sausage three rolls, and a bottle of wine. This we tackled with great relish, as we were nearly famished. 

The night was awfully close, and as these European railroad carriages give no draft9as there is no vestibule) we suffered awfully from the heat and thirst caused by the salty sausage

Friday Aug. 18th 99.

We entered Madrid at 8 in the morning...arriving at the station we finally accomplished the difficult task of registering trunks, and tried to find a place in the coach--but they were full. At last, finding an empty seat, I jumped in and sat down just as a fat matron with a bitter tongue claimed it. I refused to move, and she plumped down in my lap and there remained, while Darby on the outside frantically ram about looking for me. At last I gave her a push and slipped out from beneath her and she fell back into the seat with a jar. Then Darby got in, and as the fat woman got out of the car to give the seat to her daughter for whom she was preserving it, Darby slapped himself into it, and immediately two men and the old woman yelled and pulled and tugged and punched at him. Finally he had to give it up, and with a long face squeezed himself in a place opposite, and then it was my turn to laugh[indeed so Fred!].

Well, the ride was the worst I ever endured. This was our third successive night on a train--and that in a car so crowded that one had to sleep as in a strait-jacket.

What a trip! Hot damn that sounds absolutely awful, but it's genuinely a hilarious story that sums up most of their journeys together. 

Many of us can get to wondering about Fred's love life, and luckily, there's a lot of it scattered throughout this book, and it seemed impulsive of him to be describing the women around him any time they were met. Of course, he knew that he's never actually settle with a lady, and with his constant state of moving from place to place, his status of bachelor seemed inevitable, no matter how long the traveling with Darby lasted. Here's a particularly interesting little affair from Feb. of 1900 while back at home base in London:

25th, Sunday...

I went to take Miss Waite's package to Miss Edell's, and there spent a delightful afternoon, at the same time taking tea with them. Returning to town. I dropped in at the Horse Show, and to my great surprise who should I see sitting there but Henrietta. I hardly recognised her at first. She looked entirely prosperous, and decked out in fine dressed an jewels. She tried to urge me to enter old associations with her, but I stoutly resisted the magnetism of her beautiful brown eyes. She waxed most furious. What an uncontrollable passion this spoilt beauty has!

26th. Monday

After work Henrietta met me at the office, where we had a short dance and singing[aww...what a cute picture...].Then after supper we went to the gallery of the Savoy theater to see The Rose of Persia on Newton's invitation. She followed me me all the way to my Kensington lodgings, where I abruptly left her.

How interesting. It really fascinated me to read such writings of his, since we would normally never hear this side of him. He seems confused in this whole love matter...but at the same time all mad about it. It's truly charming to gather his feelings about being kinda in love. He hadn't the best of luck with this matter it seems. 

Here's an interesting picture from just a few months later. This was taken of the family when he visited for Christmas:

I'm sure you can guess where Fred is. 

Their long and grueling trips to Russia were chock full of mockery for Gaisberg. He reveled in how ignorant the Russian opera audiences were, cheering madly at a single performer who wasn't even adequate(at least to what Gaisberg had experienced). But after a horridly busy week of recording and traveling in Russia, this horrid mess befell them in their room:

About 2 a.m...

We were awakened by a terrible battering on our door. The porter and three or four others wanted to know what terrible happenings were going on, the room below was all dripping with what might be blood or something deadly, and was falling on the face of the sleeping occupant. We went into our 'lab' and to our dismay found a bucket filled with old acid had sprung a leak, and the floor was flooded...The bright red fluid dripped through the ceiling on to the sleeping guest; when his body began to smart[interesting word choice there...]he roused the hotel. We had the disagreeable task of sopping it up in our nightshirts, and expecting the manager up every moment to pitch us out bag and baggage. 

What a horrid thing! That would have freaked me out if I had been that other hotel occupant. Certainly I would have been convinced it was blood a-dripping on my face! 

Oh how there's so much more to write here from this lovely book, but there's no way I could quote everything  that was curious, since his descriptions of eastern music and instruments  are very interesting, while at the same time also strongly judgemental. He wasn't easy with his words on eastern music and instruments. He didn't revel as much being in Japan as he ought to have. His time in India and the middle east especially was curious to him. It seemed he took a great fascination with these nations, and took many candid pictures of the street people and musicians. This book is an overload of information and quotes, since Gaisberg lived a fuller life than anyone I have ever studied. Such the amount of travel he did is more than anyone would hope to travel in an entire lifetime, and he did that much travel in 10 years, or even less. He seemed to have most enjoyed Milan throughout his time of travel, since he revisited the place very often, and spoke the highest of everything there. He seemed to have disliked the long grueling trips to Russia, and seriously disliked the music of Japanese opera. His tastes dramatically changed from his days back at Columbia in 1889! Never would he have guessed he'd be in the studio with the masters of Italian opera just 15 years later...

Over time, I will use quotes from this book, since there are so many more, and I have to finish reading it of course. Remember, I'm only just over halfway through!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Recording Muzzles and Razors in the air--early stories from Fred Gaisberg

Yes indeed, Fred Gaisberg, the teenager dropped into the wild and woolly recording business in its earliest days. 

Many of us have had the opportunity to read from his diaries of trekking through Europe and Asia with Sinkler Darby, and have thoroughly enjoyed his vivid and witty descriptions of Madrid and the French countryside. Before all of that across the pond, he had a well-established life and recording career in the U.S. Someone in my immediate record collecting community has yet to buy a copy of Gaisberg's memoir written in the 1930's. Any time an original copy of his original book comes up somewhere, it is always sold for an extreme amount of money, an amount that no record collector in reality could afford to pay on a single item. Some of the information in his book(that is quoted everywhere), reminds us that the book is certainly worth the 2,000 or more of any currency it's worth. The amount of fantastic stories and anecdotes that Gaisberg told in his books are certainly worth the money paid. 

When speaking with Charlie Judkins last weekend, it seems that he finally got a hold of one of the books about Gaisberg(The one called A Voice in Time). It's not the infamously rare and valuable one, but it's the one that was about his life and travels in America, to Europe, and Asia. Of course, the "good stuff" to the two of us was certainly the tales he told from 1890's Washington. According to all sources(including him) he began working at the Columbia Phonograph company in 1889, which would have made him their first official studio pianist. Also, keep in mind that he was 16 when they hired him. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, and this is clear by the way that he described the very beginning. The thing that really got us hooked was of course his tales of Len Spencer from the very beginning. Amid his early days working there, it didn't take long for him to run into all of the limited amount of talent Columbia employed at the time. One of the first figures he met with was of course "the handsome Len Spencer"(hmm?Okay...) as he once stated. This story reveals a whole lot about Spencer, what we have often expected from him, and what turned out to be true. 

Gaisberg did not specify the office of Columbia, but he stated that he was at Pennsylvania Avenue(obviously Columbia's old headquarters), so it's hard to not know what he meant by that. He stated that the first time he met Spencer, Spencer was signing autographs for a group of "admiring darkies"(black kids) for a few cents each. Wow. Didn't really expect Spencer to have a black fan base. The image of him doing that really is kind of heart-warming, yet a little unexpected so early on in his recording. This is the sort of thing that we'd expect from Spencer in the exhibition days of Columbia in the late-90's. The fact that he was doing this so early on says a lot not only about him, but early Columbia. This was when Columbia had very slim management, and when those passing by the studio would gather outside the steps and essentially get a free concert. So with this, it seems groups of black kids built admiration for Spencer's singing, convinced he was black until they saw him. That really is somewhat surprising, since we wouldn't normally expect such offensive and stereotypical songs as Spencer's repertoire to be at all appreciated by the black community. Well, apparently we were wrong. This is one of those occasions that could very well change our viewpoint of what blacks thought of their own culture and society in the U.S. Makes me wonder what the black people who came to exhibitions thought of meeting with Spencer. Like any time encountering him, it must have been interesting, and slightly shocking. Again, our understanding of Spencer's relationship with black people has officially been changed with this new information. 

With all of this, we also have learned that Spencer not only had a black fan base, but also embodied many of the black stereotypes he spoke of so often on records. Other than just enough looking the part with his mess of curly brown hair and gaudy gold chains, he was a dedicated gambler. 

Of course, now that I know this, it seems I think now that Spencer dragged Hylands into gambling all their profits and such during the publishing firm. Yes, it seems likely that Hylands already had a taste for gambling, but after Spencer came along, that seemed to have inevitably been boosted. 
We know of Spencer as a rough-and-tumble sort of figure, more so than any of the early recording stars, with that scar on his face at whatnot. Contrary to what I have written previously on this matter regarding Spencer, it seems Gaisberg told the story of his scar differently. 

It's a little different than I had previously been told, but it's actually better the way Gaisberg told it. 
Here's how he spoke about Spencer, including the razor fight, and everything else:

Perhaps because of his unsavory reputation, my particular pet and hero of mine was the handsome Len Spencer. His father, the originator of the florid Spencerian handwriting, was the chief bugbear of thousands of schoolboys, myself included. The son had many and varied gifts. As a popular baritone, I accompanied him at concerts and for record-making. I first saw him seated at a small table in Pennsylvania Avenue, surrounded by admiring darkies, writing out visiting cards at six for a dime. His beautiful, ornate Spencerian writing, ending up with two doves, looked like engraving. Later I was always to remember his handsome face disfigured by a scar, the result of a razor-slash in an up-river gambling brawl. He was said to have been an adroit poker-player. His records of "Anchored", "Sailing", "The Palms", and "Nancy Lee" were important items of our repertoire. 

Well, there ya have it, Spencer in a nutshell. It's really surprising how much admiration he had for him, despite his certainly wild nature. Also, the way that he words his relationship with Spencer in the studio is also particularly interesting, "my particular pet and hero", especially since he's referring to recording for Columbia so early on. If we had a description of Spencer's relation with Issler or Hylands from a little later, I have the feeling that we'd hear something dramatically different. Issler would think of Spencer like an assistant and engineer, much like how Gaisberg was to Berliner. Hylands would have thought of Spencer like a sidekick to his rough-and-tumble antics(though Spencer was what stabilized their friendship). 
Without a doubt, Gaisberg understood how to best describe Spencer's beautiful script.

It certainly was like an engraving. 

Before all of that was written in the book, Gaisberg told his story of being with Sousa as a child:
I also sung in Sousa's choir, which was organised for Sunday evening concerts, and I attended rehearsals in his then modest home in the Navy Yard in south Washington. He patted me on the head and made quite a pet of me... I can still see the small room that one entered direct from the street, and a very old "tin-panny" square piano from which he conducted rehearsals. In hot weather the front door used to be left open and a circle of negro children would surround the entrance, silently enjoying the music we made. 
...
On Saturday afternoons in the spring and summer, the Marine Band formerly gave concerts on the lawn in the grounds of the White House... I was one of those music-mad youngsters who hovered by his podium and never missed a concert. On windy days his music used to become unmanageable, and he would turn round and beckon to me. It was then my pride to stand beside him to turn over and hold down the music. 

How great is that? Imagine little Gaisberg tagging along behind Sousa and the Marine Band. Everything about that is heartwarming and comical. It's funny that Gaisberg was accompanist to Quinn, who was also a choir boy until about age 12. Quinn probably told him that early on, and caused some surprise to Gaisberg. Imagining Sousa bitching at ten-year-old Gaisberg about his music not co-operating  at a concert is fantastic to the highest degree. It doesn't get much better than that, in terms of stories relating to early recording stars. 
His first time hearing of and meeting Berliner is also fantastic:

It was Billy Golden who asked me one day... If I would go with him to see a funny German who had started experimenting with a flat-disc talking machine records and wanted to make some trials. I was only too eager to see him at work. 
We found Emile Berliner in his small laboratory on New York avenue and received a warm welcome from the inventor. Billy was right, Berliner certainly did make me smile. Dressed in a monkish frock he paced up and down the small studio buzzing on a diaphragm[nice pun there Fred].
"Hello! Hello!" he recited in guttural, broken English. "Tvinkle, tvinkle, little star, how I vonder vot you are."

Hmm. How unexpected of Billy Golden. Normally, we wouldn't expect such a thing from him, but certainly he was well aware of everything that was going on in the early business. Being at Columbia meant for that in the first place, since they were the ones who invented the dubbing/pantographing process. Even for a hick, Golden knew his way around in the business. 
Here's how Gaisberg described his first session with Berliner(on the day that he and Golden called):

Berliner placed a muzzle over Golden's mouth and connected this up by a rubber hose to a diaphragm. I was at the piano, the sounding-board of which was also boxed up and connected to the diaphragm by a hose resembling an elephant's trunk. Berliner said "Are you ready?" and upon our answering "Yes", he began to crank like a barrel-organ, and said "Go." 
The song finished, Berliner stopped cranking. He took from the machine a bright zinc disc and plunged it into an acid bath for a few minutes. Then, taking it out of the acid, he washed and cleaned the disc. Placing it on the reproducing machine, also operated by hand like a coffee-grinder, he played back the the resulting record from the etched groove. 
To our astonished ears cam Billy Golden's voice. Berliner proudly explained to us just how this method was superior to the phonograph. He said that in his process the recording stylus was vibrated laterally on a flat surface, thus always encountering an even resistance, and this accounted for a more natural tone. 
Acquainted as I was with the unnatural reproduction of the old cylinder-playing phonographs, I was spell-bound by the beautiful round tone of the flat gramophone disc. Before I departed that day I exacted a promise from Berliner that he would let me work for him when his machine was ready for development. 

And a few months later, he received a card from Berliner asking him to come along to his lab once again, to officially make some records. Well, it seems we know why early Berliner records sounded to great now. This strange and horrific sounding method of using muzzles and all of these tubes was the ticket to the signature Berliner sound, which as we know, was clear and full in the beginning. This is why we get fantastic records like Quinn's 1895 Berliner of "The Streets of Cairo". Now that we know all of that, we can all picture this strange method being done with those earliest Berliners. Another with this, not with piano though, is one of George Graham's first records, his "Street Fakir" from 1896. That muzzle was right there, and this is why it sounds like the speaker and piano were right in front of the diaphragm. 

Also! Here's his description of getting Graham to record for Berliner:

Then there was George Graham... a member of and Indian Medicine Troupe doing one-night stands in the spring and summer and in winter selling quack medicines at the street corners. His tall, lanky figure, draped in a threadbare Prince Albert coat and adorned with a flowing tie, his wide-brimmed Stetson hat and his ready stream of wit combined to extract the dimes and nickels from his simple audience in exchange for a bottle of coloured water. 
I discovered him one day on the corner of Seventh and Pennsylvania Avenue selling a liver cure to a crowd of spell-bound negroes. He was assisted by John O'Terrell, who strummed the banjo and sang songs to draw the crowd. I brought this pair to Emile Berliner. Always a student of humanity, he was delighted... George recorded...his famous talk on "Liver Cure" in which he cited the instance of a sick man taking one bottle of his liver cure, and when he died the liver was so strong that they had to take it out kill it with a club.

Yep, that was this guy:

The image that Gaisberg pieces together with Graham is really very vivid, and puts us right there at where he found him. Of course, this is ever more tangible by seeing the two picture we have of him. It's all fitting together. 

His description of Charlie Tainter is also one of the best articulated of his character descriptions in this early portion. Here's a picture before the description:

That's him in the late-1870's. 

Charles Sumner Tainter was a scientist as well as mechanical genius. I can see him now working at a watch-makers lathe with a glass to his eye; he had a touch as delicate as a woman's. I never knew anyone who lived so abstemiously...
Tainter was an Englishman an a confirmed tea-drinker. Indeed, he taught me how to brew and enjoy it. The perfume of that special China blend of his haunts me still. Between the cups he would mount the diaphragm and adjust the angle of the cutting stylus. In his clear Yorkshire voice he would test them with:
"Caesar, Caesar, can you hear what I say---this, which; s-ss-sss."
The stress was alway laid on the sibilants, these being the most difficult sounds to record. In playing back the test, at the slightest indication of the "s" sound, he would smile with joy and treat himself to another cup. 

Certainly one of the best characters who Gaisberg truly admired, more than most of us would think, since Tainter hadn't much to do with Gaisberg early on. 

Before I finish, here's his full description of AtLee, who turned out to be his very first project while employed at Columbia in 1889:

[AtLee's]pompous announcements which introduced each performance in tones that made the listener visualise a giant. In reality he was a mere shrimp of a man, about five feet in his socks, that little government clerk with a, deep powerful voice.Of this and his fine flowing moustache he was mighty proud. After his office hours, from nine to four, as a wage-slave of the U. S. Government, he would return to his modest home where I would join him. In the parlour stood an old upright piano and a row of three phonographs lent to him by the Columbia Phonograph Company. Together we would turn out, in threes, countless records of performances of "Whistling Coon", "The Mocking bird" and "The Laughing song". I can still hear that reverberating announcement:

"THE MOCKINGBIRD" BY JOHN YORKE ATLEE, ARTISTIC WHISTLER, ACCOMPANIED BY PROFESSOR GIASBERG.

I was then only sixteen, some professor...

AtLee has pretty much seemed exactly the same in other descriptions of him out there, not much is different from what we've already heard, but of course, Gaisberg's diction is priceless. It seems as though working for AtLee was horrid for him, though it must have secretly been a joy. 

There were more stories, but that will make this post just as unmanageable as Sousa's music blowing in the wind, so I'll stop here. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Fred Gaisberg, the "Columbia Clan" and other things

Fred Gaisberg, the unexpected early recording star. 

In 1892, Gaisberg was a 19-year-old concert pianist in the Washington D.C. area, who had been a close follower and performer with the newly-formed Sousa band. Gaisberg once recalled that Sousa took such a liking to the youth Gaisberg that he often had him play a solo or two at every performance by his band, and sometimes played onstage with them. That must have been around the time that the Columbia phonograph Company's small staff manager Frank Dorian found him. 

(that's Dorian in 1892!)

Dorian saw potential in the youth, and he then went to "CEO" Edward Easton for his approval. Gaisberg knew nothing of recording at all, so first getting him to understand the workings of balancing techniques(keep in mind that this was 1892, when many ideas like pantographing and dubbing did not exist just yet). Gaisberg was getting into the business to early on that he knew the earliest methods of recording very well, but from his wits, he soon learned the flaws of these ideas. He became a regular studio pianist for Columbia by early in 1893, and somewhat became a member of the "clan" that Columbia was beginning in 1892-93. Who was part of this "clan" so early on? Well, here's a little list of it to get an idea:

Russell Hunting, Victor Emerson, Len Spencer, Frank Capps(inventor), Charles Carson(Columbia's first electrical man!), Billy Golden, Edward Issler(who was also a sound balancing genius), George Schweinfest, Dan W. Quinn, and a few more staff members. 

That was how small their clan was in 1892-93, it is so early on that Gaskin could not be listed, Vess Ossman, Steve Porter, and all the late-1890's artists had not come on the scene just yet. Gaisberg quickly became part of this group, even if it was not exactly something he wanted to do. Being the piano player for all of those rowdy Columbia people had become a tradition that their pianist be part of the main staff. Gaisberg was the start of this long-running custom(or curse, if you think of it a different way...). He worked for Columbia all through 1893 and through most of 1894, until Emile Berliner came back to at last to produce his discs in the U. S. Berliner had heard of the young Columbia pianist Gaisberg, and plucked him out of Columbia to have him work for the small staff that Berliner had. This is when he began to really work like a studio pianist. 

He only got a little taste of it when he began working for Atlee at Columbia in '93, but when working for Berliner and Columbia, he began to feel it. Since Berliner's staff was all a group of young clumsy chaps, they all had to work together to get things done around there, and get all the artists recorded correctly. Berliner got them to work very well together, and he observed their every move, to make sure things were being done right. It was in late-1894 that Gaisberg had many stories from, working for Berliner in that time was always interesting, and meeting all the singers and performers made the days even more curious. He recalled Russell Hunting coming in several times in late-1894, coming in with a black sack of clothes for what he did after he made records---perform in comic opera. He didn't want to imagine Hunting onstage doing all of that, in those strange costumes, and everything else. One time this happened, Hunting explained to Gaisberg what it was he was doing, which was playing Mephistopheles in a local production of the musical "Faust Up-to-date". He only saw and heard Hunting as his normal self, and him describing his roles to him did not make him the least bit comfortable. That's only a little of what else he had to deal with at Berliner. He saw Billy Golden, George Gaskin, David Bangs and more. 

He continued to work at Berliner and Columbia from 1894 to 1896, until George Schweinfest stepped in at Columbia and wanted to take some of the studio work off his hands. It certainly did help, even though he still had to come in and make some records at Columbia. Schweinfest was his sub in the 1896-97 period. After mid-1897, we pretty much know what happened at Columbia...(at least I hope we do.) In 1898, Berliner chose Gaisberg and Sinkler Darby to go out to London and make records there. That's when Gaisberg broke from the "clan", but he began his own out in London in 1898-1900. 

It's actually alright that he broke from the "Columbia Clan" when he did, because the "clan" was becoming much more complicated and full of weird personalities that Gaisberg certainly wouldn't have fully approved of. Think back to what he thought about Russell Hunting. 

In 1898, this "clan" became the much more "sporty" bunch that they were known for, as Steve Porter was in the group, leading the yacht races of course, Fred Hylands was one of the "society leaders" of the group as well. In 1898, the "Columbia Clan" was this:

Len Spencer, Steve Porter, George Gaskin, Roger Harding, Fred Hylands, J. W. Myers, Russell Hunting, Vess Ossman, Billy Golden, George Schweinfest, George P. Watson, Dan Quinn, Will F. Denny, Tom Clark(leader of the Columbia orchestra) and a few more staff members. 

But by the year after that, "the clan" had expanded to people who weren't recording artists(like Burt Green for example), thanks to Hylands and Spencer with their publishing firm. The whole staff of all record companies expanded in 1899-1900 also because of Hylands and Spencer, as Sallie Stembler made some records, it is questioned, but Fred's wife Marie:

(from a piece of music Hylands published, durr...)

She may have made a few records under the pleading of her husband, and if so, probably under a pseudonym of some kind.  I don't know what her name could have been on records, if she made any, but it would be weird either way if she did. 

Edison's staff had their "clan" as well, but they weren't really all together working as one over there. Most of the Edison "clan" later became Columbia artists anyhow. It's a group of eccentrics that only could work under Victor Emerson. 

Speaking of Emerson, he became the studio manager of Columbia in 1897, after Frank Dorian had been chosen to go and manage their newly-established Paris office. That was when the "beatings" began. Under Victor Emerson, the Columbia staff were worked until they dropped, even when the "round" era had passed by 1898. Emerson was at all the sessions, and made sure work was getting done every day in his studio. Emerson was always considered a real pain to all the studio artists, and they always played pranks on him, and got him lavish gifts for his birthday. 

That's an illustration from the January, 1897 issue of The Phonoscope of the Columbia headquarters. That was where all of those records were made from 1897 to 1905. They once described the place as a true spectacle of modern times, lit with hundreds of electric lights, and with all sorts of eccentrics and dandies coming in and out of the glass doors at any hour of the day. It was at this very place that these two pictures were taken:

(see the glass doors way in the back?) that's right. 

and of course this one:

Yep. now do you see it? Those same odd-looking windows really give it away. 

That's where they worked, and it was certainly always a "hot time" there at 27th and Broadway in the late-1890's! 

I hope you enjoyed this!