Russell Hunting with some advice and Liberal thinking

Russell Hunting, 1897(from my own art)

Among the genius things that Russell Hunting did for the recording business, he started up The Phonoscope in November of 1896, and when he started this up, he wrote some very funny and informative sections when he had a larger role in the magazine's actual content and publication. Hunting was a very liberal thinker, and always had the future and the latest of things on his mind. He was one of the few earliest recording artists who knew that the records he made would last for 100 years, and maybe even more. When I  am reminded that Hunting thought this, the only thing I can think about when I listen to the few surviving smut cylinders he made is that in the back of his mind, he knew someone would be listening to his voice uttering those nasty words generations after he made it. 
Since his voice had several different shades and sides to it, he could disguise his voice easily, even when he used pseudonyms. But of course, there were certain ways he said things that gave it away. It gave away that it was Mr. "Michael Casey" who was speaking. His smut cylinders were popular, but they all knew who it was speaking the words. His voice was too distinctive:
https://archive.org/details/TheOldManAndJimByRussellHunting1894
The people who didn't know of him just knew him as "The Original Casey", not Russell Hunting. 
The man was a genius, he knew that he would eventually get in legal trouble for his cylinders, but it lasted longer than he probably would have thought(which must have been a kick for him!). After all that legal trouble, he returned a hero after three months in prison. 
What Hunting did on records was what he really was as a person, not giving a rap whatsoever of what the big politicians and people who ran the country wanted. He made records for the people, the majority of people, in America, and all over the world(later he did). Hunting didn't really give too much advice in The Phonoscope, but his sections are really the best of the best when it comes to that magazine. He gave out lots of advice to exhibitors of various talking machines, and since he's in this picture:

We can very well assume that this exhibition went very well and was very successful. Whenever Hunting was at an exhibition, you knew it was going to be a good one. 
His advice looked a lot like these sections here:

The first one is exhibtor advice, the second one is general advice. Other than this, there were stories he recalled from his earliest days in the recording business, which funny lines in them, such as this one:

In this section, he was recalling when he was first starting out in the business and began experimenting with his own horns, which as the quote above suggests, were made of those things. 
He wasn't in the business for the frivolous things like sacred songs and old minstrel music(like Steve Porter and Len Spencer were!), he was in the business for creation, new ideas, realistic thinking, new music, and comedy. Even after a decade of traveling in Europe and beginning a new century, he was still formulating those new progressive ideas he always had. By 1916, he was back in the U. S. as the manager of all the Pathe company, which was no small thing. In 1916, a new style of music came to the public's ears, "jass" as it was called. Before the big explosion of "Jass" in 1917, Hunting did one small thing in '16 that was just as jazzy as he could be. Fred Van Eps spoke in the 1940's of Russell Hunting allowing a saxophone player in Van Eps' trio, only because John MacDonald(Harry MacDonough) just didn't find the idea attractive enough. How Hunting got a big score on that. MacDonald felt ashamed by this and immediately allowed the Sax player just after their first Pathe was released. It was not only forward thinking of Van Eps, but also of Hunting, as within a year, Jazz became an official style everywhere, with the saxophone as one of the style's most important instruments. 

This didn't end Hunting's great decisions though, in 1918 and 1919, many collectors may notice a handful of records by James Reese Europe's band. All of these records are Pathe's. So we know who the person who decided to have this was, Russell Hunting. The members of the 369th infantry band were invited several times in early 1919 to Pathe to make their many famous records, under the obliging and supervision of Russell Hunting. This was the best thing he did in my opinion, it really doesn't get better than that.  The Jim Europe band was the best black band of its day, and Hunting gladly hosted them at Pathe, and paid them all very well, probably just as much as all the prestigious white artists. They really are the most groovy records of early jazz, here is my favourite of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gftl8zClfUQ
Pathe was really the only compny who could accommodate the whole band and get a decent sound, as Hunting did all these weird and progressive tricks to make their recording room the best of its kind. 

Hunting still did shows and talks occasionally after his term in the managing chair at Pathe ended in 1926. They were mostly for benefits of other things than recording, though he did do some things like that occasionally, some of which even included reviving his "Casey" character.
He is a figure in the early recording business who should never be forgotten for all that he did, even if he is still pretty obscure to-day, and disliked for his policial views and his few surviving records. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

From Sheet music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

closeup of logo:

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

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

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

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

This song is from 1890! 

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

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

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Two Bantas

I know I have mentioned Frank P. Banta quite a lot on this blog, and sometimes Frank E. Banta. his son, and I saaw fit to do a post on both of them, and their styles. Followers of this blog know of father Banta, Frank P.

There he is, around 1901. He was that little slim German boy working under the snotty nose of Thomas Edison and his phonograph empire. According to many accounts of the time period, Banta worked for several other record companies however, such as a minor substitute for Columbia(before Hylands, so around 1894-95 would be about right). We are not generally presented with very much evidence that Banta worked for Victor, but it's pretty obvious that he did from some very small details of recorded material. The older Banta had a style that was related and sounded closely like pieces of classical music that he would have learned.  He also hinted at composers of his day, such as Dvorak and Edvard Grieg, as I'm sure he would have taken some time to study their works. As his arrangement of "Violets" from 1903 sounds like a mixture of several contemporary composers of the day:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/6000/6475/cusb-cyl6475d.mp3
Such a beautiful piece of music. Banta really takes it to another level with his arrangement. It's the only surviving example of Banta's solo playing(0ther than a recording of "Hello Ma Baby" on Victor A-402 from 1900). Banta's death struck the Edison staff, and all recording artists in general. It's been said that all the Edison artists did not come to work for three days after hearing of his death. As this can be read in the January, 1904 issue of The Edison Phonograph Monthly here:

Yep, that's about right. I like the fact that they even said that it was overworking that killed him, and it was overworking for Edison that killed him. How ironic! The sad thing is that all they said is true, and it was about time they faced it, as this was written over a month after Banta actually died. When he died, he left a wife and two children, a daughter, Prudence, and a son, Frank Edgar. His son Frank Edgar followed the same path of his father, as when he was a baby and toddler, he remembered his father vaguely, sitting at the piano in their house, inviting his friends over and practicing for hours on end, sometimes during the evenings and nights. Little Frank Edgar was only 7 years old when his father died, so he didn't really get to learn how to play things like his father or things similar to it. This is why he sounded almost nothing like his father when he played. He can be heard in the same sort of way his father was here with Fred Van Eps. 
I think it's so odd that Ossman had the father Bantaas his pianist, and Ossman's later rival and predecessor Fred Van Eps had the younger Banta as his pianist. It's so odd, but then again, it's not that surprising. In the link above, I have the feeling that when Van Eps gets to the "Turkey in the Straw" part of the medley, that he's trying to imitate his father's piano style a little bit, but when I say that, it's VERY slight. Most of what Frank Edgar played was what he was doing, with his novelty ways. Just for the hell of it, compare it with Frank P. and Billy Golden's 1898 cylinder here.
See my point? It's very hard to pick out easily. 

There he is, Frank Edgar Banta, around 1916.
It's odd, he didn't look like his father nearly as much as he could have. His mother must have been Irish, as I see quite a lot of Irish features from him, as his father was very Germanic. He didn't get the big eyes, crooked mouth, very rounded forehead, slightly protruding ears, BUT, he DID get his father's eyebrows. Take a look! It's odd isn't it. Frank Edgar was one of the Gershwin generation, and to what many have said, he even played like Gershwin a little bit. He, being a prominent Victor artist, got involved with the Eight Victor artists in 1920 or so, after Ossman, Collins and Harlan were kicked out, in came the pride of the Bantas, Frank Edgar. He was perfect for them, and they all loved him, as his style was not at all cliche and boring. He can be heard here in 1927 playing a popular 20's number. Not at all was his playing boring or outdated. 
I do wonder sometimes what his playing style would have sounded like if his father had lived longer, if it would be any more like his father's, which it probably would be if this was so. He probably never lost the thought of his father whenever he played, as that was what kept him playing for all those years. It would be like thinking if Hylands had any children, as that kid of his would have been a real peach, some piano genius like the two Banta's, except that it'd be a redheaded piano freak, just like Hylands, but he's probably be careless of the child anyhow. 
Frank Edgar made dozens and dozens of piano rolls from 1917 to the late 20's, so his unique playing style is preserved in several ways rather than just recordings. Unfortunately for Frank P. we only have his hundreds of recordings, and only a handful of published pieces of music. Both Bantas deserve recognition for all Rag-Timers and Jazz nerds alike. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Other studio pianists than Banta and Hylands

I have spoken of Frank P. Banta and Fred Hylands very much on this blog, and I have done some recent digging and found some more interesting information on the pianists who worked alongside Banta and Hylands. There wasn't just one pianist for all the performers at the record companies, as they would be too much work for one person, but it almost worked this way. The one pianist I learned about recently is a questionable one. His name was Fred Bachman. And he can be seen in this picture here:

More specifically, here:

He's the guy right behind George W. Johnson. 

I didn't realize that this Fred Bachman fellow was listed in the picture as a pianist, I thought that Banta was the only pianist in the picture, but hearing of Benzler, and then Bachman got me wondering. Well, it seems from this picture that Edison's company had three pianists on staff in 1900, which is very odd to me. I always thought each company had two pianists, not three. I do know who Victor's three pianists were, and luckily they were popular pianists who worked for several companies(they were Frank P. Banta, Hylands, and C. H. H. Booth by the way). Who was Fred Bachman? Well, I know he was Edison's house pianist, of three. He was probably the most uncommon to hear on their records than Banta and Benzler. I would love to share examples of all three of their playing, but I only know two of their styles. Here is Banta's:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/15000/15566/cusb-cyl15566d.mp3

Here is Benzler imitating Banta in 1905:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/2000/2949/cusb-cyl2949d.mp3

I would love to have an example of Fred Bachman's playing, but I'm unsure as to what records he could be on. Banta and Benzler are pretty easy to tell apart, as it's mostly in their sense of rhythm that distinguished them. Banta had fantastic(not near perfect though) time, but Benzler clung to his classical training more than Banta and did not have very good time, or well, it was jolty. It was the same with Berliner discs, minus the fact that the dates for each pianist's term are very clearly stated and there is no big debates needed about who the pianist is. Victor's are really the problem. Edison's own catalog said in 1904  that Banta was on over half of the records they had ever made from 1895 to the day of his death.  The Victors made from 1900 to 1904 are really where the pianist problem lies. The only thing that really sets them apart is that some of the accompaniments on the Victor's are exactly the same as other's on Columbia's or Edison's, so it makes Hylands or Banta easier to distinguish, and if you hear counting off that the beginning, that's Banta. They did not cling to certain artists, by this I mean that tey didn't only play behind specific artists, like the fact that it's pretty clear that they alternated behind Silas Leachman, as well as Vess Ossman. Though, I do think there was an exception with this artist clinging, now that I hear it, I think Hylands stuck with accompanying Billy Golden, which if you think about it, is not really surprising. 

One of these Billy Golden/Hylands Victors can be heard here.

That record in the link above is a very curious record to me, as I know it's Hylands behind him for sure, but he's doing trills that sound like Mike Bernard's trademark style. That's weird. But then again, Hylands was a friend of Bernard's and heard him very much prior to 1900. 

I jut wish I could know something more about Fred Bachman! If anyone has any information on Edison's pianist Fred Bachman, please comment here! All comments will be read and quickly replied to! 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

An Eccentric style and some Chicago "rags"

We all recognize this picture and quote. And this piano man has been forgotten by most collectors and record geeks. It's unfortunate really, because Fred Hylands practically(just like Frank P. Banta) gave his life for the good of the record companies he worked for, even if he did not exactly croak when he was still a studio pianist. We can sure as hell assume that his time at Columbia, Victor, Leeds and Zon-O-phone was what wore him down more than traveling around and performing. He really only lived eight years after he stopped recording, so what does that tell you?

I know I have gone on many a speil about Hylands on this blog before, but the only reason for that is to make sure that collectors hear him behind the singers that he accompanied. He was on thousands of cylinders, and probably just as many disc records too, and most collectors of these old records have completely let this pass over them! Even the best and most authoritative record collectors don't known of him. The ragtimers now who are looking for ragtime on cylinders don't look to Hylands and Banta either, they just look for the obvious Rag-Time band records from the late 1900's and early 1910's, like "Maple Leaf Rag", "Black and White Rag", and all of those countless Rag-Time songs that Billy Murray and Eddie Morton recorded. The best and clearest Rag-Time is not the most obvious, like these three cylinders:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/9000/9323/cusb-cyl9323d.mp3

(Billy Golden with Fred Hylands, 1903)

https://ia802307.us.archive.org/20/items/GeorgeWJohnson/GeorgeWJohnson-TheLaughingCoon.mp3

(George W. Johnson with Fred Hylands, 1898)

https://ia902606.us.archive.org/24/items/nobodyKnowsTheUploadIveSeen/01TheLaughingSong.mp3

(George W. Johnson with Hylands, 1898)

Yes indeed, these three examples of Fred Hylands are very clear and representative examples of genuine early Rag-Time, more specifically, Indiana Rag-Time. Indiana was where Hylands came from, that was where he was born and raised, and it was where he first began playing the piano. by 1887 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 15 year-old Fred Hylands was already producing and managing shows, but what was what, he was also playing in his father's saloon, as well as others around probably. Though it was Indiana he began and started his interest in the instrument, it was in Chicago in 1893 where he was first introduced to the new method of playing that Ben Harney was playing. Back in '93, Harney and the people who couldn't give it a name called it "Jig-piano", and this was Rag-Time essentially. Hylands had already been experimenting with broken time music before 1893, but when he heard Harney, and Krell's band, and even Silas Leachman, he was swayed in that direction fully. Hylands had probably been playing things like this.

Krell and Leachman became friends with Hylands not long after he moved there, as he was just another one of the great eccentric musicians who flooded into Chicago in 1893, and all of them were welcome by the eccentrics who already resided there. Hylands was one of them, unmarried, out of work, but had tons of potential. He was kind of wandering around there playing in various venues, getting drunk, and enjoying his freedom, even if his father probably thought is was only slightly ludicrous. With the few early "rag" pianists who remained after 1893, Hylands probably followed them around and listened to them closely, trying to imitate everything they played, and create his own style with them. He did so much of this, to where his style in 1898 could be heard to sound like this.

Very natural, Ragged, and extremely showy, but he had fantastic rhythm to balance it out. Unlike Mike Bernard, who was extremely showy, ragged, but had a very broken sense of rhythm. Even when Hylands got married and left Chicago, he still kept the way he played with him, as this is evident in the cylinder's he's on years later, as heard above. 

Those Rag-Time pianists now who think of Rag-Time as it is, they are wrong, and what I mean by this is that there were some pretty advanced Rag-Time pianists before James P. Johnson and those novelty weirdos if the 20's that were already playing like those boys back in the 1900's and even the late 1890's. One such pianist like this has often been said to be Ben Harney, other than being an already forward-thinking pianist and dancer, his playing was sometimes said to have sounded more like piano of the 1920's meshed with true 1890's "rags", which is really saying a whole lot. This is only so because I hear Hylands back in 1898 and 1899 playing novelty type of things in the bass notes and Ragging Franz Schubert. And to think that Hylands was a real Indiana saloon pianist, it makes for an interesting line of thought. It would really be wonderful if Hylands wrote more of his music down, as I'm sure he wrote more things than what got published of his. 

I'm sure that if more of his music got published, we would hear more of rags that sound like this.

The rag in the link above is really a great example of what Hylands sounded like, even if there aren't any trills or things like that, some of the syncopation and left hand patterns really remind me of Hylands's playing(especially the final strain!) and guess what...the rag was published in Chicago! What a surprise! This really get's my point across. 

And to close off, here are a few great examples of Hylands' Chicago-Indiana Rag style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvNiWY1Cj3c

(I cannot get over what Hylands plays on the Whistling chorus!)

https://ia601407.us.archive.org/21/items/WhenMr.ShakespeareComesToTownByArthurCollins1906/WhenMr.ShakespeareComesToTown1906.mp3

(this one is from 1901, not 1906...)

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

(fifths in the octaves!!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSqa3sgbJO8

(walking octaves in the final strain!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRtiG6LyvY

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Ben Harney's last years and other thoughts

Sorry it's been quite a few days since my last post, it's been a busy last few days for me. But within those few days, I had a chance to read through some of the great book They All Played Ragtime, and I was looking through it at a slight glance, and I came across the long section about Ben Harney and mike Bernard. 

(There's Harney)
What was said about all the general information on Harney was nothing new to me, but when I got toward the end of his life, that's when I really got surprised. I knew somewhat that he was pretty much broke in the last few years after his life, as he was forced to end his days of performing. But he was still seen on the stage in varying places in the 20's, as he can be seen in this astonishing photograph below:

(that's old man Harney in the tailcoat!)

My head exploded when I saw this. I could not believe what I was looking at. The source of this amazing photograph came from this extremely informative article here.(enjoy the article!)
 I just read the article listed in the link above, and learned a few new things about Harney that I did not know, but am not surprised to hear of them. 

His last few years were pretty bleak, living in a crappy old flat in a not-so-great part of town, with only the money from unions to keep them in line somewhat. It was just him and his wife Jesse by that time. The landlord of their building kept a close eye and ear on them for the years that they lived there, as they were an interesting couple to listen to. He said that they were still on the whole "actor's hours" thing, which meant that they were always up all night and asleep the whole of the day, even if they weren't out performing and such. He said that they'd be up all night exchanging conversation and stories from their performing days, and sometimes telling other people's stories. 
But when Ben died "Her big Fancy Man" as  his dear Jesse called him, she went pretty mad. Similar to that episode of "The Twilight Zone"  where that absolutely mad film actress Barbara Trenton cannot move forward in times because of her unhealthy clinging to her glory days. This scenario is very much similar to Jesse Harney not being able to rid of the past, with her "Big fancy Man Ben". 

(that's her in 1901)
She was said to have gone to her husband's unmarked grave every day after he died, and marked the days as well. She could easily have been taken for completely insane as she raved on about him in the long midnight hours, crying out for him, with not much to remember him with anyhow. Without his company, she just did not want to suffer much longer. She must have done things like drink the things that he did when they were together, until she became blind drunk and passed out. Not long afterward, after trying everything she could to bring back the memories of her then-forgotten husband, the landlord poked his head in one evening to her flat and smelled gas going. She had been weeping for hours in her rickety old chair, until he finally came in and found her dead. From an "accidental" suicide. 
Yes, "accidental". Hmm, that's pretty suspicious if you ask me.   I'm sure that the landlord didn't really want to say the exact cause of her death, in detail, as it was a very Victorian thing not to, especially under the circumstances that it occurred. It's pretty obvious what happened though. And it really makes sense if you ponder on it for a little while. 
That whole story haunted me, and still does, I was sitting there in the school lunch room reading  this section from They All Played Ragtime with looks of astonishment and true amazement on my face. It left me in thought of it the rest of the day. 

Now onto the "other thoughts" part of my post. I was doing some general research on Rag-Time composers in the book Rags and Ragtime by Trebor Tichenor and Dave Jasen, and I came across a section that mentioned early recorded Rag-Time on 78s and cylinders. This of which, I was unaware of, as Virginia Tichenor had told me that her father was much more interested in the published music of the Rag-Time field, rather than the way it was recorded. What she really said, was that Trebor had not studied the recordings, but he had a reasonable knowledge of what was what and what records were actually labelled as "Rag-Time" or were classic rags that could easily be spotted by collectors of all kinds. At the end of page 27 in Rags and Ragtime it is stated this:
"Some of the irregular idiosyncrasies can be heard in those folk performances recorded on 78's and piano rolls, where undoubtedly a few playing characteristics were lost(probably in the way of bass patterns), but the rag was destined to become more formalized, a disciplined form of broader and more varied expression"

That is very much true, even if the authors of this book did not study these earliest recording very meticulously. The piano rolls were no doubt where most of their specialty resided, as this is not only evidenced in the book, but also from the spoken accounts of people that once knew them well. After I read this section, all I could think of is only if I knew Trebor to talk with him about the great Rag-Time styles of Frank P. Banta and Fred Hylands, which I'm sure that he knew of them briefly, as he has been said to have at least one piece by Hylands in his vast collection of Rag-Time music, and possibly a few more. He was very much correct in the fact that those examples of recorded folk Rag-Time being mostly from those early eccentric pianists, just like Hylands for example. He may not have thought of suggesting Hylands in this spectrum of speech, as Hylands was a name that very few knew of in the time of the book's publication, which was 1978. Only less than a handful of record collectors knew of Hylands at all, or had ever mentioned his name in anything of their collecting. That was the time when anyone who ever knew who Hylands was only listed him like this on a long series of long articles about other early recording stars:
"Hylands, Frederick-Pianist"

That was it. That was all you would on him decades ago, up until rather recently. They wouldn't even say what record company(or companies!) he worked for or what he was known for! If any of you are one of those pioneer collectors who had any knowledge of Hylands before the 1990's, please make a comment on this post and share what you know with me! 
I am really on a quest now to find out where the information of Fred Hylands' role in the recording business came from, other than the issues of The Phonoscope , as I have vaguely been told that some of it came from newspapers briefly stating his line of work, and being known for it. He was presumably known for being a " phone"(as Graphophone goes that is!) studio pianist, just like Frank P. Banta, who was given the label "the celebrated pianist of Phonograph Fame"(from the front cover of Banta's own "Ragged William"). Since Banta was given that title by 1899, that would mean that Hylands would get a similar one, whatever it happened to be, a little bit before that. 

Please help me find the origins of Hylands' recognition as a studio pianist from sources other than The Phonoscope! All comments read clearly and will be replied to quick! 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

J. W. Myers, and other things

There he is, J. W. Myers. 

He is some fascination when it comes to the earliest of the early recording artists, as he was not born in the United States, and probably spoke only Welsh before he came to the US in his teen's. Hmm, thinking of him speaking Welsh is an interesting thing to picture. The language is hard to read for an English speaker though... 

From the picture above, I am not sure if Myers was tall, but I have the feeling that he wasn't Roger Harding short, nor was he Len Spencer tall. It was really his whiskers that were his main feature, paired with those thick eyebrows, well, that's J. W. Myers alright. From what I have heard, Myers worked at several jobs before he decided to leave all that behind him, and what those jobs were, I  would like to know. It took him years to realize what he really wanted to do, and whatever job he worked at in the mid-1880's, the fellow workers must have noticed his sweet voice, if he was experimenting there with his talent. 

By 1888, he was on the stages of New York, performing all kinds of songs, from light opera(like Gilbert and Sullivan), to comic songs(like "Down Went McGinty" from 1889). By 1891, he was in the recording studio, with the few regulars like Len Spencer, Billy Golden, George Schweinfest, and George Gaskin. And those names listed were about it when it came to who was making all the popular records in 1891. By 1892, even more artists we know came on the scene, like Russell Hunting and Silas Leachman. 

Back to Myers, I know I am repeating myself as my posts go, but he's still slightly a mysterious character in the early recording business, as his birthdate and death date are both estimated, wherever you will go to try to find him, they will be unknown. It's likely that his exact birthdate and death date will never be known, because he did a pretty good job of completely disappearing after 1910. But come to think of it, I think Myers might have been older than Jim Walsh estimated(which was 1864), just from the fact that he started in the business very early, and most of the earliest artists were older than say 1867(minus those like Len Spencer, Ossman, or Fred Gaisberg). With Myers, I am thinking he was born more around 1860 than 1864, as if he was born in '64, it would make him 26-27 when he began making records in 1891. That idea does not really make the most sense to me for some reason, I know that Hylands was 25 when Columbia hired him, but Myers had been working at several other jobs before that, for at least ten or twelve years in the time prior to 1891. So somehow, the logic that goes into that doesn't go with me very well. To add to this theory, all sources you find out there will say that Myers died in 1919, though, I have been told by other collectors personally that Myers died in 1917, probably back in Wales. Hmm. I really don't know who to believe on that matter, as it's a hard one to track down. Since his death date is unknown, Myers probably moved back to Wales around 1914, as there was no work for him any longer in the US. Whatever happened to him, his friends must have heard something about it, and Myers must have heard of his dear Fred Hylands' death back in late-1913, if he was still living in the US that is. 

Now to go on a little bit of a tangent, I would like to bring back this picture into consideration:

Yes, that picture. 

The reason I would like to mention it once again is because of the fact that I now know who two more of the people in the picture are, for sure. 

So we know Fred Hylands is at the piano, now that man right below him up against the piano is George P. Watson, that small man standing on what looks to be books is Whistler John Yorke Atlee(who would have been 56 when this picture was taken!), I'm still not sure who that man with his hands behind his back is, and the other two we know are Harry Spencer and Russell Hunting. I had to really think a while to find that the short man in the center is John Yorke Atlee, but I remembered what Fred Gaisberg recalled him as, which went a little something like this:
"even with his boy-like stature, at just five feet tall in his shoes, he was proud of his flowing moustache."

Hehe, that's always funny to me, Gaisberg always had the funniest ways of describing the people he worked with. But according to that, and the photograph, that's about right. I thought the man left of Atlee was Watson because of the hair, and overall physique, it's for sure yodeler Watson. 

Just to get some music on this post, here are a few Atlee cylinders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lscCCQDA2z0

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/9000/9836/cusb-cyl9836d.mp3

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/8000/8106/cusb-cyl8106d.mp3

I hope you enjoyed this!