Starr Piano Co. | Old Time Blues

For your listening pleasure, after a brief and unintentional hiatus, I offer this fine folk record on this nice Gennett Supertone by WLS artist Chubby Parker.

Frederick R. “Chubby” Parker, born in 1876, was a Chicago-based banjo player and folk singer popular on the National Barn Dance on WLS radio in the 1920s, which was a precursor to the famous Grand Ole Opry. Parker was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and graduated from Purdue in 1898 as an electrical engineer. He reportedly worked as a circus performer, and later as an electrician, patent attorney, and inventor in Chicago before turning to radio. Parker became a very popular performer on WLS and allegedly received almost 3,000 fan letters in one week in February 1927. He left radio and recording after 1931, with one final appearance on WLS in 1936. He died in 1940.

Supertone 9188 was recorded on February 26, 1927 (perhaps the same week he got all those letters) in Chicago, Illinois, recorded by the Starr Piano Company, producers of Gennett Records. Radio station WLS (an acronym for “World’s Largest Store”) was owned by Sears, Roebuck & Company, and they were eager to market records by their popular radio artists on their record labels such as Silvertone and this Supertone.

Parker’s “I’m a Stern Old Bachelor” is probably the first recording of this folk song, but I can’t guarantee it, and I haven’t researched it in depth.

I’m a Stern Old Bachelor, recorded February 26, 1927.

Parker’s excellent “Bib-a-Lollie-Boo” has the distinction of being featured on Dust-to-Digital’s fine multimedia set “I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces”, and features some gems of lyrics that can be found in the little widget that displays song lyrics at the top of the home page of this site.

Bib-A-Lollie-Boo, recorded February 26, 1927 by Chubby Parker.

Updated with improved audio on June 10, 2017.

This record, featuring two guitar-accompanied popular songs by one Happy Joe Hill, was recorded by the Starr Piano Company quite late in their history, at a point when the Great Depression had all but killed off sales completely. The Superior label was introduced by Starr Piano around the time their Gennett label disappeared from the market. With the Great Depression only getting worse as time passed, all the record companies were in bad shape financially, the Starr Piano Company especially so, and as such, Superior records aren’t very commonly encountered.

Happy Joe Hill—per George Kay’s Superior Catalog published in Record Research—was a pseudonym for Harold J. Leslie. Leslie recorded four titles for the Starr Piano Company in 1932, consisting of “‘Leven Pounds of Heaven” and “I Wanna Count Sheep (Till the Cows Come Home)”, issued on Superior 2803 and Champion 16404, and “Rhymes” and “I Could Expect it From Anyone but You”, issued on Superior 2815 and Champion 16413. His releases on the Champion label were credited as Jack Leslie. With a single guitar backing lending to a more rural, folksy feel, his songs differ a bit from most of the standard pop fare of the period, and make for fairly interesting listening. Compare to Charlie Palloy’s solo recordings for Crown records in 1933, at a time when that company was near its end. Whether or not he intentionally borrowed his performing name from the union agitator of the same name I do not know. Outside of his brief recording career, I can find no details regarding Leslie’s life, professional or private. If anyone out there has any information regarding “Happy Joe Hill”, please comment, I’d love to know.

Superior 2815 was recorded in March of 1932 by Happy Joe Hill, accompanied by guitar, likely his own. Unless I’m misinterpreting the data in Kay’s Superior Catalog, it shipped out a total of only forty-two copies!

The first side of this record features Happy Joe’s very polite and sincere rendition of Leslie Sarony’s “Rhymes”, with somewhat Americanized lyrics. I’ll eventually post the version by Jack Hylton’s Orchestra here too, so you can compare.

Rhymes, recorded March 1932 by Happy Joe Hill.

On the flip, and with a bit more background noise, Hill performs “I Could Expect it From Anyone But You”, written by Al Hoffman, Al Goodhart, and Ed Nelson and published by DeSylva, Brown and Henderson. Composer Al Hoffman sued or at least threatened to sue the BMI in 1946 over similarities between this song and the pop hit “Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside)”—and rightly so, the latter song “borrowed” close to the entire melody of this 1932 flop.

I Could Expect it From Anyone Else But You, recorded March 1932 by Happy Joe Hill

Updated on June 15, 2017 and with improved audio on June 21, 2017.

Tag Archives: Starr Piano Co.

Supertone 9188 – Chubby Parker – 1927

Superior 2815 – Happy Joe Hill – 1932