Montgomery Ward M-4225 – The Carter Family – 1932/1928

Posted on July 21, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

With all due apologies for Old Time Blues unintended ten day hiatus, we hope now to return to regular posting. And what better a note to return on than these great classics by the one and only Carter Family, in honor of Sara Carter, born on this day 118 years ago.

Sara Elizabeth Dougherty was born in Copper Creek, Virginia on July 21, 1898 to William and Nancy Dougherty. In 1915, she married Alvin Pleasant (A.P.) Carter, with whom she had three children, Gladys, Janette, and Joe. In the 1920s, Sara began performing traditional folk songs with her husband and cousin Maybelle as the Carter Family. In August of 1927, they came to Bristol, Tennessee to record for the first time in a series of sessions organized by Ralph S. Peer for the Victor Talking Machine Company. At the Bristol Sessions, the Carter Family recorded six sides, four on the first and two on the second of August. Their first record, “Poor Orphan Child” and “The Wandering Boy” was issued on Victor 20877 in December of 1927, with considerable success, and their second, “Single Girl, Married Girl” and “The Storms are On the Ocean” on Victor 20937, found even greater popularity. In May of 1928, they ventured to Victor’s facilities in Camden, New Jersey for another session, with many more coming thereafter. As the group reached their peak, Sara’s powerful singing—initially quite high, and later maturing into the deep, low voice for which she was known—provided a heart and soul to their music, perfectly complimented by Maybelle’s guitar playing.

In 1932, the Carters experienced marital strife, when Sara began having an affair with her A.P.’s cousin Coy Bayes while her husband was away on one of his many long trips to “discover” new material for the family, separating him from Sara for weeks or months at a time. They divorced in 1936, but the original Carter Family stuck together until 1943, after which Sara married A.P.’s cousin and moved to California, where she retired from music. A.P., Maybelle, and the kids returned home to Maces Spring, Virginia, where he opened a store, and she continued to pursue a musical career. Sara later made a small comeback during the folk revival of the 1960s with Maybelle, but she never regained what she had in the old days, and indeed she probably never wanted to. Sara Carter died in California at the age of 80 on January 8, 1979.

Montgomery Ward M-4225 was recorded in two separate sessions, the first on May 9, 1928, and the second on October 14, 1932, both in Camden, New Jersey. The trio sings while Sara plays autoharp and Maybelle plays guitar. They were originally issued on Victor 21434 and 23776. This Montgomery Ward issue was pressed from the original masters.

The Carter Family’s classic rendition of the old standard “Keep On the Sunny Side” could be compared to Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel” as a song that became indelibly associated with them, serving as their theme song when they performed on border blaster radio, and later inscribed as the epitaph on both Sara and A.P. Carter’s gravestones. Also like Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel”, it was recorded at the Carters’ first session after the Bristol Sessions.

Keep On the Sunny Side, recorded May 9, 1928 by the Carter Family.

“The Church in the Wildwood” is a song that I recollect fondly from my own childhood, and unsurprisingly the Carters’ rendition is a pleasure to hear. Fittingly, this side was recorded in Victor’s Camden, New Jersey church studio.

The Church in the Wildwood, recorded October 14, 1932 by the Carter Family.

Updated on June 1, 2018.

Victor 16777 – Sousa’s Band – 1912/1920

Posted on July 4, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

An early edition sheet music to “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, dating to 1897.

On the Fourth of July, we celebrate the United States’ Declaration of Independence from England. This year’s Independence Day is a particularly important one, being the United States’ 240th. As such, it would only be appropriate to celebrate with patriotic music by America’s March King, John Philip Sousa.

This year, Old Time Blues celebrates with John Philip Sousa’s own band playing a patriotic serenade. However, Sousa himself, who was well known for his distaste for “canned music” does not direct his band on this record. Instead, his protégé Arthur Pryor directs on the first side, and Victor’s musical director Josef Pasternack does so on the other. We also previously posted Sousa’s final composition, the 1932 “Century of Progress March”, written for the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Records like this are sometimes hard to date, as Victor had a tendency to record multiple takes over the course of several years (or decades), all on the same matrix and catalog numbers. These appear to be takes 16 and 3, respectively. That would indicate that the “A” side was recorded on December 13, 1912, and the “B” side was recorded on November 9, 1920, both in Camden, New Jersey. The record was originally issued in November of 1910, and was cut from the catalog in October of 1926, when an Orthophonic version was released on Victor 20132, which remained in the catalog for an astounding thirty years.

First, Sousa’s Band plays his great 1897 composition, the “Stars and Stripes Forever March”.

Stars and Stripes Forever March, recorded December 13, 1912 by Sousa’s Band.

On the flip, it’s Sousa’s “Fairest of the Fair March”, composed in 1908 for the Boston Food Fair.

Fairest of the Fair, recorded November 9, 1920 by Sousa’s Band.

Victor 20293 & 20507 – Five Harmaniacs – 1926/1927

Posted on June 28, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Styling themselves as cowboys, the Five Harmaniacs were a novelty jug band that had a short-lived but apparently successful run on vaudeville in the middle part of the 1920s. During that run, they also made a series of recordings for a number of companies in 1926 and ’27. The group cut their first side, titled “Harmaniac Blues”, in Chicago for Paramount in June of ’26 as the Harmaniac Five. They followed with four sides for Victor, two for Brunswick, two for Edison, and one for Gennett, all of them recorded in New York. They also made radio appearances across the United States.

There is conflicting information surrounding the identities of the members of the Five Harmaniacs. Brian Rust lists Claude Shugart as the jug and washboard player, Jerry Adams on comb, Percy Stoner on kazoo and banjo, with Wade Hampton Durand, Walter Howard, and Ned Nestor filling out the rest of the band, each taking some part on banjo, guitar, harmonica, and ukulele. The 1978 LP release The Five Harmaniacs – 1926-27 (Puritan 3004) lists an entirely different personnel including Syd Newman on harmonica, kazoo, and washboard, Dave Robertson on harmonica and washboard, Roy King on banjo, ukulele, and jug, Jerry Adams on comb, Walter Howard on guitar, and Claude Shugart on ukulele. Claude Shugart is incorrectly identified in some sources as Clyde, and Wade Durand (incorrectly) as Wayne. The Mainspring Press asserts that “the usual members of this group were Jerry Adams, Hampton Durand, Walter Howard, Ned Nestor, Clyde Shugart, and Percy Stoner,” with that information apparently recorded in Brunswick ledgers from their session with that company.

C. Shugart is listed as the vocalist on the label of “Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans”, confirming his presence in the Harmaniacs. He may have also played kazoo and possibly banjo. Rust’s identification of Shugart as playing jug is likely incorrect, as jug can be heard during his vocal on “Sadie Green”. It is also certain that Walter Howard was the vocalist on “What Makes My Baby Cry?”, and surviving evidence indicates that he played the guitar as well. With Jerry Adams listed on comb in both sources, he most likely did in fact fill that role, and may have doubled on banjo. It would not have been uncommon in this type of band for each member to have played more than one instrument, and they may have switched back and forth periodically. As all sources confirm Howard, Shugart, and Adams as members, there is little evidence to cast doubt on their presence, but the identities of the other members are unconfirmed, at least in my research.

Walter Howard was born in 1897 and hailed from Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. His brother Edgar, who played banjo, was also a musician of some merit. Wade Hampton Durand was born in Indiana in 1877, and was working in music as early as the turn of the century. In 1918, he worked as a musical director in Los Angeles, and by 1940, he was an arranger in New York, living in a hotel that played host to a host of other musicians. Durand died in 1964. While Durand is confirmed as the co-composer of “Coney Island Washboard” and “Sleepy Blues”, his instrumental role in the Harmaniacs, if any, is uncertain. It has also been posited that Jerry Adams real name was Harold Whitacre.

The two discs, four sides, featured in this post account for the Five Harmaniacs’ full recorded output for the Victor Talking Machine Company.

Victor 20293 was recorded September 17, 1926 in New York City. C. Shugart (be it Clyde or Claude) provides the vocals on pop hit “Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans”.

Sadie Green Vamp of New Orleans, recorded September 17, 1926 by the Five Harmaniacs.

On the other side, they play the first ever recording of the now classic “Coney Island Washboard”, composed by Durand and Adams, with words by Shugart and Ned Nestor, as an instrumental.

Coney Island Washboard, recorded September 17, 1926 by the Five Harmaniacs.

The Harmaniacs returned to the Victor studio five months later and recorded Victor 20507 on February 5, 1927. Walter Howard recites the vocal on the rollicking “What Makes My Baby Cry?”.

What Makes My Baby Cry?, recorded February 8, 1927 by the Five Harmaniacs.

On the flip, they back it up with the little bit bluer sounding instrumental “It Takes a Good Woman (To Keep a Good Man at Home)”.

It Takes a Good Woman (To Keep a Good Man at Home), recorded February 8, 1927 by the Five Harmaniacs.

Updated on December 1, 2016, June 24, 2017, and April 29, 2018.

Victor 24193 – Leo Reisman and his Orchestra – 1932

Posted on May 10, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

How could we overlook the great Fred Astaire on his own 117th birthday? (We couldn’t.) Here’s one of his early phonograph recordings to celebrate the occasion.

Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska. His family moved to New York in 1905, and his mother encouraged his older sister Adele’s and his own natural dancing talents, hoping to have them become a brother and sister vaudeville act. Changing their name to Astaire, they did, and began appearing in musical theater as a dancing duo in the 1910s, singing all along the way. After a string of successful shows on Broadway and in London, including Lady Be Good and Funny Face, Fred and Adele broke up the pair after she married. Fred’s first show separate from his sister was Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce in 1932. Soon after, Astaire headed off to Hollywood, where the results of his RKO screen test was reported to have said, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.” Nevertheless, David O. Selznick signed Astaire to RKO Radio Pictures in spite of his “enormous ears and bad chin line.” Astaire’s first picture role was in the 1933 Joan Crawford and Clark Gable vehicle Dancing Lady, in which he played “Fred Astaire”. Not long after, Fred was teamed up with budding starlet Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio, the first of nine films in which the pair would appear. From then on out, Astaire appeared in numerous films with a variety of partners, and eventually started into straight acting (and a couple retirements, in between). Fred Astaire died in 1987 at the age of 88.

Victor 24193 was recorded November 22, 1932 in Victor’s Studio 1 in New York, New York, by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra featuring Fred Astaire singing the vocals on both sides. Both sides feature songs from Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce. This record was recorded using RCA Victor’s early 1930s microphone system, producing astounding fidelity.

First, Fred Astaire sings Cole Porter’s famous “Night and Day”. You may notice Astaire’s voice crack a little on one line in this one.

Night and Day, recorded November 22, 1932 by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra.

On the reverse, Astaire sings “I’ve Got You On My Mind”. Just listen to that high fidelity!

I’ve Got You On My Mind, recorded November 22, 1932 by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra.

Victor V-38068 – Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders – 1929

Posted on April 20, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Lionel Hampton. From Esquire's Jazz Book, 1944.

Lionel Hampton, sweat pouring down his chest. From Esquire’s Jazz Book, 1944.

Today we celebrate the birthday of vibraphonist and drummer Lionel Hampton with one of his earliest records. From his time with Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders in Hollywood, these are the first two sides are from Hamp’s second session, and his first issued.

Lionel Hampton was born on April 20, 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and spent his childhood first in Kenosha, Wisconsin, then in Chicago. As a teenager in Chicago, Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand, and played drum at the Holy Rosary Academy. He began his musical career with the Chicago Defender Newsboys’ Band, and moved to California in the late 1920s. Around 1929, Hamp joined Paul Howard’s territory band playing drums, with whom he stayed until the band broke up in 1930. From Howard’s band, he was picked up by Les Hite, who led a band fronted at one point by Louis Armstrong during his tenure at Sebastian’s New Cotton Club in L.A. With Armstrong, Hampton is credited with playing the first vibraphone in a popular song on record, in “Memories of You”. After studying music at the University of South California, Hampton formed his own band in the mid-1930s, and played with Benny Goodman on the side. Hampton continued to play and lead bands for many years, slowing down in his old age, and died of congestive heart failure in 2001, at the age of 94.

Victor V-38068 was recorded April 28, 1929 in Culver City, California, the first issued record by Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders. The Quality Serenaders consist of George Orendorff on trumpet, Lawrence Brown on trombone, Charlie Lawrence on alto sax and clarinet, Paul Howard on tenor sax, Harvey Brooks on piano, “Kid” Thomas Valentine on banjo, James Jackson on tuba, and the young Lionel Hampton on drums.

First up is “Moonlight Blues”. Lionel Hampton sings the scat vocal on this side, called “novelty effects” on the label.