jukebox stuffers
Mar. 29th, 2006 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
A small sampling of links from archive.org -- almost all of these are from artists who have a bunch more swell cuts to offer. Note: they're alphabetized by their first names. They may also be in by their surnames as well. My mind ain't telling. Here's some of my early favorites of the more than 500 that I am currently packing in my mp3 player:
Billy Jones and Ernie Hare were called "The Interwoven Pair" on radio when they were sponsored by a certain sock manufacturer. Before that they were The Happiness Boys. Here they are in 1923, passing out tuneful misinformation in Old King Tut. He ruled for many years! This may be my favorite side to listen to, but it's early days yet.
Benny Bell recorded a lot of sides, and many of them are here. "My Fanny" and "Shaving Cream" I heard on Doctor Demento, and have managed to obtain for myself. His delivery is impeccable; im-peck-AY-bul! I'll probably just keep finding things he did that I like, but for now I offer you Why Buy a Cow When Milk Is Cheap? And note that the archives have a lot of double-entendre party records. They're awesome!
There was a version of this on KCOL in the 60s, but here's the original, with the composer conducting: Arthur Pryor and His Band with The Whistler and His Dog. I also play this on the piano.
After I've listened to what I have for a while, I'll dive back into the archive and probably double my holdings. Just looking at the titles in the "Collected Works of..." sections has reaped a bounty of swellness. I think this one was right out on the main level, and the title caught my eye. Here's Arthur Collins and Albert Campbell and lots of showmanship with That Mysterious Rag.
Of course, this one was irresistible. I thought I knew what it was, but I was wrong! Pleasantly surprised anyway, by Al Dollar and his Ten Cent Band (with Billy Murray) doing Popeye the Sailor Man. Arf arf!
How my eyes lit up when I saw this one, which I have had for years on an LP of great show business acts. Harken to the sad story Al Jolson tells of "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life."
Fans of Danny Elfman's first movie, Forbidden Zone, will recognize this one. It's a rouser by Frank Harris called Yiddisha Charleston. In the movie, it's lip-synched by Danny's brother Richard, who was the writer and director. A man of many hats... er, doibies!
If you saw Topsy Turvy, you probably know that George Grossmith was Gilbert & Sullivan's original Ko-Ko, as well as the original Alchemist, and others. He was still at it in 1918, and either was a big influence on Hans Conried, or was squarely within a tradition that Conried carried on quite ably. To my mind, this is an example of topical humor that's still pretty good: Murders! 'Twas very kindly meant...
Another longtime favorite from the aforementioned LP is George M. Cohan in a philosophical frame of mind: Life's a ver-y funny prop-o-zee-shun, after all! (We're born, and then we live a while; then die.)
And one more, for now, the result of sheer serendipity: George O'Connor and the musical tale of Gasoline Gus and his Jitney Bus.
Wait! I almost forgot. Just over 30 years ago, I was at an unpretentious college museum in South Dakota. There was a cylinder player. I asked if it worked, and they said they didn't know. So I asked if I could find out, and they decided I could. I listened to a little bit of a Sousa march (archive.org has plenty of those, with Sousa conducting his band -- and at least one waltz), then decided to investigate an apparent comedy piece. Much as with James Thurber's prized copy of "Cohen at the Telephone," this had been listened to death! I had to keep a finger gently pressing the needle forward, or it would have stayed in the same place. Yes, anybody who's heard me tell this story repeatedly knows what's coming -- it's Cal Stewart laughing at himself in Uncle Josh at the Bug House -- the 1919 version. There's also a 1907 version, which isn't much different. Yeah, I've listened to both of them. This was a popular act. There are dozens of cuts in the archive, and more cylinders at the big cylinder trove mentioned in an earlier posting. There's at least one book -- which I've seen online somewhere -- and there are silent movies of Uncle Josh to be found at the Library of Congress's "American Memory" page. Colorado has a real town named Punkin Center, presumably named after the locale of Uncle Josh's stories. So listen, and be amazed at what amused our primitive forebears. In the words of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geckoman, "It was a simpler, more natural time."
Okay, that's probably more than anybody will ever listen to. But this stuff is dynamite! And it's just a sampling! I didn't get beyond "G"! More to come, if I can find the stren'th.
.
A small sampling of links from archive.org -- almost all of these are from artists who have a bunch more swell cuts to offer. Note: they're alphabetized by their first names. They may also be in by their surnames as well. My mind ain't telling. Here's some of my early favorites of the more than 500 that I am currently packing in my mp3 player:
Billy Jones and Ernie Hare were called "The Interwoven Pair" on radio when they were sponsored by a certain sock manufacturer. Before that they were The Happiness Boys. Here they are in 1923, passing out tuneful misinformation in Old King Tut. He ruled for many years! This may be my favorite side to listen to, but it's early days yet.
Benny Bell recorded a lot of sides, and many of them are here. "My Fanny" and "Shaving Cream" I heard on Doctor Demento, and have managed to obtain for myself. His delivery is impeccable; im-peck-AY-bul! I'll probably just keep finding things he did that I like, but for now I offer you Why Buy a Cow When Milk Is Cheap? And note that the archives have a lot of double-entendre party records. They're awesome!
There was a version of this on KCOL in the 60s, but here's the original, with the composer conducting: Arthur Pryor and His Band with The Whistler and His Dog. I also play this on the piano.
After I've listened to what I have for a while, I'll dive back into the archive and probably double my holdings. Just looking at the titles in the "Collected Works of..." sections has reaped a bounty of swellness. I think this one was right out on the main level, and the title caught my eye. Here's Arthur Collins and Albert Campbell and lots of showmanship with That Mysterious Rag.
Of course, this one was irresistible. I thought I knew what it was, but I was wrong! Pleasantly surprised anyway, by Al Dollar and his Ten Cent Band (with Billy Murray) doing Popeye the Sailor Man. Arf arf!
How my eyes lit up when I saw this one, which I have had for years on an LP of great show business acts. Harken to the sad story Al Jolson tells of "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life."
Fans of Danny Elfman's first movie, Forbidden Zone, will recognize this one. It's a rouser by Frank Harris called Yiddisha Charleston. In the movie, it's lip-synched by Danny's brother Richard, who was the writer and director. A man of many hats... er, doibies!
If you saw Topsy Turvy, you probably know that George Grossmith was Gilbert & Sullivan's original Ko-Ko, as well as the original Alchemist, and others. He was still at it in 1918, and either was a big influence on Hans Conried, or was squarely within a tradition that Conried carried on quite ably. To my mind, this is an example of topical humor that's still pretty good: Murders! 'Twas very kindly meant...
Another longtime favorite from the aforementioned LP is George M. Cohan in a philosophical frame of mind: Life's a ver-y funny prop-o-zee-shun, after all! (We're born, and then we live a while; then die.)
And one more, for now, the result of sheer serendipity: George O'Connor and the musical tale of Gasoline Gus and his Jitney Bus.
Wait! I almost forgot. Just over 30 years ago, I was at an unpretentious college museum in South Dakota. There was a cylinder player. I asked if it worked, and they said they didn't know. So I asked if I could find out, and they decided I could. I listened to a little bit of a Sousa march (archive.org has plenty of those, with Sousa conducting his band -- and at least one waltz), then decided to investigate an apparent comedy piece. Much as with James Thurber's prized copy of "Cohen at the Telephone," this had been listened to death! I had to keep a finger gently pressing the needle forward, or it would have stayed in the same place. Yes, anybody who's heard me tell this story repeatedly knows what's coming -- it's Cal Stewart laughing at himself in Uncle Josh at the Bug House -- the 1919 version. There's also a 1907 version, which isn't much different. Yeah, I've listened to both of them. This was a popular act. There are dozens of cuts in the archive, and more cylinders at the big cylinder trove mentioned in an earlier posting. There's at least one book -- which I've seen online somewhere -- and there are silent movies of Uncle Josh to be found at the Library of Congress's "American Memory" page. Colorado has a real town named Punkin Center, presumably named after the locale of Uncle Josh's stories. So listen, and be amazed at what amused our primitive forebears. In the words of
geckoman, "It was a simpler, more natural time."Okay, that's probably more than anybody will ever listen to. But this stuff is dynamite! And it's just a sampling! I didn't get beyond "G"! More to come, if I can find the stren'th.
.
