The series involves the production and distribution
of multimedia compact discs containing early (public domain) sound recordings,
interviews, textual commentary, and related visual material (photos, art
objects, etc.). The CDs are intended to function as learning resources
for various academic disciplines and reference tools for libraries, archives,
and learning resources in high schools, junior colleges and universities.
Each CD will be developed around an academic theme. The first issue,
entitled Early 20th Century U.S. Historical Themes [equipment
required: standard CD player], was issued in September 2001.
Early Twentieth Century American Historical Themes As Reflected In Popular
Songs Of The Time
Introduction
It could be said that Americans have been so busy
with the business of nation building that they have been disinclined to
reflect on the implications of their collective efforts. Defining
the philosophical foundations for study; uncovering, assessing, and preserving
vital documentation; ascertaining the causal and effect of watershed events
of the American experience—these are largely the domain of the professional
historian. Despite the enviable record of scholarship produced by
historian, the richness and complexity of this story can present a confusing
picture to the beginning student of history. However, the application
of popular culture resources—for example, the popular songs of a given
time period, organized here within the framework of topical motifs—can
greatly enhance the process of teaching American history. This compact
disc is the first in a projected series of learning tools aimed at supplementing
the instructional methods presently employed by educators in a wide range
of academic disciplines. The discs will attempt to combine written
language, audio, still and motion pictures, and Internet hyperlinks—in
short, an integrated multimedia approach—to provide a popular culture perspective
on traditional subject matter.
Song Selections—With Commentary
Commuting and the Rise of Suburbia
[1] American Quartet – On The 5:15 (Victor
17704-A, 1915)
Large cities, particularly on the Eastern seaboard,
were already experiencing suburban sprawl shortly after the turn of the
twentieth century. As humorously depicted in this song, suburban
dwellers commuting to jobs in the inner city found new threats to their
domestic tranquility.
The Dance Era
[2] Billy Murray – That Tango Tokio (Edison
Blue Amberol 2026, 1913)
Spurred first by ragtime and, during the post-World
War I era, jazz music, America became obsessed by a steady succession of
new dance steps. A sampling of the period material in this vein included:
-
Charleston
-
The Cubanola Glide
-
Doin’ the Raccoon
-
Everybody Two-Step
-
The Gaby Glide
-
The Grizzly Bear
-
The Washington Waddle
Not all dance songs extolled the virtues of a particular
step; “That Tango Tokio” provides a none-too-politically-correct commentary
on Japanese behavior. Unfortunately, this ethnic stereotyping was
also reflected in the movies, literature (e.g., the preponderance of foreigners
cast as villains in juvenile series books), and political sloganeering
of the era.
Immigration
[3] Nora Bayes – The Argentines, The Portuguese
And The Greeks (Columbia 2980, 1920)
In an era typified by blatant racism and ethnic
stereotyping, this recording offers a sly defense of America’s melting
pot. Married to Tin Pan Alley songsmith Jack Norworth, Bayes became
a Broadway star following her debut in 1901. The song’s celebration
of the commonality of all Americans is also addressed in the following
excerpt from a May 21, 1944 speech by U.S. Court of Appeals judge Learned
Hand honoring “I Am An American Day”:
We have gathered here to affirm
a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common
devotion. Some of us have
chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those
who did the same. For this
reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group
of those who had the courage
to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a
strange land. What was
the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice?
We
sought liberty; freedom from
oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves.
Inventions and Technology
--Airplane Travel
[4] Blanche Ring – Come Josephine, In My
Flying Machine (Victor 60032, 1911)
This song was recorded less than a decade following
the Wright Brothers’ flights at Kitty Hawk, when airplanes were still a
barnstorming novelty. Ring, a Broadway star from 1902 to 1938, effectively
communicates the exhilaration—and fear—associated with a short flight in
those days. Although not employing the greatest of melodies, the
song has become a classic due to its charmingly romantic evocation of a
bygone age.
--Automobiles
[5] Billy Murray – In My Merry Oldsmobile
(Victor
4467, 1906)
Murray recorded this hugely popular song for virtually
every American record label in existence. It was one of the first
popular tunes to extol the romance of the open road.
[6] William J. Halley – He’d Have To Get
Under, Get Out And Get Under (To Fix Up His Automobile) (Columbia,
1914)
“He’d Have To Get Under” provides a considerably
less attractive picture of the early days of motorized transportation when
roads were largely unpaved, professional mechanics were hard to find, and
drivers enjoyed little protection from the elements. Halley was allegedly
the only recording star to go on to become a state legislator and judge.
[7] Billy Murray – The Little Ford Rambled
Right Along (Victor 17755-A, 1915)
A product of Henry Ford’s assembly line innovations,
the Model T made the car affordable to ordinary citizens. Murray
provides a light-hearted inventory of the Tin Lizzie’s positive attributes.
Due to its timeless word gags, novelty deejay Dr. Demento considers one
of the few pre-World War I songs likely to resonate with contemporary listeners.
A portion of the final chorus serves as a case in point:
Now cut that out you naught tease.
‘Tis a left hand drive and a
right hand squeeze,
Patch it up with a piece of string.
Spearmint gum or any old thing,
When the power gets sick just hit it with a brick.
And the little Ford will ramble right along.
--Movies
[8] Billy Murray – Take Your Girlie To
The Movies (If You Can’t Make Love At Home) (Victor 18592-A, 1919)
As humorously illustrated by Murray, the movie house
quickly became a popular setting for the courtship ritual. Includes
many references to screen stars and social mores of that era.
[9] Billy Murray – Ever Since The Movies
Learned To Talk (Velvet Tone 1784-V, 1928)
Although best known as a specialist in musical comedy,
Murray plays it relatively straight here. The result is something
of an editorial commentary on the social impact of the introduction of
sound to the cinema (which first appeared in the 1927 feature release,
The
Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson).
--The Phonograph
[10] Billy Murray – They Start The Victrola
(And Go Dancing Around The Floor) (Victor 17613-A, 1914)
Relatively cheap, portable and possessing excellent
sound quality, the Victrola represented a quantum leap over competing record
players of that period. As noted by Murray, the Victrola also revolutionized
home entertainment. The parlor piano would never again dominate domestic
social activities during much of the nineteenth century.
The Minstrel Tradition/Old South Nostalgia
[11] Billy Murray with chorus – Are You
From Dixie? (Edison Diamond Disc 50357-L, 1915)
Beginning in the 1830s, the Minstrel Show became
a major force in the entertainment world. Pop music composers continued
to pen material in this style (e.g., coon songs, southern anthems) long
after vaudeville had displaced minstrelsy as the leading theatrical medium
across the nation.
Prohibition
[12] Billy Murray – Alcoholic Blues (Victor
18522-A, 1919)
Murray’s talent for musical characterization has
rarely been better than on this lament. The tune also includes numerous
jazz-age touches (e.g., trombone smears).
[13] Bert Williams – Everybody Wants A
Key To My Cellar (Columbia 2750, 1919)
This song reflects the widespread practice of producing
homemade liquor once Prohibition was implemented. As is implied by
the lyrics, the Prohibition was never popular with a large segment of the
American populace and, therefore, had the unfortunate effect of encouraging
black market transactions and a general disrespect for the legal system.
Williams was criticized in his time for helping
to perpetuate certain African American stereotypes; he was nevertheless
the first of his race to become a Broadway headliner. He and partner
George Walker debuted in that venue in 1896, remaining a popular comedy
team until the latter’s death in 1910. Williams continued to work
in vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies (191001918), and as a bestselling recording
artist.
Rural Life vs. Rising Urbanization
[14] Billy Murray – He’s A Devil In His
Own Home Town (Victor 17576-A, 1914)
Murray, like many singers from the early decades
of the twentieth century, recorded much material depicting the distrust
of rural folk for city ways (in one song, “Sally Green the Village Vamp,”
this is reflected by references to Paris fashions, short hair for women,
and a taste for liquor). “He’s A Devil” takes a different approach,
offering a tongue-in-cheek portrait of an aging small town dandy.
Suffrage
[15] Billy Murray – Your Mother’s Gone
Away To Join The Army (Victor 17506-B, 1913)
By the second decade of the twentieth century, the
women’s rights movement was in full swing and winning new mainstream supporters
daily. Along with voting rights, the opportunity to engage in activities
and professions formerly limited to males constituted a primary aim of
the movement.
[16] Billy Murray – Can You Tame Wild Wimmen?
(Edison
Diamond Disc 50517-R, 1919)
Murray offers a humorous slant, albeit politically
incorrect, on the defensive stance adopted by many males of the era when
faced with the more militant posturing of women’s rights advocates.
The overall outrageousness of the piece is enhanced by clever sound effects
that evoke a carny, sideshow atmosphere.
World War I
--Popular Opposition
[17] Ian Whitcomb – The War In Snider’s
Grocery Store (ITW, 1992; song composition copyrighted 1914)
Whitcomb began his performing career as a British
Invasion rock star in the mid-1960s, prior to channeling his energies into
the reinvention of a classic vocal ragtime style. “The War In Snider’s
Grocery Store” is a comic allegory for the war with various foodstuffs
representing the principal combatants. A portion of the chorus reads
as follows:
A Bismarck herring by itself
Was pushing all the French peas
off the shelf,
An Irish potato started to cry,
When a Spanish onion hit its
eye…
The satirical bite typifying this song was not calculated
to strike a chord with the average American; however, its high quality—from
the standpoints of both literary invention and song craft—assured a modicum
of commercial success. The concluding sentence of a speech by Nebraska
Senator George Norris—delivered April 4, 1917—two days after President
Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war—was more likely
find a receptive audience from Americans harboring isolationist and pacifistic
feelings on the eve of their nation’s entry into World War I.
By our act we will make
millions of our countrymen suffer, and the consequences of it may well
be that
millions of out brethren
must shed their lifeblood, millions of broken-hearted women must weep,
millions
of children must suffer
with cold, and millions of babes must die from hunger, and all because
we want
to preserve the commercial
right of American citizens to deliver munitions of war to belligerent nations.
[18] Morton Harvey – I Didn’t Raise My
Boy To Be A Soldier (Victor 17716-A, 1915)
Ian Whitcomb considers the song to be an “excellent
[example] of how Tin Pan Alley handled World War I—treating the horror
as if it was a vaudeville play played overseas. Alfred Bryan, lyricist…had
an elastic ability for snapping from pacificism to jingoism at the drop
of a check—a true all-round Alleyman.” Melding pacificism and social
protest with mainstream sentimentality, the latter portion of the song’s
chorus says it all:
Let nations arbitrate their future
troubles,
It’s time to lay the sword and
gun away,
There’d be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
I didn’t raise my boy to be a
soldier.
Admittedly, both lyricist Alfred Bryan and composer
Al Piantadosi were consummate Tin Pan Alley creators. Bryan had a
hand in penning many other hits from that era, including “Come Josephine
in My Flying Machine” and “Peg O’ My Heart.” Piantadosi, a journeyman
piano player in saloons and vaudeville accompanist, also wrote many bestsellers,
including the ballads “That’s How I Need You” and “The Curse of an Aching
Heart” as well as ethnic novelties like “I’m a Yiddish Cowboy,” “I’m Awfully
Glad I’m Irish,” and “That Italian Rag.” There is no doubt that they
sought to reflect the mood of the moment; in this case, the public’s desire
to steer clear of the conflict brewing in far-off Europe. Bryan struck
gold again a few years later with a song reflecting America’s shift to
patriotic fervor, “When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France.”
This recording topped the bestseller lists just
as the true impact of wartime atrocities abroad—and its implications for
the domestic scene—began permeating the American consciousness. The
sinking of the Lusitania, followed by the revelation of secret German plans
to back a Mexican attack on the U.S., would soon convert the majority of
Americans from a neutral or isolationist stand to a more aggressive stance
aimed at ensuing national integrity.
--Popular Support
[19] American Quartet – Goodbye Broadway,
Hello France (Victor 18335-A, 1917)
While marches had faded in popularity from their
zenith in the latter half of the nineteenth century (a time when Sousa
compositions and recordings topped the bestselling sheet music and sound
recordings lists with great regularity), this work successfully blended
that genre with vintage barbershop quartet singing. The sentiments
expressed are that of straightforward, no-nonsense patriotism.
The recording, a top seller shortly after its release,
reflected the shift of the majority of Americans to a pro-war stance.
Its fame has been diminished somewhat by the appearance, shortly thereafter,
of the George M. Cohan-penned “Over There.” First performed at the
New York Hippodrome in late 1917, “Over There” was reportedly received
with “frenzied enthusiasm”; Cohan received a Congressional Medal of Honor
for composing it.
[20] Billy Murray – Sister Susie’s Sewing
Shirts For Soldiers (Victor 17659-A, 1915)
This song features one of the greatest performances
by that era’s most popular recording artist, easily outpacing a competing
version recorded by Al Jolson. Murray not only negotiates a minefield
of alliterative, tongue-twisting verbiage, but is genuinely funny in his
efforts at exhorting the listener to join in. The image presented
is one of the low-key contributions being made to the war effort.
Not only were the factories and businesses (engaged in support efforts
ranging from shipbuilding to the manufacture and supply of countless disposable
goods) vital to the war effort, but victory relied upon the less heralded
efforts of those on the domestic front. These efforts included the
purchase of Liberty Bonds to finance the war, planting “victory gardens”
to increase food production, conservation of food through participation
in local canning clubs, and letter writing to boost the spirit of homesick
soldiers.
[21] Billy Murray – Indianola (Victor
18474-B, 1918)
On one level this Murray vehicle can be construed
as patriotic ode to the cooperative war effort that cut across demographic
lines, uniting all Americans in pursuit of a common goal. However,
“Indianola” also perpetuates numerous examples of racial stereotyping typifying
that time period while trivializing the mindset of Native Americans in
an attempt to tape into the strongly patriotic tone of the time.
However, a speech given in 1854 by Chief Seattle (leader of six tribes
in the Pacific Northwest) in response to the federal government’s efforts
to establish Indian reservations in the region, is probably a more accurate
reflection of Native American sentiments in 1918.
If we have a common heavenly father He must be partial—for
He came to His paleface children. We never saw him. He gave
you laws but had no word for his red children whose teeming multitudes
once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No;
we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies.
There is little in common between us. [excerpt]
Legacy
[22] Al Jolson – I’ve Got My Captain Working
For Me Now (Columbia 2794, 1919)
This Irving Berlin-penned number addresses changes
in one’s station often occurring in the aftermath of the war; in this case,
role reversals ensuing from the return to civilian life. While offering
a light-hearted, albeit ironic, take on the post-war social order, the
song can be said to anticipate both the isolationist and pro-business climate
of the 1920s.
Beginning with minstrel shows and vaudeville, Jolson
conquered Broadway in 1911 and dominated the American musical for two decades
on the strength of his dramatic vocal style and onstage personal rapport
with fans. The Jazz Singer, which featured him in a singing
role, stimulated the rise of sound in films. After a decade of decline,
the 1946 motion picture, The Jolson Story, resurrected his career.
[23] Arthur Fields – How Ya Gonna Keep
‘Em Down On The Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)? (Victor 18537, 1919)
This tune expresses ex-doughboy Reuben’s serious
reservations about trading his recent experiences with wine, women and
song while on leave in Paris for the less stimulating existence back at
the country homestead. In a broader sense, the song depicts the clash
of rural and urban values that dominated the American social landscape
during the first half of the twentieth century.
A professional singer at eleven, Fields found success
in vaudeville, radio, and recording. His career peaked during U.S.
involvement in World War I; he composed as well as sung on a string of
hits based on topical themes (e.g., “Would You Rather Be a Colonel with
an Eagle on Your Shoulder or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee?”).
[24] Peerless Quartet with recitation by Billy
Murray – My Dream Of The Big Parade (Victor 20098-A, 1926)
Recorded almost a decade after the signing of the
Armistice, this piece touchingly pays tribute to the human sacrifice exacted
by the Great War. While the song’s popularity was unrelated to the
release of highly acclaimed silent film, The Big Parade, it was
often played by pit orchestras and theater organists as part of the musical
accompaniment to that feature. Murray’s superb spoken interlude represented
perhaps the last triumph in a storied recording career allegedly begun
back in 1897.
Youthful Rebellion
[25] Aileen Stanley and Billy Murray; accompanied
by Frank Banta on piano – Keep Your Skirts Down, Mary Ann (Victor
19795-A, 1925)
This satire on short hemlines remains a hoot some
eight decades later. Despite the limitations of the arrangement—vaudeville
one-liners volleyed back and forth to Banta’s incessant keyboard runs—Murray
summons up a virtuoso performance as the crabby, domineering mother driven
to distraction by “her” headstrong, flapper daughter.
Although one of the first superstars of recording
medium (pioneer recording historian Jim Walsh estimated that half of the
records sold between 1910-1920 probably included his voice in the mix),
Murray’s talents appeared passe in the face of the hot jazz-inflected arrangements
and romantic crooning popular in the mid-1920s. Hence, the unwillingness
of Victor (locked into a long-term, exclusive contract with the old-school
song belter) to spend money on elaborate studio arrangements, while teaming
him with a string of more marketable artists.
Series 2 – The Recorded Works Of Billy Murray
Introduction
The fact that there has been a steadily growing
interest in Murray’s recording career on the part of the public says a
great deal about the sheer quality of the music
itself. It is particularly noteworthy when one considers that none
of
his records have been in print since the early
1940s, when he last participated in recording sessions. With the
exception
of an track or two on LP compilations such as
the New World historical series culled from the Library of Congress
audio holdings, Murray’s music could not be found
in commercial releases prior to the advent of the compact disc
format.
Prior to the 1990s, Murray’s legacy was kept alive
by acoustic era record collectors and students of the early history of
the phonograph. They exchanged discs and cylinders as well as dubs
on open reel tape and audiocassettes. Because Murray spent much of
his professional time working inside record company studios rather than
performing in live venues, his recordings comprise the bulk of his legacy.
In this era of information overload, where even
the most private activities of celebrities are apt to become public knowledge,
individuals are amazed to find that Murray—who, according to journalist
Jim Walsh, sold more records than anyone else between 1910 and 1920—has
hardly ever received mass media coverage up to the present day. Due
in part to a desire to keep recording costs as low as possible, record
labels limited artist publicity to short profiles in sales catalogs and
trade publications. Lengthy feature stories and reviews tended to
cover the more successful stage artists such as Caruso and Jolson.
Popular music recording artists generally accepted this state of affairs
without protest (or simply turned to other occupations as when Silas Leachman
opted in 1902 to stay in Chicago as a postal worker rather than move to
New York where the recording industry had become increasingly centered).
Indeed, steady studio work with a minimum of fanfare must have appealed
to an inherently modest man like Murray who had known every form of depravation
while traveling with minstrel shows and vaudeville troupes during his teens
and early twenties.
A Biographical Sketch
Billy Murray was born in Philadelphia, on May
25, 1877. His parents Patrick Murray and Julia Kelleher Murray, both
migrated to the United States from County Kerry, Ireland, as young adults.
Seeking greater opportunities for economic advancement, the family (which
now included three children) moved to Denver, Colorado in 1883.
As a youth, Billy expressed an interest in show business. Following
a stint as part of a “rube song and dance act” with a neighborhood pal,
Billy’s parents—faced with the demands of raising a large family and their
oldest son’s seemingly boundless energy—allowed him to join Harry Leavitt’s
High Rollers troupe as an actor in 1893. Murray spent the next ten
years honing his skills as an MC and song-and-dance man for a succession
of minstrel shows and small-time vaudeville venues. During his travels,
it is apparent that he came to realize that he had no outstanding trait
which set him above the rank-and-file toilers engaged in similar pursuits.
A turning point in Murray’s career took place in
1897 when he and a singing associate, Matt Keefe, visited the headquarters
of the Bacigalupi Brothers in San Francisco, then the West Coast distributor
for Edison cylinders, with the aim of securing employment as phonograph
artists. A successful trial session enabled to duo to continue making
cylinders for the company’s West Coast and Pacific customers, drawing from
a repertoire which included coon songs, sentimental ballads, religious
standards, and other popular styles of the day.
Apparently recognizing that true success in this
rapidly emerging field could only be achieved by relocating to the East
Coast, Murray managed to secure a position with the widely traveled Al
G. Field Minstrels as a “blackface singer and eccentric dancer” sometime
around the turn of the century. The troupe’s regular visits to the
Eastern seaboard seems to have enabled Murray to pursue other professional
opportunities in the New York City area during the early years of the twentieth
century, particularly during the off-season.
Assisted by well-known songwriter Paul Dresser, the
brother of novelist Theodore Dreiser, Murray began making the rounds to
the East Coast phonograph companies. Despite the abundance of excellent
singers due to the close proximity of Broadway and countless other performing
venues, he proved distinctive as an exceptionally versatile interpreter
of a wide array of genres. Walsh would note in the May 1942 issue
of Hobbies magazine,
Everybody said Billy Murray’s records
were the only ones so clear you
could catch every word on first
hearing. This was partly because there
was a certain “ping” to his voice
that cut sharp into the wax and he was
smart enough to nasalize certain
syllables—exactly as printers use Italic
type—to make important words
and phrases stand out.
Cesare Sodero, Edison’s recording director prior to being named conductor
of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, noted another key ingredient behind
Murray’s success, namely that he had the finest enunciation and breath
control of any vocalist he’d ever come across.
When the Al G. Fields Minstrels traveled East in
1903, Murray secured a recording engagement with Edison in short order.
His initial recordings—two cylinders, the coon songs “I’m Thinking of You
All the While” (#8452) and “Alex Busby, Don’t Go Away” (#8453)—appeared
on the label’s August list. Released and marketed nationwide, both
were immediate hits. As a result, Edison supplied a steady stream
of two-minute cylinder releases beginning in September, including “Under
a Panama” (#8541), “Bedelia” (#8550), “Up in the Cocoanut Tree” (#8564),
and “Under the Anheuser Bush” (#8575).
Artists whose services were in high demand tended
to record for many labels in the early years of the phonograph industry.
Murray was soon conforming to this practice, cutting the popular songs
of the day for any label willing to pay for his services. His first
Victor recording session took place on September 2, 1903, while Columbia
released his work both on cylinder (“The Way to Kiss a Girl,” #4275) and
disc (“Tessie, You Are the Only, Only,” #1163) that fall.
Documentation soon was available that Murray was the
most popular recording artist around. By mid-1905, Victor was advertising
that his rendition of “The Yankee Doodle Boy” was the top-selling record
in its history. By June 1906, that honor went to his recording of
“The Grand Old Rag.” Just a few months later “Cheyenne” became the
label’s biggest all-time seller. The fact that 1905 releases such
as “In My Merry Oldsmobile” (Victor 4467) and “Everybody Works But Father”
(Victor 4519) remained in record catalogs for fifteen years would seem
to indicate they were phenomenal sellers. Further proof of Murray’s
success was the willingness of the labels to have him record a wide stylistic
range of material, including songs from Broadway musicals, sentimental
ballads, comic fare, vaudeville sketches, ethnic and topical pieces, and
more faddish items such as the jungle and cowboy songs then in vogue.
As any Murray release was virtually guaranteed to
sell in large quantities, the labels began looking for ways of getting
more product in the marketplace. One strategy consisted of recording
a greater number of collaborative efforts in order in avoid a glut of solo
material. By early 1905, Murray had been teamed with other best-selling
artists such as Bob Roberts and Len Spencer. His most consistently
successful pairing, however, was with Ada Jones, the most popular female
vocalist of the acoustic recording era. He would also be employed
in a wide range of ensemble settings, from re-creations of minstrel shows
to light opera airs.
Murray’s work with vocal groups would come to represent
a substantial portion of his oeuvre. By 1905 he has being utilized
on an occasional basis to sing lead for the best-selling group of the day,
the Haydn Quartet. The Quartet’s lead tenor, Harry Macdonough, was
best suited for ballads and other sentimental material, whereas Murray’s
mastery of minstrel songs and uptempo fare provided a whole new avenue
of stylistic possibilities. After signing a ten-year, joint contract
in 1909 that limited his recording to Victor in the release of discs and
Edison for cylinders, it was decided that Murray should have his own group.
Formed in 1909, the American Quartet (known as the Premier Quartet on Edison
releases) included first tenor John Bieling, baritone Steve Porter, and
bass William Hooley. Although capable of performing a wide range
of material, the group was best known for its spirited interpretations
of ragtime and novelty numbers. Although continuing to record (albeit
with the core of the Peerless Quartet in later years) until the mid-1920s,
the American’s artistic and commercial zenith came during its first five
years of existence. Walsh states that during this time “the Quartet
cut into wax many of the greatest song hits in American musical history,
and a large number of its discs and cylinders had sales that were remarkable
for that period.” The group’s early bestsellers included “Casey Jones,”
“Grizzly Bear,” “It’s A long, Long Way To Tipperary,” “Moonlight Bay,”
“Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” Murray also enjoyed a number of big hits
(e.g., “By the Beautiful Sea,” “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee”) at the
time with the Heidelberg Quintet, which was essentially the American Quartet
augmented with countertenor Will Oakland.
In early 1919, Murray’s ten-year joint pact with Victor
and Edison expired. The failure of the dominant triumvirate of record
companies—Victor, Columbia, and Edison—to legally restrain competitors
from using the disc configuration, combined with the steady rise in unit
sales over the first two decades of the twentieth century, had stimulated
the rise of a host of new labels, including Aeolian-Vocalion, Brunswick,
Emerson, Gennett, and Pathe. Murray would record for virtually every
company of note except Brunswick prior to singing a lucrative exclusive
contract with Victor in the summer of 1920 as part of a touring troupe
known as the Eight Famous Victor Artists.
Despite the changing musical climate—most notably,
the rise of jazz and specialty markets for the blues and country music—and
the general loss of record sales due to the inroads made by radio, Murray
remained a popular recording artist during the early 1920s. Although
no longer the hit-making juggernaut he’d been during the previous two decades,
he enjoyed substantial sales with “(Down by the) O-H-I-O (I’ve Got the
Sweetest Little O, My! O!) (with Victor Roberts/aka Billy Jones; Victor
18723; 1921), “Strut, Miss Lizzie” (American Quartet; Victor 18799; 1921),
“In the Little Red School House” (American Quartet; Victor 18904; 1922),
“Stumbling” (Victor 18906; 1922), “That Old Gang Of Mine” (with Ed Smalle;
Victor 19095; 1923), and “Don’t Bring Lulu” (Victor 19628; 1925).
Evidently due to this commercial drop-off, Victor
increasingly shifted Murray’s session workload from solos to duets (most
notably with Smalle and Aileen Stanley) and vocal refrains for a wide array
of dance bands. Despite a secondary role in many of these releases,
Murray’s flexibility in execution and comic inventiveness enabled his work
to remain fresh to music consumers. His relationship with jazz was
similar to bandleader Paul Whiteman’s role, albeit on a smaller scale.
Both helped popularize the genre, chiefly by grafting on formal arrangements.
While the work of neither could be considered “pure” jazz, both won new
fans to the genre while making the public, in the words of Russel B. Nye,
“listen to popular music as it never had before.”
The greatest challenge to Murray’s recording career,
however, was the implementation of electronic recording by the industry
in 1925. Unlike singers possessing relatively “small” voices or those
better suited to the crooning style, Murray had been used to singing flat
out, in full voice, a process ideally suited for cutting master discs during
the acoustic era. Attempts to tone down his delivery, coupled with
rough sledding by Victor in its efforts to perfect the electronic process,
resulted in a far greater number of Murray releases featuring ragged singing
than ever before.
When longtime Victor head Eldridge Johnson sold his
interest in the company to the New York banking houses of Speyer and Seligman
in early 1927, the contracts of most of high-salaried recording artists,
including Murray, were not renewed. He continued to record regularly
into the early 1930s, particularly for Edison and various budget labels.
His releases—often as part of a duo with romantic tenor Walter Scanlan—tended
to focus on comedy, novelty, and dance band fare. The onset of the
Great Depression, however, caused recording opportunities to fall off to
a mere trickle. Walsh notes that the singer remained busy during
the 1930s.
He sang old-time popular songs
for the movies in such productions as the
“Bouncing Ball” comedies.
He even imitated animals for the talkies and
became well known as a radio
actor, playing character parts in the Parker
Family series and other popular
air shows.
Murray's final burst of recording activity occurred in the early 1940s,
most notably eleven Irish-styled numbers for Victor’s subsidiary label,
Bluebird. His studio work appears to have been stalled less by consumer
disinterest than by the combined impact of the U.S. entry into World War
II and the musicians’ strike of 1942. His last recording, the comic
dialogue “Casey and Cohen in the Army”—a collaborative effort with Victor
Eight associate Monroe Silver—was issued in two parts on the Beacon label
(#2001) in 1943.
Although the outset of heart trouble early in 1944
led his physician to recommend the cessation of all professional activity,
Murray continued to receive recording proposals during the 1940s.
He gradually adjusted to outright retirement in Freeport, Long Island.
He would die at nearby Jones Beach in August 1954 immediately after purchasing
tickets to see a Guy Lombardo stage production with his wife, Madeline,
and a couple of friends.
His Recorded Legacy
Despite the relative absence of his name from
critical histories of twentieth century popular music, Murray remains one
of pivotal figures within the record industry. During an era dominated
by a formal, operatically-influenced style of singing, he was instrumental
in ushering in a more natural approach, especially through the witty interplay
of his duets with Ada Jones.
It is notable that Victor, the company with which
Murray is most closely identified, referred to him primarily as a comedian.
He left a greater body of comedy recordings than any other artist in the
history of the medium. Like all great comedians, he often transcended
his material through a mastery of dialect, nuance, and characterization.
His range in the interpretation of humorous material was awesome, encompassing
allegory, black humor, blue humor (double entendre), caricature, comic
sketches, ethnic/racial humor, nonsense verse, nut songs, parody, satire,
situational comedy, topical humor, and word play.
Murray was far more than an extraordinary comedian,
though; his career was a testament to the fact that a multifaceted recording
artist could thrive without being confined to pigeonholes provided by record
company executives. Starting out as an interpreter of sentimental
ballads, vaudeville comedy, and novelty items much like his repertoire
as a minstrel show performer, he’d shifted to ragtime and other dance numbers
by the second decade of the new century. Despite some diminution
of his popularity following World War I, he adapted well to jazz and band-oriented
numbers. When the electronic recording process helped bring into
vogue a softer, crooning form of delivery, Murray was able to adjust yet
again to this new style, despite mixed results at the outset. During
the Depression, he survived in part by recording spoken dialogue to children’s
stories and film cartoons. In the early 1940s he provided nostalgic
re-creations of styles popular at the turn of the century (e.g., Irish
ballads, vaudeville sketches).
But, above all else, Murray served to legitimize
the acoustical sound process which employed recording horns rather than
the electronic microphone. His ability to cut precise, vibrant records
gave that fledging industry the credibility—and sales impact—necessary
to carry it to later phases of development. And of even greater importance
to present day listeners, his technical virtuosity and innate sense of
aesthetic correctness has enabled his work to transcend the limitations
of its time.
THE SHSU Imprint
The following compact discs span Murray’s entire
recorded career. While not all of his recordings are included—he
was reputed to have appeared on at least 5,000 individual records and cylinders—every
effort has been made to be as comprehensive as possible in developing this
collection. Source material includes original 78 r.p.m. discs, cassette
dubs of cylinders and discs, and commercial produced vinyl LPs and CDs.
The latter recordings (which constitute a very small number of songs)—although
protected by copyright, are not presently in print (or likely to be in
the future). The sound quality varies greatly from track to track,
but great care has been taken to clean up the original source material
(e.g., filtering, de-clicking) without compromising the integrity of the
audio information.
Space limitations preclude complete track listings
for individual titles. Such information can be provided upon request.
Generally, the full-sized CDs include twenty to thirty songs, and are sixty-five
to seventy-eight minutes in length. The three-inch CDs include six
to eight songs, and are eighteen-and-a-half to twenty-four minutes in length.
The smaller configuration duplicates some of the tracks (in differing combinations)
contained on the five-inch CDs. There has been little duplication
on the full-sized CDs, the exception being where a distinctly cleaner source
for a given recording has been located.
The collection includes the following titles:
·1923
#1 (3”)
·1923
#2 (3”)
·1924
(3”)
·1925
#1 (3”)
·1925
#2 (3”)
·1926-1929
(3”)
·Anthology,
1908-1926
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #1
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #2
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #3
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #4
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #5
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #6
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #7
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #8
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #9
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #10
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #11
·Assorted
Labels A-Z #12
·Billy
Murray Entertains #1. Narrated by Jim Walsh. March, 1976.
·Chorus,
Quartet and Duet Recordings
·Cylinders
Taped With Major Equalization #1
·Cylinders
Taped With Major Equalization #2
·Cylinders
Taped With Minor Equalization #1
·Cylinders
Taped With Minor Equalization #2
·Cylinders
Taped With Moderate Equalization #1
·Cylinders
Taped With Moderate Equalization #2
·Disc
Anthology
·Early
Disc Recordings
·Edison
and Indestructible Cylinders; Various Labels On Disc
·Edison
and Victor Recordings #1
·Edison
and Victor Recordings #2
·Edison
Blue Amberol Cylinders 1550-3220
·Edison
Blue Amberol Cylinders - Solos
·Edison
Blue Amberol Cylinders 2845-4103 – Solos
·Edison
Cylinders: 4-minute 218-1080; 2-minute 8765-10213
·Edison
Cylinders and Discs
·Edison
Cylinders; Victor Discs
·Edison
Cylinders With Ada Jones
·Edison
Diamond Discs, Etc.
·Edison/Indestructible/Victor
Recordings
·“Everything
Is Peaches Down In Georgia”
·Library
Of Congress Dubs, Etc.
·Victor
Discs #1
·Victor
Discs #2
·Victor
Discs, 1905-1925
·Victor
Discs 4883-4970; 18760-20517
·Victor
Discs 16036-16982
·Victor
Discs 17000-17500
·Victor
Discs 17078-17944 (update)
·Victor
Discs 17517-17930
·Victor
Discs 18031-18522
·Victor
Discs 18537-18748
·Victor
Discs 19640-19954
·Victor
Discs 20065-22040; National Barn Dance Appearance
·Victor
Family Of Labels
·World
War I Years (3”)
