It was now 1890 – or then abouts
– and America now contained a handful of competing record companies, locked in
battle like a gentlemanly duel.
There was Emile’s Berliner
Gramophone, who used actual records. Flat ones.
And there was the North American
Phonograph Company, who used cylinders, who were constantly in financial
trouble, at least partially because they had to pay Thomas Edison royalties for
using his invention. For a while there, Thomas Edison was even their President,
they owed him so much money.
Closely related to North American
Phonograph Company, was Columbia Phonograph Company, based in the District Of
Columbia – hence the name – the sole distributor of Edison phonographs in
Washington, and whose founder – Edward Easton – was, perhaps surprisingly, a
stenographer.
Also related was the Automatic
Phonograph Exhibition Company who held the patent on those coin-slot-operated
phonograph machines found virtually anywhere people had coins to spend and
minutes to waste. The Pacific Phonograph Company may have come up with the idea
first, but the Automatic Phonograph versions were far more reliable and they
soon dominated the market.
Other than Berliner, all these
companies used cylinders, a format that had been invented by Alexander Graham
Bell. Alexander also had his own company, the American Gramophone Company.
Then there were a handful of
small companies named after the state they were based in. The Ohio Phonograph
Company. The New York Phonograph Company. The New Jersey Phonograph Company.
All these companies were
struggling with the same conundrum, a question that has taxed the greatest
minds of the recording industry ever since: now that they had invented recorded
sound, what sounds should they record?
The original idea of using them
as dictation machines for business was not taking off quite as fast as Thomas
had hoped. In fact – what with the stenographers sabotaging the machines – it
wasn’t taking off at all. Entertainment was looking like a far better bet. In
addition to the coin-slot operated machines in amusement parlours, smaller,
mobile operators were popping up, pushing their phonographs down the street in
carts, selling sounds to passersby as if they were hotdog vendors.
But again, what entertaining
sounds should they record? What did the public want to hear?
What the public wanted to hear
was a complete mystery to these great minds. They might have worked out how to
capture sound and put it in a can, but public taste, they were utterly baffled
by! Did people want to hear other people talking? The recitation of Biblical
passages maybe? Or the re-enactment of great speeches by great men? It wasn’t
immediately obvious what they might want to listen to.
It certainly wasn’t immediately obvious that the most popular record on the coin-slot operated stethoscope machines of Coney Island - and other amusement parks and arcades across the nation - in the dying years of the 19th century, would be a record titled “The Laughing Song,” the chorus of which was nothing more than a Black man, by the name of George W. Johnson, laughing.
The W. stood
for Washington. I guess you could find some symbolism in the fact that the
first hit record would be recorded by a namesake of the first American
President. If you really wanted to. Many have.
George W. Johnson had been born a
slave, moving to New York after The Civil War to escape racism. As the contents
of his recordings attest, this did not really work out. Unable to find regular
work, George fell into the street performer profession, whistling the latest
hits all over New York for nickels, and showing off his unique talent for
“laughing in tune.” He was particularly popular on the ferries, regularly
earning $15 a week, quite a decent amount by the street performer standards of
the day. As such he became famous around New York, in the way that only a
distinctive street performer can. He was a well-known slice of local flavour. He
was a “character.”
When faced with the question of
what the good people of America might find entertaining to listen to, Victor
Emerson from the New Jersey Phonograph Company appears to have thought “let’s
get that Black guy who whistles for nickels on the ferry.” Victor knew he was
entertaining. And he probably suspected that George didn’t have anything better
to do. He was probably right.
George may have also been chosen
because he had recorded before. Or at least, he may have been agreeable to the
idea, because he had recorded before. Back when Edison had originally invented
the phonograph, back when it was recorded onto tinfoil and could only be played
once, “exhibitors” would travel the country promoting the new device,
presenting it at fairs and on street corners and anywhere else they might find
a crowd. George had been part of one such demonstration. He knew there was some
money in this. So George agreed to go to their laboratory and record one of the
songs that always got a good response when he sang it on the ferries. He would
record “The Laughing Song”. It probably wasn’t a fun experience.
“The Laughing Song” was recorded
by George hollering into an inverted funnel, whilst a piano was being pounded right
behind his head. The piano was behind George’s head because it had been placed
on a platform. It had been placed on a platform because this was the only
position in which it might be detected by the recording device, the only way
the piano might be audible. But it still barely is. All you can hear is the
sound of George laughing. As a recording, it’s quite awful. But there is a
bright side to the awfulness. The awfulness of the recording means that it’s
also almost impossible to make out half of the awfulness of the lyrics.
The lyrics – written by George
himself - consisted of George telling stories of the things that people said
about him. That he was a “dandy darky” with “a mouth like a trap.” That his
mother was a princess, and his father was a prince. That he himself would one
day be the King Of Africa! George finds these remarks to be hilarious and just
has to laugh. So he does laugh. And he laughs very heartily indeed.
“The Laughing Song”” was a huge
hit with the customers of coin-operated phonograph machines - as well as their
more mobile cart-pushing counterparts - who requested to hear George’s
contagious laugh over and over again. As a result, George was constantly being
asked to come back down to the studio to record more and more versions, since
they hadn’t figured out how to make copies yet. Since each recording could only
be played a handful of times before it wore out, the demand for replacement
recordings was insatiable. Sometimes George made more than 50 versions a day,
for which he was paid 20 cents a song. Given that George was so often spending his
entire day doing nothing but singing and laughing his little song into a big
horn, his ability to continuously laugh in a such a convincing and contagious
manner really is a thing of wonder.
George wasn’t just recording “The
Laughing Song” for the New Jersey Phonograph Company either. Nobody bothered
with contracts back then, so George – and the phonograph hollerers who came in
his wake – recorded for any phonograph company who got in contact with him.
Again and again George laughed. Again and again and again. A state of affairs
that lasted for ten long – but also lucrative – years.
(“The Laughing Song” is a 2,
although given that George recorded it so very often, this means that there are
thousands and thousands of versions of “The Laughing Song” out there, each one
slightly different, each one very slightly better or worse than the others,
depending upon where exactly the inverted funnel were situated, or what mood
George was in that day, and consequently how convincingly boisterous was his
laugh… there’s a Columbia recording which features George laughing over the top
of a jaunty brass band and that version is a 3… all of which raises the
question of “is there a definitive canonical version of “The Laughing Song”
that can be rated?” to which the only answer can only be… no?)
There would soon be many songs
like it. And I don’t mean the laughing bit. Although I don’t not mean the
laughing bit. For the recording industry’s addiction to identifying a trend,
jumping on that trend, and doing it to death began very early!
For at about the same time as “The
Laughing Song” was hitting big in the amusement parlours, Billy Golden, a
blackface minstrel performer from the Mid-West, jumped on the bandwagon with
his totally unhinged version of minstrel-classic “Turkey In The Straw”, which
is likewise filled with gleeful laughing, but this time of an odd and
disconcerting nature. Billy’s version of laughing sounds like a white man
pretending to be a Black man pretending to be a woodpecker pretending to some
kind of ghoulish demon. “Turkey In The Straw” – being a minstrel classic and
all – has its own racist history, although that’s mostly due to the manner in
which it was usually performed. The lyrics themselves are harmless enough,
mostly nonsense about going out to milk, but not knowing how, and milking the
goat instead of the cow. But when you’ve got someone like Billy Golden
guffaw-ing awfully over it, it sounds racist no matter what it’s about,
particularly when it has a comic skit at the end, of nothing but racial slurs
and jokes about Black folk’s preference for eating possum. At the time Billy
was considered such a convincing impersonator of Black folk that the record
company had to promote pictures of him to prove that he was white. (“Turkey In
The Straw” is a 2)
George W. himself would follow up his huge laughing hit with a similar cylinder; “The Whistling Coon”, and to similar blockbuster effect. “The Whistling Coon” however has a very different lyrical vibe.
Whilst “The Laughing Song” was
certainly patronizing, it feels like light-hearted fun compared to “The
Whistling Coon” which is just the ugliest of racism imaginable and made even
more depressing by the fact that it’s George saying all these things himself.
Things such as – and you may need to brace yourself here – that our hero had a
pair of lips that looked like a pound of liver, a nose like a shoe, and that he
was a “limpy, happy, chuckle-headed huckleberry nigga,” not to mention a
“knock-kneed, double-jointed, hunky-plunky moke” and – just to crown it all off
– that he has a “a cranium like a baboon.”
And that regardless of what life throws at him, “The Whistling Coon”
just keeps on whistling. That’s all he can do. He doesn’t seem to be able to
talk, he just whistles. Even when his wife dies… he just whistles… even when
hit in the mouth with a brick… he just keeps on whistling.
And remember, they weren’t able
to make copies yet, so George would have been required to say these things,
multiple times a day for multiple years. Sure he wouldn’t have had to have said
them every day – most days he’d be recording “The Laughing Song” instead
– but he would have had to say them many days. (“The Whistling Coon” is
a 1, although the whistling, to be fair, is quite good)
Whilst George W. wrote the “The
Laughing Song” himself, “The Whistling Coon” was an old minstrel song, expertly
designed to deliver maximum ridicule to Black folk, based on the assumption
that ridiculing Black folk was comedy gold and a guaranteed hit. An assumption
that was clearly correct. “The Whistling Coon” was a hit in minstrel shows long
before George ever walked into that studio.
Now there is a common
misconception, that the title of “The Laughing Song” is actually “The Laughing
Coon.” Given the existence of “The Whistling Coon” this is an understandable
misconception. Also given the existence of “The Laughing Coon” itself, a song
that George recorded in the late-1890s to branch out a little from just singing
– or whistling or laughing – the same two songs over and over again. George also
recorded “The Whistling Girl” for much the same reason. Do not be fooled
though. “The Laughing Song” and “The Laughing Coon” are different songs. They
are not, however, very different songs.
Not only a hit in the amusement
parlours, “The Whistling Coon” became so well-known that it was added to a
police-procedural play set in Hell’s Kitchen called “The Inspector”, where it
was sung by George himself. In terms of live performances, in a proper theatre
and not just on the street, this may have been the highlight of George’s
career. Even at the height of his early 1890s fame, singing on street corners
remained one of George's prime sources of income. He probably didn’t have to stay
out on the corner as long, he probably attracted bigger crowds and got thrown
more nickels, but the voice on the two most popular recordings of his time was
still singing on the streets. The most popular recording artist of the decade
was still living in a series of tenements in Hell’s Kitchen. Sometimes he was
living in the basement.
This doubtlessly seems like a
travesty of justice and no doubt George W. was being at least somewhat
swindled. But then again, the recording industry – despite being the recipient
of a whole lot of buzz – was still quite tiny in the 1890s. Maybe a handful of
millionaires owned a personal phonograph themselves. It was all coin-slot
machines and push-cart vendors. After five years of being the most popular
recording on Earth, “The Laughing Song” had still only “sold” about 50,000
copies.
To give you an idea of the
limited extent of George’s fame, even as the most popular recording artist of
the decade, when he found himself in the news in 1899 – arrested for murdering
his “common law wife” – most New York newspapers seemed utterly unaware of who
he was, or even that he was famous at all. When the case came to court, and the
courtroom was packed with a hundred rowdy fans – at least he was famous enough
for his fans to pack a courtroom – the judge didn’t know who he was either.
Although perhaps it ought not be a surprise that a judge might not be hip to
the latest phonographic hits.
But yes, George W., the man with
the big smile, the man whose entire image was based on a joyful chuckle that
could not be tamed, found himself in the news after being arrested for the
murder of his “common law wife.” The case soon fell apart however, partially
because Columbia – one of the multiple record companies that George was
recording for at this stage - went all out in getting a good criminal defence
lawyer – two of them actually – and partially because the entire case was based
on George W. and his “common law wife” being overheard having an argument at 2
o’clock in the morning, in which she made a reference to a rumour that George
had killed his previous wife, to which George said “I’ll kill you,” presumedly
in jest. Flimsy evidence at best.
Almost as popular as George was
John York Atlee, a man with an incredible beard that hung down the side of his
cheeks like the ears of hound but was oddly vacant on his chin, a surprisingly
popular facial fashion-choice at the time. John had a unique talent, much in
demand, as a professional bird whistler, which he’d show off in theatres around
Washington every night after a long day of working as a clerk.
John’s “The Mocking-Bird
Whistling Song” is a jaunty tune with piano accompaniment and featuring some
very impressive and convincing bird-whistling. So proud was John of his
whistling – one might describe his demeaner as “cocky” - that he does a quick
solo before the obligatory grand introduction that was included at the
beginning of every early record (before they figured out how to put that
information on the record label instead), which was not how things were done
back then. (“The Mocking Bird Whistling Song” is a 6). John also recorded his
own version of “The Whistling Song”, but it didn’t hit. Nobody wanted to hear a
version of “The Whistling Song” that wasn’t by George W. The man had star
presence.
John’s whistling was rather, in
fact, extremely, good. But good quality impersonations do not appear to have been
strictly necessary for achieving phonograph parlour popularity. Some fellow by
the name of N.R. Wood found gainful employment recording discs called “Morning
On The Farm”, consisting of nothing but farm animal noises, some of which are
either unidentifiable or else animals not commonly associated with farming. At
least not on an American farm, I swear I hear a monkey and possibly a
kookaburra. (“Morning On The Farm” is 2).
Whistling. Laughing. Animal
Noises. These recordings were extremely simple. Then Len Spencer came
along.
Len Spencer was one of the first “recording artists” to take phonograph entertainment more or less seriously, both as an art-form and as a business opportunity. The godson of President Garfield and the son of business-college owning parents, Len was born into money. He also had a head for business, access to the college phonograph, and a bright idea… to capture the essence of minstrel shows and put it on a cylinder! A minstrel-show-in-a-can!! He also produced a minstrel troupe outside of the can – The Imperial Minstrels – who performed minstrel shows from New York to Washington. He also boasted that he could do a million voices, a useful minstrel skill.
Some of Len’s cylinders – both
those he recorded under his own name, and those under his ever-expanding troupe
of minstrel players – were comic skits. Some were actual songs. And some –
reflecting his vision of distilling an entire minstrel show onto one 2 to 3-minute
cylinder – featured both.
Sure, he didn’t always get it
right. His finger on the pulse of public taste wasn’t fool proof. He had
recorded himself reciting both the “Lord’s Prayer” and “Psalm 23” (aka “The
Lord Is My Shephard”), on the same record. Despite this bang for the buck, it
was not a hit. These weren’t really the sort of records that people wanted to
hear during a night on the town.
Len’s first big hit in the
phonograph parlours was an actual song, an old minstrel favourite by Stephen
Foster, by the name of “The Old Folks At Home”, also by
the name of “Swanee River”, a song about feeling deeply nostalgic for a river
in Florida – actually spelt Suwannee River, but close enough – that Stephen had
plucked from a map because he thought it sounded nice. Given that the song
had already sold about 20 million in sheet music form – and was so popular it
would be regularly referenced in other popular songs for another decade or two,
particularly when played, in, ragtime - it was a bit of an obvious choice of
song to kick things off with.
Stephen Foster had written “The Old Folks At Home (Swanee River)” for a specific minstrel troupe – The Christy Minstrels – way back in 1851. As it was written for a minstrel troupe impersonating Black slaves it was also written in an approximation of Black slave dialect, and the melody described on the sheet music as an “Ethiopian melody.” “The Old Folks At Home” is also written from a slave’s perspective. Stephen liked writing from a slave’s perspective. He called his songs “tragic minstrel” songs – thus differentiating his songs from all the other minstrel rubbish - hoping they would lead white people to empathize with Black slaves. Results were mixed.
Just as popular as the songs, and
possibly more so, were the “skits.” The “comic skits.”
These “comic skits” have not
aged well. Not necessarily because they were racist – although they very often
were – but because the “jokes” were soooo awful. Some of these jokes are
soooo bad they are not dad jokes, they are not even grandad jokes, these
are great-grandad jokes!
One of the biggest challenges in
listening to these cylinders, is not the trying to figure out what they are
saying through all the crackle and the hiss – although this in itself is quite
a challenge - but in trying to imagine a time when these jokes might be
recognizable as jokes.
Len mostly became famous for one
particular comic skit, “Arkansas Traveller”, a
conversation between a city slicker and a local fiddle playing hillbilly who tells
unforgivably bad jokes, invariably finishing them off with a “haw, haw, haw”.
How
bad were these jokes? Len recorded “Arkansas Traveller so many times, with the
jokes slightly different each time, but to give you a general idea:
“Where
does this road go to?” the city slicker asks. “It doesn’t go anywhere”
the fiddle playing hillbilly answers “It just stays where it is… haw haw
haw.”
Groan!
“Say, you're a pretty smart
fellow, ain't ya?”
“Ain't half as smart as my
brother Bill.”
“Why, who is your brother
Bill?”
“Why, my mother's son, o'
course! Haw-haw-haw!”
Good grief!!!
The hillbilly is not the only
insufferable character. The city slicker is just as bad. He’s also a lawyer.
“Why see here. I'm a lawyer”,
he says, “and a pretty smart one, too. Do I look it?”
“Well, yes. Now I had a
lawsuit about this here house about a year ago.”
“Well, did you have a smart
lawyer?”
“Yes, you just bet I did. He
owns the house now! Haw-haw-haw!”
Then the fiddler plays a little
tune on his fiddle.
The tune is old – dating at least
back to the 1840s – the jokes likely even older. They had been told by
vaudeville troupes up and down the country for decades. Everybody knew them,
but – bafflingly – they still laughed. (“Arkansas Traveller” is a 3)
“Arkansas Traveller” was such a
hit that Len embraced hillbilly-comedy wholeheartedly, creating his own comic
character with his own comic series, Reuben Haskins from Skowhegan – an actual
place, it’s Abenaki for “watching place
for fish” – in Maine, a series which ultimately ran into such intriguingly
titled sequels as “Rueben Haskins Trip Around The World In His Air-Ship” and
“Reuben Haskin’s Ride In The Red Devil” (I’m not going to rate these, it would
require listening to them, and honestly, the static hiss is so loud I can
barely make out the jokes anyhow)
Len half sings and half speaks on
these records, whilst a piano and rim-shoot combo plays “ba badadada ba-ba!” so
you know when you are supposed to laugh. You are also tipped off when to laugh by
the fact that Rueben, like the hillbilly in “Arkansas Traveller,” inevitably
laughs at his own jokes.
Len’s jokes may have been
terrible but look at what he was competing with! Len was competing with Dan
Kelly, an – as his name ought to make obvious – Irishman and the possessor of
the most walrus-like moustache in America. He was also the creator of his own
comic character, Pat Brady, who had his own seemingly never-ending series of
sequels. The most popular of these was “Pat Brady’s Plea In His Own Defence”- or
to give it its full name “Pat Brady’s Plea In His Own Defence: A Scene In The Police
Court In Hartford, Connecticut, Between Pat Brady, Mrs Callahan and Judge
Colliver.” This blockbuster was followed by “Pat Brady As Police Justice” and
“Pat Brady Before The Election” (I’m not going to rate these either, even I
have my limits). As unpromising as those titles sound, they were far bigger
sellers than his previous recording attempts, recitations of scenes from
Shakespeare plays.
Dan Kelly could also sing. Or if
he couldn’t, he did anyway. Reports at the time noted that he was particularly
good at impersonating the singing of Negroes and Irishmen – which just so
happened to be the two accents most in demand - the latter of which shouldn’t
have been too much of a challenge for him.
Len was also competing with Russell
Hunting, an actual actor from an actual theatre company in Boston. Russell was
also the founder of the afore-mentioned “Phonoscope Magazine: A Monthly Journal
Devoted To Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining To Sound And
Sight”, giving him a unique insight as to what the American amusement parlour
devotee wanted to hear on their night out. Russell’s biggest success came with
his own comic character – Michael Casey – who had his own comic series, the
titles of which – “Michael Casey Departing From New York En Route To Boston Via
Steamboat” for example - appear even less promising than those of the Pat Brady
series.
The most popular cylinder in the
series was “Michael Casey Taking The Census,” which kicks things off with a
top-shelf great-granddad joke: “I don’t much like this job of takin’ the
census, if I’m in it much longer I lose me senses!!!” At this point Michael
chuckles at his own wit and knocks on a door. A woman appears – not credited,
but also, almost certainly not played by a woman - and Michael asks her a
series of questions as follows:
“How old are you?”
“I was…”
“Nevermind how old you were,
how old are you now?”
“I’ve seen 24 summers”
“You’ve seen them? How long
were you blind?”
And other such jokes that make
“Arkansas Traveller” seem like Oscar Wilde.
Michael Casey also asks “have you
made any donations to the matrimonial fruit basket?” which it turns out means “do
you have any children?” Don’t feel bad if you weren’t able to figure that out.
Neither could she.
The conversation – and the recording – ends when Michael asks her what colour her children are and the woman is so offended that she slams the door in his face. I’m basing this all on a 1908 rerecording. The jokes on the 1892 original were probably much the same. There’s also a fair chance however that they were even worse (“Michael Casey Taking The Census” is a 2)
The Michael Casey series of comic
skit cylinders would continue with such hits as “Casey As Umpire At A Ball
Game”, “Casey And The Dude In A Streetcar”, “Casey’s Great Medical Discovery”,
“Casey’s Description Of The Discovery of America”, “Casey’s Plan For Freeing
Ireland” and “Casey As Chairman of the Mugwump Club” (as intrigued as I am by
some of these titles, I value my sanity too much to listen to them).
I mentioned earlier that
Russell’s role as founder of “Phonoscope Magazine: A Monthly Journal Devoted To
Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining To Sound And Sight”, gave him
a shrewd insight into what the average American wanted to listen to. His
primary insight appears to be that they wanted to listen to smut.
Capitalizing on this insight,
Russell recorded a series of pornographic records under the pseudonyms Manly
Tempest and Willy Fathand. The New York Society for the Suppression
of Vice was onto him though – how could they tell it was him?!? – and sent him
to three months in jail.
Russell wasn’t the only one
making pornographic records for phonograph parlours. There was one called
“Learning a City Gal How to Milk A Cow,” featuring a running commentary on a
girl’s ability to milk a cow and sexy speculation on what else she could do
with such skills. It was recorded by Cal Stewart, who also recorded slightly
more respectable comedic monologue records about a rustic character named Uncle
Josh Weathersby - a hillbilly constantly confounded by the modern world - and a
bunch of other inhabitants of the fictional hamlet of Punkin Centre. Or Punkin
Center. Or sometimes even Pun’kin Centre. Being fictional the exact spelling
was unimportant. Neither was Punkin Centre’s exact location important. It was
definitely somewhere in New England – that much could be deduced from the
accent – but whether “Uncle Josh” was from Maine or Vermont was the subject of
intense debate.
Far more popular than Pat Brady
or Michael Casey or Rueben Haskins – and possibly more popular than the sum of
them combined – the “Uncle Josh” series would produce hit after hit after hit.
For two decades Cal churned them out.
Cal was a country kid himself.
The backwoods of Virginia were where he called home. But he was a country kid
restless for adventure, and he left home to see the world. He saw a lot of it.
He mined. He cooked. He was a lumberjack. He seemed particularly proud about
the time he taught in a district school where he “made love to the big girls.”
And he spent a lot of time working on the railroads. He probably would have
continued working on the railroads too, except he had an accident and lost not
only a finger, but multiple toes. Lucky for him, Cal was a good storyteller –
in addition to his “Uncle Josh” records, he’d write some considerably less
successful Western novels – so he became a vaudeville comedian and
impressionist, a popular career choice at a time when popular culture consisted
of virtually nothing but impersonations of virtually every ethnic group in
America. Cal specialized in impersonating country-bumpkins, specifically the
country-bumpkins in New England, or even more specifically “Uncle Josh”.
“Uncle Josh’ wasn’t a Cal Stewart
creation, but a stock character amongst New England country-bumpkin
impersonators. It’s unlikely however, that many other “Uncle Josh”
impersonators took it as far as Cal, who performed not only “Uncle Josh”
himself but fleshed out the entire Punkin Centre community with a cast of
supporting characters, some of whom would end up having their own series of
cylinders dedicated to them. “Jim Lawson’s Horse Trade With Deacon
Witherspoon”, for example, was a huge hit in 1901, (such a huge hit that I feel
obliged to listen to it and tell you it’s a 2) leading to further hits
such as “Jim Lawson’s Hogs.”
“Uncle Josh” cylinders first
arrived in phonograph parlours with “Uncle Josh Weathersby's Arrival In New
York City.” Straight away, right after introducing himself, Uncle Josh laughs,
or more accurately, he cackles. Uncle Josh hasn’t even said anything yet and
he’s already cackling at his own jokes. And thus, in a handful of seconds, we
learn everything we need to know about Uncle Josh’ whole persona: he’s an old
hillbilly who cackles at his own jokes.
The laugh, the cackle, is deeply
annoying, even if you understand that it wasn’t part of Cal’s original stage
show. During the stage show – as incredible as it may seem – audiences did tend
to laugh. But there was no audience in the recording studio, so Cal had to
provide his own laugh track. This is likely the reason why the other
hillbillies laughed at their own jokes as well. Knowing this doesn’t prevent
the “Uncle Josh” records – and the laughing on the “Uncle Josh” records - from
being deeply annoying though.
“Uncle Josh Weathersby's Arrival In
New York City,” finds Uncle Josh, as he so often was, in New York City, both
befuddled at everything he sees and misunderstanding his every experience. Case
in point: when the hansom cab drivers keep calling out “hansom! hansom!” to
him, he thinks they are complementing him on his looks.
Don’t feel too sorry for “Uncle
Josh” though, for he’s unlikely to feel sorry for you. After he finally gets
inside a hansom cab, at about the half-way point of his rambling story, “Uncle
Josh” spends virtually all the second half cruelly making fun of his driver’s
stutter. The punch line? The stuttering hansom-cab driver drives him right out
of New York City, not stopping at the hotel, because he couldn’t say “wooah” to
his horse fast enough (“Uncle Josh Weathersby's Arrival In New York City” is a
3)
Since you could only fit two and
half minutes on a cylinder, some of the jokes that Cal used in his stage show
were edited out. But we still get one about how, whilst on the train, he keeps
ringing the bell because he thinks it’s a coat button stuck into the wall and
he’s trying to jimmy it out with his knife. And like so many other
country-people travelling to New York City, “Uncle Josh” is dead certain he is
going to be robbed. “Uncle Josh” is so distrusting that he suspects a shoeshine
has robbed him even after the shoes are returned all polished.
“Uncle Josh” tended to go off on
tangents a lot. One of the earliest “Uncle Josh” hits, “Uncle Josh At The
Opera”, is nominally about his experience at the opera – which does admittedly
result in one good joke: when “Uncle Josh” finds out that Act 2 is set five
years after Act 1, he walks out because he figures he can’t wait around that
long - but he also manages to fit in something about trading a dog for a gun,
and also something about a school play where they got the girls to dress up as
planets and one of the Punkin Center residents got a Black girl to recreate an
eclipse because of course there had to be a racist joke in there somewhere. (“Uncle
Josh At The Opera” is a 2)
Whistling, laughing, minstrel
shows, comic character skits, animal and bird noises. These are the
entertainment options that the phonograph companies believed the American
consumer would be interested in hearing. Eventually however they began to work
out that what people wanted to hear on their records were songs. Not so much
perhaps when they were at the phonograph parlour looking for laughs, but
certainly when they finally started buying phonographs for the home.
It turns out that the reason the
average American wanted to buy records with songs on them was so they wouldn’t
have to go through all the fuss and bother of learning how to play the tunes
themselves. When phonographs finally begin to appear in the parlours of
middle-class homes, this was their primary selling point. Phonograph owners
weren’t only buying peace of mind that they’d always have music on hand in case
company came over, they were also buying peace and quiet and relief from the
infernal plunking of constant incompetent piano or banjo practicing.
It turns out then that JohnSousa, although still a crazy old coot, wasn’t exactly wrong when he claimedthat recorded music meant that nobody was learning an instrument anymore. It’s
just that most Americans would argue that this was preferable progress.
But recording songs in such a way
as to make them recognisable as songs and not just as a vaguely musical crackle
was still a challenge. The solution of course, was to have an extremely loud
band. Fortunately, the loudest – and largest – bands in America were also the
most popular. And so the record companies started recording some of those
30,000 marching bands across America! The record companies started recording
John Sousa.
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