The 78 RPM Channel

aka &* RPMs

Bert Williams

Bert-williams

W. C. Fields called Bert Williams "the funniest man
 I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew "

1906 - "Nobody," became his signature theme...a doleful
 and ironic composition, replete with his dry observational wit,
 and is perfectly complemented by Williams' intimate,
 half-spoken singing style." -wiki

When life seems full of clouds and rain,
And I am filled with naught but pain,
Who soothes my thumping, bumping brain?
[pause] Nobody.

The Ziegfeld Follies began in 1907 and Williams
was hired as a star in 1910. (Fields began in 1915,
Will Rogers in '16, Eddie "Banjo Eyes" Cantor in '17).
it's vaudeville - songs and comedy routines

Prohibition song

He recorded about 80 recordings from 1901-22. "Indeed, his first
 recording sessions with George Walker for the Victor Company
 in 1901 are considered the first recordings by black performers 
for a major recording company." -LOC

 “Not Lately”—recorded a mere three days before his
 collapse on a Detroit stage 1922 -excellent !

> links references in comments>

Wish I were a Mole in the Ground

Bascom Lamar Lunsford -  Birth: 1882
was known as "The Minstrel of the Appalachians."

Bascom_lamar_lunsford

 

In "When We Were Good: The Folk Revival" 
Robert Cantwell says: "Listen to 'I Wish I Was A Mole
 In The Ground' again and again, learn to play the banjo
 and sing it yourself over and over, study every printed version,
 squander your time in the bargain, and you still won't fathom it."

 

If i were a mole in the ground
i'd root that mountain down
wish i was a mole in the ground

"I don't like a railroad man
No, I don't like a railroad man
( ? )    a railroad man,          
they'll kill you when they can
And drink up your blood like wine"

"This particular tune, which became a folkie staple
 during the Great Folk Scare, is related to tunes known
 as "Tempie," "Darling Where Have You Been So Long,"
 "Sammie, Where Have You Been So Long," and
 "I Don't Like No Railroad Man."

DryBones  (Saw the Light come Shinning Down)

 

"Recorded in February 1928 in Ashland, Kentucky.
 A rare example of the banjo used in a religious tune.
 This tune contains references to Enoch (Gen 5:21-24), 
Paul (Acts 16:25-26), Moses (Exo 3:2) and a strange account
 out of Ezekiel about walking bones (Ezek 37:1-10), 
not to mention Eve and "Satan a-tempting me."

Sfw40082

 

Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina
 "[Hits] faster and sweeter than a jug of corn liquor." — New York Post 

He played  Banjo, Fiddle and a "Mandoline" (mandolin body with a five-string
 banjo neck ). He was a Country Lawyer and Folklorist who collected maybe 
3,000 songs, originator of the first 'Folk Music Festival' .

Bascom Lamar Lunsford Minstrel of Appalachia Festival
slide show - images from the Lunsford Scrapbook and audio of Bascom 
singing/talking for his Memory Collection.

4 songs here >

131unearthed

 

Notes for Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Source: Jo Dunne

"Wrote the song Good Ol Mountain Dew, for which the soft drink was named. 
He sold the rights to the song to Scott Wiseman, in 1928, for $25 to buy a bus ticket."
(>at the 1937 National Folk Festival in Chicago<).
 "Wiseman revised the lyrics. It is said that he wrote the song after one of his court cases
 (a lawyer by trade). He defended a moonshiner. He argued a sample of the "dew" into 
evidence, for the defense, and got the Judge to taste it. The Judge promptly dismissed 
the case, it is said, noting that anyone who can make dew that good, should not be in jail."

more in comments >

==

Pinocchio & Cliff Edwards Radio Show

Just found this > Cliff Edwards Show
premiered on NBC in 1944 and moved to ABC in 1946- 
Edwards then got his first TV series on CBS in 1949.

here's 15 OTR shows - free mp3s

0001 is simply songs - all nice !

starts with Singing in the Rain-short, then wild scat song ....

 

and Jiminy Cricket is back!
Walt Disney's  Pinocchio will be re-released this March in Blu-Ray

 Original release February 7, 1940
(( re-released in theaters 1945, 

1954 (when i saw it ), '62, '71, '78, '84, and '92. 

Pinocchio-1940-poster

 

actually the scariest movie i ever saw ....but there's no 
comparison really to those old movie theaters > i was 
actually in the belly of the whale with 'em > didn't think
i've ever get out !

trivia >

 two longer scenes taken out. One included an extended scene of
 Pleasure Island. The other is of Geppetto telling Pinocchio of 
his grandfather, a pine tree.

When he originally published "Pinocchio" in the form of a magazine serial,
 Lorenzini's intention was to kill Pinocchio by having him hang himself.

 At the suggestion of his editor, Lorenzini added chapters sixteen to thirty-two,
 giving the story a happy ending and creating the character of the Blue Fairy.

Amongst the debris in the destruction house at Pleasure Island, a print of 
Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Mona Lisa" can be seen.

Duchamp-lhooq

 

The August 1993 issue of Playboy cited 43 instances of violence and
 other unfavorable behavior in this film, including 23 instances of battery,
 nine acts of property damage, three slang uses of the term "jackass",
 three acts of violence involving animals, two shots of male nudity,
 and one instance of implied death.

For the Record > it was also on the old Lux Radio Hour >
Christmas Day, 1939. The program featured the performers
 who did the voices in the film.

 The Disney film had not yet been released > February 7, 1940.

===

Geeshie Wiley Serious Blues

Geeshie Wiley Serious Blues

There are no known photographs or images of the artist in existence. 
She recorded 6 sides > 3 availble here >

Geeshie Wiley & Elvie Thomas- Pick Poor Robin Clean

 "I picked poor robin clean, picked poor robin clean
Picked his head, picked his feet, would have picked his body
 but it wasn't fit to eat."

22024

I first heard  "Last Kind Words" on Dick Spotswood's
 "Obsolete Music" NPR radio show
(which is all about 78s ) a few years back. I was stunned . 

Anyone who likes the Blues and hasn't heard her is gonna 
get their socks knocked off.

Crumb4

Last Kind Words

The last kind word I heard my daddy say 
Lord the last kind word I heard my daddy say

If I die, if I die in the German War 
I want you to send my body, send it to my mother-in-law

If I get killed, if I get killed, please don'’t bury my soul 
I (pÂ’fer) just leave me out let the buzzards eat me whole

Did she really say that !

...' if i die, don't bury me, 
send my body to my mother-in-law !!
yeah and let her watch the buzzards
pick my bones clean' !

“If Geeshie Wiley did not exist, she could not be invented: 
her scope and creativity dwarfs most blues artists.
 She seems to represent the moment when black secular
 music was coalescing into blues.”
Don Kent's liner notes to "Mississippi Masters: Early American
 Blues Classics 1927-35" (Yazoo CD 2007, 1994)

" Her guitar technique is unusual: her use of an A-minor chord
 in Last Kind Words is rare for a rural blues artist and her adoption
 of a riff in A normally associated with Texas artists shows a shrewd
 appreciation for exciting sounds. 
Moreover, despite her sensual voice, the persona she presents
 is as tough as Charley Patton: money before romance
 and she sweetly says, while extolling her sexual charms,
 that she's calmy capable of killing you."
(with more of Kent's liner notes on musical arrangements)

 She is rumored to have worked in a medicine show in Jackson,
 Mississippi in the 1920s. Wiley may have been married to
 Casey Bill Weldon for a time, following his divorce from
 Memphis Minnie...

Quite a treat to find these mp3s at the Archive, as my cassettes
are boxed up ....and searching the web turned up some others
who appreciate this virtually unknown Blues Singer ...

link to 3 YT videos

((looks like an excellent Blues blog > http://squeezemylemon.blogspot.com/

Lil Green is another favorite Blues Lady.

Skip James later ....all time favorite - a voice from another dimension !

====

scatin' Jiminy Cricket & "Ukelele Ike"

Cliffedwards

voice with at least a three octave range 
 It is estimated that Edwards sold 74 million
 records during his career. 

Cliff Edwards - Come Up and See Me Sometime 1934

bio quotes here >

more 

"When we think of the 1920s the image of a 
crooner with a ukulele comes to mind. 
This image is based on Edwards popularity and his uke. "

Cliff

photo> Brudda Bu's Ukulele Heaven

mp3s > start >

Cliff Edwards - Anything You Say! 1928
Cliff Edwards - A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody
Cliff Edwards - Come Up and See Me Sometime 1934

from Mark Twain's home town
fan site > see the video (also on YT)

Edwardsmethod

photos> Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum
Cliff Edwards was born in 1895 in Hannibal, Missouri.

Edwards01

"While singing in the saloons he began to accompany himself
 on the ukulele and developed a style of improvised singing, 
which he called "effin". "Effin" sounds a lot like the human voice
 imitating a hot trumpet or kazoo solo."

" A good argument can be made that Edwards 1922 recordings
 with "Ladds Black Aces" and "Bailey's Lucky Seven" are the first
 recorded examples of scat singing, but some Jazz critics would 
disagee and point back to Gene Greene's 1911 Victor recording
 "King of the Bungaloos".

Ukeikecd

" In 1929 Edwards scored another hit with his version of
 "Singin' In The Rain" in the movie "The Hollywood Revue Of 1929"
 and this role established him as a film star. He went on to appear
 in more than 100 motion pictures. 

"His singing and film roles led him to be cast as the 
voice of Jiminy Cricket in the Disney animated feature "Pinocchio".

 Cliff sang the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" in the film and it
 won an Oscar for best song in 1940. His rendition of this song is 
one of the great popular vocal performances of the 20th century 
and it became the theme of the Disney corporation. Edwards went
 on to be the voice of Jim Crow in the animated feature "Dumbo".

250px-jiminycricket

How Can You Look So Good 1925 wild scat
 Feelin' The Way I Do 1923
- GIVE A LITTLE WHISTLE (FROM 'PINOCCHIO')

from archive collections >

I Used To Love You But That's All Over

 Sweet Leilani
 That's My Weakness Now  < gets crazy
(she likes, never liked but that's my weakness now)

Ukeikeradio

-----fun site > check him out >
photos > Brudda Bu's Ukulele Heaven

Ukeparts

=========

"Despite all of this success and earning millions of dollars in his career
 he went bankrupt several times due to alimony payments, income tax troubles,
 gambling, alcoholism and drug addiction. His star faded in the 1950s and 1960s
 and Edwards died broke and on welfare in 1971, a forgotten man. "

=====

Betty Boop : The Boop-bee-doop must stop

Helen Kane

Albumcoverof-helenkane2

260px-betty-boop-opening-title

DON'T TAKE MY BOOP-OOP-A-DOOP AWAY

Helen Kane and Rudy Valee

200px-betty-bimbo-minnie-the-m

Bimbo was relegated to a supporting character when
 his girlfriend Betty Boop
 became a more popular character.
....he was eliminated from Betty's series 
by the Production Code censorship laws,
 since a dog with a human girlfriend
 gave implications of bestiality.

Order in the Court !
The Boop-bee-doop must stop!

Carrie Nation in Kansas by Steve Porter (1901)

78 RPM Channel presents >

Carrie Nation in Kansas by Steve Porter (1901)

Carrienation

 – Carrie Nation
"I felt invincible.   My strength was that of a giant.  
 God was certainly standing by me.
I smashed five saloons with rocks
 before I ever took a hatchet."  

She stood 6' tall at 175lbs

Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent.
In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.

- autograph inscription in album to Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes,
 reported in The Washington Post, June 11, 1881

(a little Brandy IOW ?)

She certainly inspired a lot of songs .

Steveporter-s

Steve Porter

"The Women wear the pants in Kansas....

oh girls i'm so nervous now i need some brandy." 

Carrienation2

Mark Twain's favorite - Old Crow

78 RPM begins

 

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The 78 RPM Channel

 

aka " &* RPMs "

 

78 recordings found at the Archives

http://www.archive.org/details/78rpm

 

 

Please feel free to post any 78 music/audio here, or relevant 'facts' ...

( i think anyone will be able to ...?)

 

Doesn't matter what the 'subject'  is .....anything will do, whether found on

internet at archive.org or  'remembered'  or heard or .... imagined !

 

Songs from the 'beginning of audio recording into the early 50s when the last 78s were made.