Recording Industry
Early Years Of The Recording Industry
In 1877 Thomas Edison invented a phonograph which could record and reproduce while experimenting with a method of recording and repeating telegraph signals. Alexander Graham Bell purchased Edison’s patent, which led to the formation of the Columbia Phonograph Co. In 1887, Emile Berliner, founder of the Victor Talking Machine Co., was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or records. The machines, with their incessant appetite for new titles, slowly began to challenge the sale of sheet music as a source of popular entertainment.
The prices of the phonographs and records began to drop in the 1890’s as the anticipated market changed, and the spring motor was substituted for the earlier electric and treadle versions. Once the selling price dropped below $40 a piece, the phonograph was well on its way to becoming an instrument of mass popular culture.
Electric Recordings 1925
Before 1925, recordings were made by the so-called "acoustic" method. The performers played or sang into large horns and the vibrations were transmitted to a stylus, which cut on to a master disc. The new electric systems featured microphones instead of the acoustic horn. In 1924 Western Electric first offered to license its new electrical equipment to Victor. Eldridge Johnson at first refused Western Electric, only to find his hand forced after Columbia adopted the process. By late February 1925 Western Electric’s equipment was in use in Victor's Camden, New Jersey, studio.
On Thursday, February 26, 1925, Victor and Western Electric engineers oversaw the first electrical recording session that would produce usable masters for Victor. For the occasion, eight performers were summoned to Camden—vocalists Billy Murray, Henry Burr, Albert Campbell, John H. Meyer, and Frank Croxton; comedian Monroe Silver; saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft; and pianist Frank Banta. The group recorded a “Miniature Concert” on two 12" masters, the contents were noted on the Victor Recording Book sheet.
Recording Early “Country Music”- Location or “Field” Recordings
Portable recording systems were used on location in the early 1920s to wax records featuring artists that probably would not travel to New York. The first Country recording done on location was the 1923 Fiddlin’ John Carson session in Atlanta by Brockman and Peer for Okeh. The famous 1927 Bristol Sessions were held in Bristol, Tennessee.
Tony Russell: “Between the summer of 1923 and the summer of 1927, the five major record companies, Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Brunswick and Gennett, conducted forty-four recording trips, visiting thirteen cities in eleven states: from Atlanta, New Orleans and Dallas to St Louis, Salt Lake City and Buffalo. These forty-four trips produced a total of 2,067 recordings. Some were of country music, or, as it was often called at that period, ‘old-time music’; some were of African-American or, as it was then labeled by the record companies, ‘race’ music, predominantly blues, gospel and jazz; some were of jazz and other kinds of dance music by white players; and some of standard popular songs. Certain locations offered regional specialties: part of the reason why Gennett Records went to St Paul, Minnesota, in May 1927 was to record the fiddle and accordion music of Norwegian Americans in and around the Twin Cities.
Of those 2,067 recordings, approximately 40 per cent are of old-time music. It is by some degree the largest category. African-American blues, gospel and jazz account for 25 per cent, and the remainder is a motley of popular songs, dance music by white bands, non-Anglophone vernacular music and a small percentage of unidentified masters. That last category may be deduced from numerical gaps in the record companies’ master lists, where recordings were presumably made but damaged, lost or found to be technically inadequate; at any rate, they were never issued. Some of those unrecoverable recordings must also have been by performers of old-time music, so the final proportion of old-time music, in the total of location recordings, must approach 50 per cent.”
Early Country Music Record Sales: “The Reality”
Most of the figures of record sales (and some in this book which quote other writer’s figures) for hit songs in the 1920s have been inflated. Web-sites, record promoters, and books have made “million sellers” out of songs that were never close. A moderately successful song in the twenties sold 5,000 units. A record that sold 20,000 was a hit and anything over 100,000 was huge and would be a million-seller today.
“The Million Seller Fallacy: A Reappraisal of 1920s Record Sales” by Allan Sutton is an article on-line that presents facts. In correspondence he explained some of the details to me: “In the 20s many companies did not document sales so arriving at exact figures is impossible. Pop-culture writers are fond of proclaiming records as "million sellers," often to enhance the status of a personal favorite. These questionable statistics then worm their way into countless websites, term papers, and mass-produced reference books. Unfortunately, most such claims made about 1920s records are purely anecdotal.”
“The million-selling record is primarily a phenomenon of the post-World War II era, not of the 1920s. For records sold during the 1920s and earlier, most "million-seller" claims are undocumented and highly questionable. More rigorous research is now disproving many of them. Documenting record sales for the 1920s is difficult, but by no means impossible. The only documented million seller was Victor’s “Wreck of the Old 97” backed by “Prisoner’s Song” with 1925-1934 sales of 1,085,985 copies logged in the Victor files (Jack Palmer, Vernon Dalhart: First Star of Country Music, Mainspring Press, 2005, in press), although it must be noted that is a combined total for two different, but identically numbered, records—the 1924 acoustic original and the later electric remake. Despite the existence of such reliable data, several pop-culture writers have claimed sales of up to five million copies for this number, with (of course) no source citation for their grossly inflated claims.”
“One of the earliest and most persistent myths is that Alma Gluck's 1914 "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (Victor 74420) was the first Red Seal—or the first record of any kind, in some accounts—to sell a million copies. In this case, we are fortunate that Victor researcher John Bolig was able to unearth sales figures in the Victor files at the Sony/BMG Archive (New York). The discrepancy is astonishing: The Victor files show total sales of only 70,189 copies. This, in fact, was quite a good sales figure for a Red Seal during the 1915-1925 period; many of these expensive records sold in far smaller quantities.”
Important Country Music Record Labels 1922-1942
ARC: The American Record Corporation (ARC) started in August 1929 with the merger of three NY companies: Cameo, Pathe, and Plaza. The different labels issued from this group include: Banner (1921), Domino (1924), Jewel (1926), Oriole (1923), Romeo and Perfect. They also shared with Emerson and Grey Gull (Broadway, paramount and Puritan).
In 1930 ARC was bought by Consolidated Film Industries (CFI) who also purchased from Warner Brothers the Brunswick, Vocalion and Melotone labels in 1931. The Brunswick division of ARC purchased Columbia and Okeh in 1934. This division was purchased by Columbia Broadcasting System in 1938 and became Columbia Recording Corporation.
Bluebird: Victor launched its discount Bluebird label (B-5000 “Old Familiar Tunes” Country Series) in January 1933. The initial price was 25 cents but rose to 35 cents in a year. Bluebird promptly tried to corner the market of popular stars from the 1920s and recorded many of the stars before the Depression. Eli Oberstein, was one of the A & R men that directed the Bluebird label sessions.
Brunswick/Vocalion: Brunswick was founded in 1919 and acquired Vocalion in 1924. In 1927 Vocalion started a 5000 Country series and Brunswick a 100 Country series. After being acquired by Warner Brthers created the Melotone label in 1930 and was bought out by ARC. Both the Brunswick and Vocalion labels ended in February 1933.
Columbia: Columbia Country recordings were issued primarily on their 15000-D series started in 1924 directed by Frank Walker who recorded Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett. In November 1926 Columbia merged with Okeh. Columbia had several smaller labels that issued Country recordings: Harmony,Velvet Tone, Clarion and Diva.
Crown: Eli Oberstein founded the Crown label in New York City in September 1930. Victor, who employed Oberstein, manufactured the records. The Varsity and Gem labels were partnered with Crown.
Gennett: Owned by the Starr Piano Company in Richmond, Indiana, the company began in 1916 and in 1922 began issuing some Country related records. The company aslo issued records on two of their discount labels: Champion and Superior. The company issued records on the Sears labels: Challenge, Conqueror, Silvertone, and Supertone.
Okeh: Owned by the General Phonograph Company, Okeh began recording Country Music in 1923 with Fiddlin’ John Carson. Okeh and A & R director Ralph Peer were instrumental in initiating the Country Music craze in the early 1920s.
Paramount: Owned by the Wisconsin Chari Company in 1917, Paramount began its Country 33000 series in 1924. They also issued Country Music on the Broadway series.
Sears: The Sears, Roebuck mail-order company was closely allied with radio Station WLS in Chicago. They issued records recorded by other companies. Their first Country label was Challenge in 1927 followed by Conqueror, Silvertone and Supertone.
Victor: Established in 1901, Victor was the wealthy and successful label. Country Music began in 1922 and following Dalhart’s smash hit “Wreck of the Old 97” backed by “Prisoner’s Song” hired Ralph Peer and signed important artists like Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.