Why is this song so popular? It’s a straight-up novelty
waltz, Tin Pan Alley-style, in the trend of songs of the period such as “Come,
Josephine, In My Flying Machine” and “Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven.” Neither
of its composers, Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer, had ever seen a baseball
game, or would until decades later. It wasn’t even played in a ballpark until
1934; it really wasn’t sung consistently during the seventh-inning stretch of
major-league baseball games until Harry Caray popularized it during his time broadcasting
for the Chicago White Sox during the 1976 season.
Here it’s essayed by the redoubtable Edward Meeker, a
long-time Edison employee. We are still nearly 20 years away from the advances of electrical recording techniques, but the analog systems are getting better -- the sound here is less muddy, and the background instruments are balanced and differentiated.
The lyrics don’t contain a ton of inside data – the writers know
that three strikes make an out, and that you’re expected to argue with the umpire.
That’s about it. But, being good craftsmen, Norworth and von Tilzer came up
with a nifty ditty – singable, easy to remember, jaunty, upbeat. The best songs
seem to grab and hold an indefinable essence of their subject, and in “Take Me Out
to the Ball Game” there is something genial and sunny and optimistic, like a baseball
game on a summer afternoon. To date, it’s the only non-religious or –patriotic song
to be ritually sung by the general American public.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’
Nat Wills was the prototype of the modern standup comic. He
used personas, most notably his tramp character, the visual of which became the
template for the stereotype until Chaplin came along. He told funny stories and
sang parodies of songs of the day. On Broadway, he appeared in sketches in variety
shows such as the Ziegfeld Follies.
He was a natural for the recording studio. His strong delivery
and diction, developed in theaters across the country, came through loud and
clear. This routine, his most familiar, is a bit that’s been traced back at
least to 1817. In it, a master returns home and asks his servant for the news. “No
news,” replies the servant, “except the dog died.” “How did he die?” asks the
master, and thus unravels a long, escalating list of disasters that have
engulfed the home while the master was gone.
The idea of the add-on story is as old as nursery rhymes
such as “The House That Jack Built,” “The Old Lady That Swallowed a Fly,” and
others. The repetition, combined with the surprise of each added piece of the
story, is an essential lesson about the power of narrative. This routine is
hilarious the first time, mildly amusing the second, and annoying from
thenceforth. Let us move on.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame.’
‘Vesti la giubba’ aria from Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci”
Enrico Caruso
Recorded March 17, 1907
3:36
‘Caruso’ is a bit of an eponym, and that requires effort, good or bad. To call someone a Caruso, or an Einstein, or a Brando, ironically or not, is to refer to someone as an exemplar of a quality. Enrico Caruso, for better or worse, is the Western-art-culture epitome of the fancy “singer” – a human songbird, warm-hearted, outgoing, flamboyant, and dynamic; Italian, therefore somewhat exotic to many, loving fine dress and good food and beautiful women, belting into the analog recording horn more than 260 times between 1902 and 1920, selling millions of records.
Why? Was he that extraordinary? I can’t say that I am an expert. I first knew Caruso through the persona of his mid-century equivalent, Mario Lanza, in the 1951 film “The Great Caruso.”
Now, a half-century of learning about, listening to, and seeing opera, I can say the fame is justified. There are many hurdles to be gotten over to hear this great piece of recorded performance, however. “Vesti la giubba” is instantly recognizable, the go-to image and sound of opera, quoted, adapted, monetized, parodied.
You hear it, your eyes cross, the stereotype leaps into your brain, and you’re done – turned off if you hate opera, numb if you’re a fan because you’ve heard it A THOUSAND TIMES. It’ a sad clown, he’s laughing, he’s crying. It’s Smokey Robinson’s inspiration.
Here’s the story: it comes from Ruggero Levoncavallo’s 1892 Pagliacci, written in the wake of the creation of the nitty-gritty, proto-Neorealist verismo genre, all about peasants getting stabbed, and such – triggered by the success of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana two years before.
In this case, the stabber is Canio, a professional clown (don’t have him work your kids’ birthday parties!) whose wife Nedda is a little loose. This drives Canio nuts, and at the end of Act 1, he sings these words:
Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio, non so più quel che dico, e quel che faccio! Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati! Bah! Sei tu forse un uom? Tu se' Pagliaccio!
Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina. La gente paga, e rider vuole qua. E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina, ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà! Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!
Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto! Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!
Act! While in delirium, I no longer know what I say, or what I do! And yet it's necessary... make an effort! Bah! Are you not a man? You are a clown!
Put on your costume, powder your face. The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh. And ifHarlequinshall steal yourColumbina, laugh, clown, so the crowd will cheer! Turn your distress and tears into jest, your pain and sobbing into a funny face – Ah!
Laugh, clown, at your broken love! Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!
It’s a powerful, effective aria in a fast-paced, muscular, expressive opera, Levoncavallo’s only hit but one of the most frequently performed operas in the world to this day. (Spoiler alert: everybody has a really bad show that evening, in Act 2. Like, worst show ever.) Like other signature tenor arias such as “Una furtiva lagrima” or “E lucevan e stele,” it’s lament, a tear-jerking self-pity party. And who doesn’t love that?
The piece is strong, but its ubiquity is due entirely to Caruso’s vocal prowess. (Louis Armstrong would listen to Caruso records, and they influenced his approach as a soloist.) He came along at precisely the right time for the recording industry. He seemed made for the recording studio. The process read his voice well – listen to a few opera recordings from the same period. They are stiff and stilted. Caruso transmits excitement.
The first of Caruso’s three recordings of the aria in 1902, made only with piano accompaniment, made him a star. Yet he pushes hard in that release. He’s working at full volume, almost bellowing, certainly losing breath too soon during the final phrase. In 1904, he is much more relaxed and expressive, but still wobbly towards the end. By the time we get to this recording in 1907, the one selected for the Registry, Victor Records has sprung for orchestral accompaniment, the space Caruso in singing in is more resonant, and Caruso is more proficient and expressive than before.
It’s not just Caruso’s power – everyone had to project into large, echoing houses before the age of microphones. There is a kind of macho, competitive aspect to opera; Caruso ends up in many minds as the arts equivalent of Babe Ruth. It’s not his charisma, though he certainly had it. He is gifted with natural ability, but it’s the hard, highly skilled work he does with it that makes him memorable.
His voice is clear, ringing, with a quality of transparency as though he were singing THROUGH the note rather than on it. His diction is superb (at least in Italian; he essayed that and a couple of French roles; he sang Lohengrin in Italian, which must have been something.) He's smooth, turning lines into thoughts. Above all, his phrasing is rarely surpassed, because of his ability to make a deep emotional connection with his roles. Like Domingo, Chaliapin, and Callas, he can act as well as sing.
All these factors combine to make his singing still evokes a sense of immediacy, a “thereness” that is palpable. There’s a lot of thought going on in his performances; by serving the music, he elevates his work. And it stays fresh, through all the layers of association, that vitality comes through. And that, my friends, is the name of the game.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: ‘No News, or What Killed the Dog?’
Densmore recording material with Mountain Chief of the Blackfoot tribe, 1916.
Chippewa/Ojibwe
Cylinder Collection
Curated
by Frances Densmore
Singer:
Billy Murray
Recorded
September 1907 – November 1910
357
cylinders (15 hours, 4 min.)
Here’s another example of sound recordings that are not
available to the public; like their predecessors,
the Passamaquoddy tribal field recordings of 1890, this is due to the
tribal control of the material’s use.
Frances Densmore was a pioneering ethnomusicologist from
Minnesota who began her career with these recordings. She was sympathetic and
rigorous, fighting to preserve Native American traditions at a time when the
American government was hard at work extinguishing them, and popular culture
was content with the stereotype of the marauding Redskin. More than 50 years of
her efforts resulted in a trove of material for tribal members, and
researchers.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: Caruso’s ‘Vesti la giubba.’
A quick change of sheet music, in response to public demand.
“You’re
a Grand Old Rag (Flag)”
Music
and Lyrics: George M. Cohan
Singer:
Billy Murray
Recorded
Feb. 6, 1906
2:46
Brash is seemingly a word coined for George M. Cohan. The
performer/playwright/songwriter/director/producer, who started his stage career
at age 8, was one of the most popular and powerful figures in Broadway history.
From 1904 through 1920, he staged more than 50 productions there – all but one
successful. His songs such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy" and “Give My
Regards to Broadway” are, justly, classics. Onstage, he epitomized a kind of
cocky, hard-charging, quick-witted American persona that audiences responded to
with devotion for decades.
“Americanism” was in the air. The country was finally waking
up from self-absorption and internal development and was beginning to make its
first expansionist stretches, jumping into jingoism with a will. Its industrial
might was wowing the world. There was need for a vernacular expression of this
energy and pride, akin to the already-popular marches of Sousa.
As a multiple talent, Cohan resembles impresario
predecessors such as Dion Boucicault and David Belasco, as well as his
contemporary Florenz Ziegfeld. Most of his plays are comic vehicles touched with
sentiment, their plots driven by the confusions of romantic entanglements –
early, important gropings toward the book musical.
“The Grand Old Rag,” as it was listed in the original
program, was a generally despised title. No one wanted to hear the Stars and
Stripes referred to in that way. The lyrics changed from “You’re a grand old
rag/You’re a high-flying flag” to “You’re a grand old flag/Though you’re torn
to a rag” to, finally, the redundant but unobjectionable “You’re a grand old
flag/You’re a high-flying flag.”
Unfortunately, the song had already been recorded. Popular
tenor Billy Murray, the “Denver Nightingale” (he lived in the Mile High City
from age 5 to 16) was another peppy, confident belter who could sell an upbeat
song. It’s instructive to see that the song was recorded six days before the
musical opened – marketing savvy is not as recent a development as we might
think. (Murray wound up recording all three lyric variants.)
The words and music are patriotic hodgepodges, interpolating
“Dixie,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “Marching through Georgia,” and Cohan’s own “Yankee
Doodle Dandy” hit of two years previous. The result is a sensory overload of
associations, delivered in an up-tempo rush that sweeps the listener along. We will run into Cohan again in a future installment, when we examine his classic of evangelical interventionism, 1917's "Over There."
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: the Frances Densmore Chippewa/Ojibwe Cylinder Collection.
Booker T. Washington speaking in New Orleans, 1915.
Atlanta
Exposition Speech
Booker
T. Washington
1908 recreation
3:22
Was Booker T. Washington a kiss-ass?
I know less about this topic that you do, I bet. A cursory
listen to this excerpt from the African American leader’s famous,
attention-grabbing speech leads to examination of the whole text of it, and
more research.
The most masterful outline of the recording and its context
is available here
from Professor Jacqueline M. Moore. Washington, born a slave, was a self-made
man who worked in mills and mines to make enough money to pay for his advanced education.
He rose in expertise and esteem in the black community, eventually assuming the
founding leadership post at the prestigious Tuskegee Institute for black
students, in Alabama.
His speech was originally given at the Cotton States and
International Exhibition in Atlanta on September 18, 1895. In it, he strikes a
conservative tone – one that turned him overnight into the go-to black
authority for the white establishment of the day.
Washington’s views are accomodationist. He advises black
people famously to “’Cast down your bucket where you are’” – to be happy with
your lot, as it were –“cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the
people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” “By whom we are surrounded” is
a telling phrase. Without knowing more about Washington’s acts and words, I
believe he’d describe himself as pragmatic. The black population of American in
1895 was not substantially better off than it had been in 1865. The Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court
decision of 1896 would endorse complete segregation, until the protests,
violence, and reforms of the Civil Rights era.
Washington saw economic power as the leverage that would
provide black people with political power, rather than the other way round. He
urged them to cooperate humbly with the white race for the benefit of both,
meanwhile assuring whites that blacks were not only concerned with equal
rights, but happy to live in complete separation, save for when they were
needed for some servile task. He touts the black race as far superior (and more
cost-effective) than immigrants as laborers.
The idea that the African American population of 8 million
people would know, as one, its “place” was a public declaration that reassured
the general population, preserved the unspoken differences between races, and
put serious reform to sleep for half a century. Lynchings proceeded apace, and
the Ku Klux Klan’s near-rise to national power took place in the 1920s.
Assuredly, there were a few detractors, and many more radical activists, such
as W.E.B. DuBois, rejected what came to be called “the Atlanta Compromise”
speech.
Washington is what is condescendingly used as a description
of an articulate African American person, “well-spoken.” It seems this has been
the key to white acceptance down the years; Martin Luther King was well-spoken,
Sidney Poitier was well-spoken, and so on. In fact, I believe a black person
has to be about 10 times better-spoken than the average white person to be considered
well-spoken. That President Obama is a terrific writer and masterful orator
stands by itself, but undoubtedly a shred or two of his appeal relates to that
idea of a black person possessed of white “correctness.” (Thank God, the
President is funny, has teenagers in his house, and makes his own playlists,
and so becomes seemingly comprehensible as a person to me.) His presentation as
a reasonable person made him acceptable.
The speech worked. Washington received millions for
Tuskegee, which educated several generations of pivotal American figures.
Washington became a voice at least for a time, helping as best he could. It is
interesting to contemplate what his rich white donors would have thought if
they had known that Washington was funding anti-segregationist and anti-voting
rights efforts on the sly. What if this speech was calculated, in part, to put
the racist establishment to sleep?
Gradualism in human rights did not work in America better
than it did anywhere else. It is arguable that things are worse for African
Americans now than they were in 1965. It seems that rights are won, racists are
conquered, and the eye blinks and it’s all slid back to where it was before,
and we have to suffer through it again.
So the answer, I think, is yes and no. In the speech,
Washington straddles the contradictions in a single sentence when he says, “The
wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social
equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges
that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather
than of artificial forcing.”
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag.’
'Uncle Josh and the Insurance Company' Cal Stewart
1904
2:24
America started off with barnyard humor, ‘cause that’s about
all there was at the beginning – both as subject and stage. Americans were
farmers principally for generations, and the minute port towns began to grow
into cities, the classic division and mutual suspicion between country and city
folk, long documented in human history, spring up here as well.
“Rubes” were figures of fun, and often were possessed in
their native habitat with what used to be termed “foxiness” – the capability of
outwitting the city slicker. Here lie the reputations of the “sharp” Yankee
peddler and his battles of wit with his peasant customers, and the archetypal
“Brother Jonathan” of New England.
An epitome of this tradition is Cal Stewart (1856-1919), who
worked a prolific and widely loved hybrid of standup comic and village sage,
Uncle Josh Weathersby, an inhabitant of the imaginary Punkin Center, a hamlet
located somewhere in the then-wilds of New England. In countless stage
performances and more than 100 recordings, the latter on cylinder and disc
between 1897 and 1919, Stewart honed his jovial, skeptic, gentle, wisecracking
persona.
He stole it from someone else. Denman Thompson wrote a
sketch for vaudeville in the character of Joshua Whitcomb, a “hayseed” who goes
to the big city. He first performed it in Pittsburg in 1875, and later
developed it into a popular four-act play, “The Old Homestead.” Read RandyMcNutt’s marvelous essay, which accompanies the NRR listing, right here for complete details. Stewart evidently lifted the concept and adapted it to his
own purposes, creating a whittling, tobacco-chewing, cracker-barrel wit that made him a major draw for
decades.
It was a style most humorists of the time were using.
Whether termed rural humor or dialect humor or ethnic humor, people such as
Washington Irving, Mark Twain, “Artemus Ward” (Charles Farrar Browne);
“Petroleum V. Naseby” (David Ross Locke), and Bret Harte all practiced in this
vein. Most of it, Twain aside, is not that funny now, but this was the
gut-bustin’, knee-slappin’ kind of stuff that made Lincoln delay Cabinet
meetings.
Stewart’s Uncle Josh represents common values – he is an
advocate of plain horse sense, an enemy of pretension, and a scoffer at
anything new-fangled. He functions in the Bergsonian sense of humor as a social
corrective. His humor reinforces the status quo, and articulates what the
attitude of the “normal” person inside it should be. And in truth, at the time
who could make a living creating transgressive comedy, something no family
would buy and play in their home?
Stewart has many descendants. Will Rogers, Charley Weaver,
Lum and Abner, Minnie Pearl, Judy Canova, Parker Fennelly’s “Titus Moody” radio
character, the “Ma and Pa Kettle” movie series, Jerry Clower, the antics of
CBS’s 1960’s-era rural comedy shows, TV’s syndicated “Hee Haw,” Jeff Foxworthy,
Garrison Keillor, and many more take up the Western/Southern/”hillbilly”/Far
North axis of American rural comedy history.
Here Stewart recycles the old “barrel of bricks” routine,
which has been traced by Snopes back to at least 1895. In it, a man hoisting
bricks in a barrel gets hurt about five different ways. Here’s the routine:
In keeping with his persona, Uncle Josh frames it with
another joke about the expense, impractability, and unreliability of an
insurance company. He’s a master storyteller, and he stands equidistantly
between Twain and Keillor as a brilliant practitioner of extemporaneous comedy,
something developed roughly and varied in each telling. Uncle Josh’s
soliloquies rises above mere satire by poking as much fun at himself as at
anyone else.
Whether or not you find his signature chuckle ingratiating
or not, listeners will find its homey gags and platitudes a familiar template.
The
National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all
the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up
next: Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech.
