Memorial Day 2020--"Then came the journey over the foam, but all that went over didn't come home"--Billy Murray

An all-78 rpm Memorial Day salute, with every rip but one courtesy of George Blood LP--this was my second raid of the amazing Internet Archive's 78 rpm offerings.  I ended up doing a good deal of declicking and (judicious) filtering to these tracks, since Blood's rips, superb as they are, are pretty much straight from the turntable.  The single non-George Blood side--the Chico Marx Orchestra's We Must Be Vigilant (American Patrol)--was a bad remastering job and required a complete makeover.  With Vinyl Studio, I imposed a flat curve to rescue the file from its severe over-filtering and highly over-emphasized bass, and then I worked on it from there.  What you hear is much better than what I started with.  A great side, and totally worth the trouble--especially since it was the only one I could find.

My Dream of the Big Parade, a 1926 gem expertly performed by the Peerless Quartet, features surprisingly no-holds-barred lyrics about WWI, and the narration by Billy Murray (!) is profoundly moving and well done.  Sentimental but very frank--powerful and eloquent stuff.  Hard to believe that the lyricist, Al Dubin, also gave us Tiptoe Through the Tulips.

And we have two versions of America the Beautiful--the first, from 1914, set to a melody I've never heard before, by one C.G. Hamilton.  No label credit given for the words on this Wellesley Glee Club recording.  The second recording, from 1927, correctly credits Katharine Lee Bates for the text (the first draft of which dates to 1893) and Samuel A. Ward for the melody we all know.  Ward composed the tune (titled Materna) in 1883, but obviously not for Bates' text.  His music, plus Bates' lyrics, were first merged in 1910.  Bates words originated as a poem she titled "Pike's Peak," though the title was changed to "America" when it was published in 1895.  See how simple this stuff is?  Nothing complicated at all about the history of our best-loved songs.

I was thrilled to find a choral recording of William Billing's patriotic anthem, Chester.  This marvelous number hails from 1770 and was hugely popular during the Revolutionary War.  For quite some time, the self-trained Billings caught a lot of grief from music historians who pretty much regarded him as a joke, but, far as I know, he's now rightfully credited as the first major American composer.  He's looking good, and the historians who wrote him off... not so much so.

If George F. Root's Tramp, Tramp, Tramp melody has your ears expecting to hear Ray Stevens start in with Everything Is Beautiful, it's because the melody was also used for the famous Sunday School song, Jesus Loves the Little Children.

John Philip Sousa's famous Liberty Bell March was famous long before the Monty Python troupe chose it for its theme music, and this 1916 Columbia recording by Prince's Band boasts extraordinary fidelity.  I almost thought I was listening to a mislabeled electrical side.  One of the finest Sousa marches, though I'm not sure he ever wrote a dud.

And it's inevitable that a racist number would show up at some point, and The Ragtime Volunteers Are off to War is that number, though minus the word "darkies," the lyrics could be taken to refer to soldiers hip to the sound of ragtime.  But given the long minstrel show tradition of lampooning blacks in uniform, you sort of know from the title what it's about.  Bouncy number, though, and we get to hear the fascinating instrumental version by (Ernest) Borbee's Jass Orchestra, from the same year (1917).  Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895-1925 describes Borbee's style as "dance music in a genteel fashion typical of its time," but I hear some solid ragtime in a pretty innovative string band style for the time, complete with percussion.

The Peerless Quartet's Liberty Bell is not the Sousa march--it's a rather strange patriotic number that no one sounds very enthused about.  Even the finally bell gongs sound flat.  Maybe the bells were eager to call it day, too.  "We'll keep the take.  What the heck."--Recording director.  "Who's buying?"  The final track, from 1905, is by the Life Guards Military Band, "with descriptive effects," though there isn't much of a narrative happening.  I've heard similar sides on which the overlapping conversations are more audible.  But it's still quite cool.  I'd almost think it had to have been recorded outdoors, which would have presented a challenge for 1905 recording technology.





DOWNLOAD: Memorial Day, 2020

We Must Be Vigilant (American Patrol)--Chico Marx and His Orch., v: Ziggy Lane (The Hits Record 7003; 1942)
America the Beautiful (C.G. Hamilton)--Wellesley College Glee Club (Columbia A1659; 1914)
America the Beautiful (Ward and Bates)--Columbia Mixed Chorus (Columbia 1202-D; 1927)
Comin' in on a Wing and a Pray'r--Johnny Zero--The Studio Orchestra (London Music Library W. 7051; U.K.)
The Battle Cry of Freedom (George F. Root)--Harlan and Stanley w. Orch. (Victor 16165; 1907)
American Patrol (Beacham)--Chicago Symphony Orch., Dir. Frederick A. Stock (Columbia A5977; 1917)
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (The Prisoner's Hope) (Root)--John Young w. Orch. (Victor 16987; 1911)

Chester (William Billings)--The Madrigalists (Columbia 17251; 1927)
Joan of Arc (Wells)--Henry Burr, Tenor Solo, Orch. Acc. (Columbia A2273; 1917)
Liberty Bell March (Sousa)--Prince's Band (Columbia A2079; 1916)
My Dream of the Big Parade (Al Dubin-Jimmy McHugh)--Peerless Quartet w. Billy Murray (Victor 20098; 1926)
The Ragtime Volunteers Are off to War (Macdonald--Hanley)--Van and Schenck (Victor 18340; 1917)
Same--Borbee's Jass Orchestra (Columbia A2473; 1917)
Liberty Bell (Mohr)--Peerless Quartet (Columbia A2473; 1917)
Departure of a Man of War (Hunting)--Life Guards Military Band, with descriptive effects (Victor 61152; 1905)

Lee