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“All Trivial Fond Records”: On the Uses of Early Recordings of British Music-Hall Performers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Extract

The fruits of scientific enterprise are never without their detractors, and so the Illustrated News of the World felt the necessity, early in 1891, to deplore a chain of events, pursuant to the invention of the talking machine.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1975

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References

1 The Illustrated News of the World, 24 January 1891, p. 92Google Scholar.

2 Quoted in The Hillandale News, No. 78 (June 1974), 197Google Scholar.

3 Bescoby-Chambers, John, The Archives of Sound [n.p., n.d.], p. 115Google Scholar.

4 MacInnes, Colin, Sweet Saturday Night (London, 1969) p. 27Google Scholar.

5 Chevalier, Albert, A Record by Himself. Biographical and other chapters by Brian Daly. (London, 1896) p. 190Google Scholar.

6 MacInnes, p. 12.

7 Beerbohm, Max, Some Selections from Around Theatres, (New York, 1960) p. 204Google Scholar.

8 Honri, Peter, Working the Halls (Farnborough, Hampshire, 1973) p. 139Google Scholar.

9 Shaw, G. B., Our Theatres in the Nineties, (London, 1932) p. 295296Google Scholar.

10 Disher, Maurice Willson, Winkles and Champagne (London, 1938) p. 135Google Scholar.

11 MacInnes, pp. 107–108. Davison, Peter, Songs of the British Music Hall (New York, 1971) p. 172Google Scholar.

12 There is a photograph of Lauder standing beside a talking machine in Cheshire, D. F., Music Hall in Britain (Newton Abbot, 1974) p. 77Google Scholar.

13 Bennett, John R., Voices of the Past (Lingfield Surrey, n.d.)Google Scholar.

14 Dunville, T. E., The Autobiography of an Eccentric Comedian (London, n.d.) p. 94Google Scholar.

15 MacInnes, p. 27.

16 There are no specialized discographies of British music hall performances, but Rust's, BrianComplete Entertainment Discography from the mid-1890s to 1942 (New Rochelle, N. Y., 1973)Google Scholar, although it limits itself to Americans, does cover certain British performers who were popular in this country. Thus, there are listings of Gracie Fields, Will Fyffe, George Lashwood, Harry Lauder, Alice Lloyd, Cissie Loftus, Eugene Stratton, Vesta Tilley and Vesta Victoria. Many reissues of original music-hall recordings have appeared in England over the last decade, chiefly on the E.M.I. and Decca labels.