He needs to write more stories, and he needs his wife to stop ordering Victrolas and champagne.
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We learn almost as much about vaudeville, ragtime, Victrolas, Ash Can painters and the realist works of Theodore Dreiser and Edith Wharton as we do about City Hall and Tammany Hall, centers of the era's corrupt politics.
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Mr. Cumella, who collects and repairs crank-up phonographs like Victrolas and has a collection of original Nora Bayes records, was hoping to add Ms. Bayes's grave to a Woodlawn tour he conducts while using a portable antique turntable to play records of jazz and vaudeville greats at their grave sites.
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Music: RCA was both the leading maker and seller of both record players (Victrolas) and records via its RCA Victor Records label, the second-oldest record label in the U.S. The label released the first recordings on 2125 230/3 discs, invented the 45 RPM "single," and released the first records in stereo.
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She was born Lena Copeland Baskette to Frank E. Baskette, a drugstore owner, and his wife Gladys Lee (née Rosenberg) Baskette in San Mateo, California. She began dancing as a child. A Victor Talking Machine Company representative saw her dancing to a record in her father's store. He hired her at the age of eight (through her parents) to advertise Victrolas at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco.
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46; and Bigham, Randy Bryan. Lucile – Her Life by Design (2012), 140–45 The slender, elegant Castles were pioneers in other ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra,"Europe's Society Orchestra", Red Hot Jazz Archive (rehotjazz.com), accessed September 19, 2013 and had an openly lesbian manager, Elisabeth Marbury. The Castles endorsed Victor Records and Victrolas, issuing records by the Castle House Orchestra, led by James Reese Europe, a pioneering figure in African-American music.
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Stoneman convinced Peer to travel through southern Appalachia and record artists who would have been unable to travel to New York. Peer recognized the potential with the mountain music, as even residents of Appalachia who didn't have electricity often owned hand-cranked Victrolas, or other phonographs. He decided to make a trip, hoping to record blues, gospel and "hillbilly" music. Artists were paid $50 cash on the spot for each side cut, and 2½ cents for each single sold.
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Clark made herself an authority on the use of the phonograph to teach music to children and in 1910 spoke to the Wisconsin Teachers Association on "Victrolas in the Schools." Edward Bailey Birge, president of the Music Supervisors National Conference (later MENC), invited her to present this subject at his MSNC program in Detroit. Within a year she had moved to Camden, New Jersey, where she established an educational department for the Victor Talking Machine Company. She supervised the preparation of recordings designed for use in the classroom.
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As part of a publicity blitz, Victor designated November 2, 1925 as "Victor Day" and, within days, was "swamped with orders exceeding $20 million." p. 117 List prices ranged from $95 (≈$1400 in 2020 dollars) to $300 depending on cabinetry. $375 "Victrolas with Radiola" incorporated a "five-tube Radiola tuned radio frequency receiver with orthophonic reproduction." A $650 "Victrola-Electrola" incorporated a "two-way valve" allowing both "Orthophonic as well as electrical reproduction," while the $1000 (≈$14,820 in 2020 dollars) "Orthophonic Victrola—Radiola and Electrola" had it all, including an eight-tube Radiola Super-Heterodyne[sic].
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In a case of perfect timing, RCA Victor was very interested in 1927 in widening the scope of its recordings and records so as to sell more of their record players, called "Victrolas". RCA sent a "mobile" recording team around the country, seeking popular music. One of their stops was in Bristol, Tennessee, just a few miles from Maces Spring, and the Carter Family went there to record some songs, which soon became popular country-wide. A.P. and Sara separated in 1932, in part as a result of Sara's having an affair with A.P.'s cousin—A.
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This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board. In September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them "Program Transcriptions". These used a shallower and more closely spaced implementation of the large "standard groove" found on contemporary 78 rpm records, rather than the "microgroove" used for post-World War II 33⅓ rpm "LP" (long play) records. The format was a commercial failure, partly because the new Victrolas with two-speed turntables designed to play these records were exorbitantly priced, the least expensive model retailing for $395.00 in the depths of the Great Depression.
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After the war the G.I. Bill provided unprecedented education and professional training to blacks in the city. Tragically, Rondo Street, once the heart of the African American middle class in the city was destroyed, when the neighborhood was razed to make way for Interstate 94. According to Roy Wilkins, Rondo Street had been one of the city's best locations, with tree-lined streets and abundant music, emanating from Victrolas, saxophones, and player pianos. Like more than 100 other U.S. cities, Saint Paul endured rioting in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The unrest stemmed out of despair and protests against the Vietnam War.
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In the new century, as musical tastes changed and other professional groups competed for the same audience, H+H reduced its performances to four annually and avoided innovative repertoire choices. Occasionally a concert took on the flavor of a "pops concert", with sentimental vocal solos including Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord", even as the Society's president lamented how the public was distracted from concert-going "in these days of radio and victrolas."Johnson, Hallelujah, 189, 198, 207 The Society struggled during the financial crisis of the 1930s, experimenting unsuccessfully with evenings of Wagner excerpts. A better strategy arranged for concerts to be sponsored by local charities, such as the League of Catholic Women, Boston University, and Faulkner Hospital, all of which underwrote ticket sales.Johnson, Hallelujah, 213-5 World War II created personnel problems and the number of choristers fell to 206 active members, its lowest point in a hundred years.
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The Nipper trademark was also used by the British music & entertainment company HMV. RCA Victor popularized combined radio receiver-phonographs, and also created RCA Photophone, a movie sound-on-film system that competed with William Fox's sound-on-film Movietone and Warner Bros.' sound-on-disc Vitaphone. Though early announcements of the merger stressed that RCA and Victor were linking on equal terms to form a joint new company, it soon became obvious that RCA had little true initial interest in the phonograph record business; in the acquisition of Victor, RCA was primarily interested in the record company's superior distribution and sales capabilities through Victor's large established network of authorized dealers and extensive, efficient manufacturing facilities in Camden, New Jersey. Immediately following the purchase of Victor, RCA began planning the manufacture of radio sets and components on Victor's Camden assembly lines, while decreasing the production of Victrolas and records. RCA Victor began selling the first all-electric Victrola in 1930.
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