Archeophone Records, a Bloomington, Indiana, company that specializes in releasing CDs of old 78 rpm and cylinder recordings, may just do for Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley pop what Harry Smith’s anthology did for American folk music.
The Pink Lambert: A Collection of the First Celluloid Cylinders is the latest release from Archeophone. Weird and wonderful are but two of the adjectives that come to mind when listening to this collection.
First, about the name. The Lambert Co. of Chicago was one of the Edison Company’s chief competitors in the making of phonograph cylinders, early precursors of disc records. Lambert was first to develop cylinders made of celluloid (invented as a substitute for ivory in billiard balls) that enabled mass reproduction and were much more durable than the wax then in use. The celluloid was naturally white, but was also made in a variety of colors, including pink. A collection of 22 pink Lambert cylinders, produced in 1902-03, came to light in an estate sale in Indiana in 1998. All 22 cylinders are represented on this CD.
The tracks include men’s vocal quartets, brass bands, instrumental and vocal solos, bird and animal imitations, and comedy skits. Nearly all of the tracks are remarkable for their relative clarity, with the exception of the first, “Sing Me a Song of the South,” which has a painfully tinny whine in the higher register; and the penultimate, “In Coonland,” originally recorded for Edison-Bell, which shows markedly lower fidelity than the rest.
And no, the title of the song “In Coonland” is not a typo. Archeophone believes in presenting this historical material as-is, without editing to conform to today’s “politically correct” standards. A disclaimer is printed in the CD booklet, which says in part:
“In order that we might understand the role of recorded sound in reflecting and perpetuating the best and the worst our social history has left to us, Archeophone will not shy away from presenting controversial and difficult material … We believe that to avoid such conversations is to fail at self-criticism and to neglect the responsibility to learn from our past.”
So be warned, some of this is patently offensive by today’s standards. The early years of the 20th century were marked by high levels of intolerance toward many groups including Blacks and immigrants, especially the Irish and Italians. This becomes clear in skits such as “A Meeting of the Limekiln Club,” and “Finnegan’s Birthday Surprise Party.” The American Quartet’s “Farmyard Medley” features the sounds made by various farm “animals,” including “the niggers in the barnyard” playing banjo and singing.
But just as much of _Pink Lambert_ is quite delightful. There are stirring renditions of the standards “Dixie Land” “Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!”, “Lead Kindly Light” and “In the Good Old Summer Time.” There’s some especially impressive playing by the brass bands, particularly on “Wearing of the Green.”
Perhaps even more interesting is the way these recordings preserved English usage and pronunciation in turn-of-the-century America. Most of the performances are introduced by one of the performers, giving the name of the song or act, and a plug for the Lambert Co. The English is very formal sounding to our ears today, with stylized, even European-sounding pronunciations. Thus we get “Shee-cah-go” or even “Shee-car-go” for Chicago, “wah-ter,” the “Lam-beht Indee-structible rek-ahd,” and lots of r-r-rolled Rs.
The CD booklet contains exhaustive notes on the recordings, Lambert, and the history of early recording art and science. Altogether, this is an impressive package. Archeophone is performing an invaluable service to fans and historians of American music and entertainment. This disc takes you into the parlors of post-Victorian America, where you can sample from one of the diversions of the newly emerging leisure classes.
Learn more and sample all the tracks at Archeophone.
(Archeophone, 2000)
