This is my blog where I write about music, jewelry, and myself. Vaudeville, burlesque, blues, jazz, songs about baltimore, novelties, and whatever else I feel like posting. Mostly from my own LPs and 78s. Subscribe via any of the methods in the right-hand column. Please do not link directly to the mp3 files.

Collins & Harlan
Every Little Bit, Added to What You've Got, Makes Just a Little Bit More
Zon-O-Phone Record 846, 1907






This one-sided "Zon-O-Phone Record" came from ebay. I didn't really know much about this vaudeville duo, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of useful websites (a lot more than I found for Marie Cahill, for example).
Together and solo, both Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan were wildly popular recording artists - in a time when "recording artist" was a relatively new concept.
Additional songs by Collins & Harlan can be found on various websites (1, 2, 3), as well as some of the wonderful Archeophone Phonographic Yearbook CDs. I don't yet own the volumes that have these songs, but it's a great series. 1908 appears to have "Every Little Bit," on it, credited to just "Arthur Collins." It's probably the same recording... it probably sounds a lot better.
I also noticed on last.fm, that I was not the first person to listen to a Collins & Harlan mp3. 30 listeners! And their number one song is... "Nigger Loves His Possum (first Version)".
Uhhh, what?! God damnit. So I guess they were more of a minstrel than a Vaudeville act.
Well, the song I've posted contains nothing offensive, unless you just can't stand the surface noise. You hear what I hear... directly from my Califone to you.

Labels: vaudeville

Posted by: Kara Mae 9/09/2006 01:22:00 PM