The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1913)

Till: TALKING MACIIINK WORLD. 7 The quality of the Columbia tone today really is beyond serious competition. When it eomes to tone-con trot, however, a Columbia dealer is not merely beyond competition, he is almost beyond argument. Columbia Graphophone Company Woolworlh Building, New York THE TALKING MACHINE IN RELIGIOUS SERVICES. The Rev. Clarence S. Wood, Rector of the Church of St. Luke in Roselle, N. J., Devises Plan of Bringing the Church and Its Music Into the Home — Has Big Possibilities in This Special Field of Activity — May Convert Non-Church-Goers. satisfaction to know of the comfort the service will bring to invalids and all who are deprived of their beloved church service. I am really quite overjoyed. Many New York hospitals are already arranging for phonographs and records to be installed for Sunday morning church service." Doing penance once a week, in the form of a Sunday morning church service, need no longer terrorize the Man-Who-Loves-to-Stay-at-Home. He may now go out and buy his sermon on Saturday night when he runs around to his barber's for a shave. In fact, he can buy the entire service in advance for less than he would feel constrained to put on the collection plate of a Sunday morning. He can attend church by proxy as he smokes his meerschaum and lounges. All of which brings Roselle, N. J., again into the limelight. There are some folks who will recall the time when Roselle made her debut, twenty years or more ago. It was when Thomas A. Edison erected his first experimental station there. For months electricians were busy stringing the place with wires. One evening in the early nineties the Wizard himself turned the "juice" on, and thousands of little electric lights gleamed all over Roselle — the first town in the United States to be lighted in this fashion. Now Roselle is responsible for the new phonographic church service — the first complete religious service that has ever been placed on a talking machine. It consists of the Litany service as used in the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church in America, with the Processional hymn, the Litany hymn and the Episcopal Litany service, and also the Recessional hymn. And so good are the records that one need only close one's eyes and picture the vested choir singing the service and the rector intoning in a clear, ringing voice. The Rev. Clarence S. Wood, rector of the Church of St. Luke, is responsible for the idea. It occurred to him while he was spending a vacation on a little lake in the Green Mountains. Before the summer was over he was sure that there was a phonograph in every cottage about the lake. "And, they were worked overtime," he said, "although I must confess that I, too, enjoy the music when it is not overdone. "But it did grate on me Sundays to hear a battalion of phonographs doing ragtime from early morning until far into the night. I recall one Sabbath afternoon in particular, when it seemed to me that every phonograph on the lake was screeching 'It's a bear! It's a bear! It's a bear!' "The tune stayed in my mind all that night. When I was preparing for the next day's fishingexcursion, and all through the day, while I was waiting for the fish to bite, something was simmering in my brain about a church service by phonograph. I could not get away from the idea. "I began to arrange mentally a church service which would appeal to the ill and those who were prevented from attending church on account of physical infirmities, as well as to the summer vacationist who never enters a church during his vacation period. Upon my return to New York I immediately offered the idea to a big phonograph house. The suggestion was vetoed at once. I then went to another house. The people there were exceedingly courteous, but they, too, were conservative and rather reluctant about taking the matter up. To convince them that it would make good required twenty interviews, covering a period of three months. "At last I was successful. My boy choir was transported to town to sing for the manager of the company. The choir is well trained, and as soon as the manager heard the boys he knew that their voices were up to the standard. The boys were a little frightened at first, but by the time they were engaged to sing in earnest for the actual records they were in fine trim, even the younger ones, of ten and twelve years, entering into the spirit of the occasion with a real vim. Singing into a horn was a new experience to these youngsters. "This is, I believe, the first attempt to use the phonograph for evangelization. It affords me much PROGRESSIVE VICTOR DEALERS. William K. Kaplan & Co., the prominent Victor dealers of Jamaica, N. Y., have built up an excellent business in their territory by means of special concerts in which the Victor Victrola and the noted artists who have made records for the Victor Co. have been heard to splendid advantage. The Kaplan warerooms at 316 Fulton street, are most attractively arranged, and the window display is always so neat as to arrest the attention of passers-by. We can vouch for this, because the company has favored us with some photographs w hich testify to its labors in this connection. Keeping up one's courage is to a great extent a matter of habit. Lots of men are chronically down in the mouth just because they have formed the habit. Right beside such men you will find others 50 per cent, worse off and a 100 per cent more cheerful. THE HALL-STEPHENSON CO.'S COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT. (Special to The Talking Machine World.) Knoxville, Tenn., August 6. — The accompanying photograph will give some idea of the attractiveness of the new Columbia department of the HallStephenson Co., one of the prominent furniture houses of this city. This store started to handle a marked success from the time it was first opened to the public. A number of sound-proof demonstration booths, tastefully furnished, are in constant use, and within the short period of six months, the Hall Stephenson Co. has succeeded in acquiring a we'll de Columbia products last December, and under the capable management of M. C. Hendel, formerly connected with the Atlanta headquarters of the Columbia Graphophone Co., the department scored served prestige for its Columbia department throughout Eastern Tennessee. Sales of the higher-priced machines are closed with pleasing regularity in this department.