The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1914)

38 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD. Columbia profits begin, then they go on. They never end. There are always new artists, new records, new sales. (Write for "Music Money," a book "full of meat" for those Columbia GraptlOptlOIie Company dealers interested in quick and frequent turnover of capital.) Wool worth Building, New York REMINISCENCES OF EARLY TALKING MACHINE DAYS. John H. Bieling, One of the Best Known Recording Artists in the Victor Library Prior to Becoming Connected with the Sales End of the Business Takes The World Representative Back to Early Days in Trade History and Relates Interesting Experiences. "It certainly is pleasing and gratifying to see the marvelous development of the talking machine of to-day as compared to the small and primitive beginning of the work as I knew it twenty-two years ago," said John H. Bieling, of the sales staff of the New York Talking Machine Co., 81 Chambers street, New York, the prominent Victor distributer. Mr. Bieling, who as one of the best known recording artists in the Victor library prior to becoming connected with the sales end of the business, is well qualified to comment on the growth of the talking machine business, and his reminiscences which he gave the representative of The World last week make unusually interesting reading, telling as they do of the real developments of recording art. As told by himself, Mr. Bieling's reminiscences follow : Some twenty-two years ago I belonged down in the old Fourteenth Ward — born and raised there ; around Spring street and the Bowery. Four of us fellows used to "barber shop" on a Saturday night and Sunday, and by constant practice our voices blended in great shape in the real thing— good, old fashioned melodies and sentimental ballads. The quartet at that time was George J. Gaskin, Joe Riley, Walter Snow and myself. We called it the Manhasset Quartet. In 1892 we had been working together about a year, when one day Gaskin told us about a man named Emerson who was manager of a concern over in Newark, N. J., called the United States Phono Co., who wanted a good quartet to make some records for him. All of us fellows worked in the day time and did our quartet work evenings. I was making stained glass windows at the time and never thought of making a regular profession of singing. Gaskin had to do some tall talking to persuade us to go over to Newark and work till all hours making these records. I assure you we were a pretty nervous quartet. The first time we went there we knew nothing of what was expected of us, but we took a chance. Over the ferry, the train brough us into Newark and Gaskin steered us into a loft over some meat packing house about 50 by 100 and 20 feet, littered with machine boxes and barrels in every state of shipping and handling piled up everywhere. We at last got ready to make our first record and I assure you a funny sensation came over all of us. They had about nine horns all grouped together, "each one leading to a separate machine connected with a piece of rubber hose. The operator then put the soft wax cylinders on the machines and let the recorder down and then said "All right, go ahead." I assure you I almost forgot to sing when I heard the sizzling noise coming out of the horns. However, we got through with that round fairly well, considering our nervous state, and after that we began to make some records and they sounded pretty good. Well, that was the first time I got real money for singing and I felt like a millionaire going home that night. We worked contentedly along these lines for about a year, in the meantime holding down my job at my trade during the day. All was serene. When — crash — someone invented a dubbing machine which meant that they could make any amount of records from a master record, and we cculd see fewer engagements coming our way with this new scheme. It certainly gave us a shock when we discovered that this new idea meant that one "Master Record" could be used to make duplicates until the wax wore out. This is how it was done: They built a machine with John H. Bieling. two mandrels, one under the other; on one they would put the cylinder with the song on and on the other a blank cylinder; then start the machine and throw the sound from one to the other without the services of the quartet. It was tragic, but, like -all labor-saving devices, it gave birth to a greater field of work to develop records in. Where we formerly sang the same song forty times, now we sang forty different selections, satisfying the rapidly growing market for "canned music." By this time our success as a quartet was quite famous, and we worked for all the record making companies then doing business. About this time, say 1895, we used to go over to Philadelphia and sing about once a month for a man named Berliner, a quiet, modest little German, who had us work in his little attic workshop and register our selections on a flat matrix. The machine and disc were his own ideas and manufacture, and independent of any other model then in use, so small and insignificant was the beginning of the greatest of all mechanisms in sound reproduction. About 1896 I decided that I would let stainedglass work get along without me. I took a chance on an "artistic career." We sang for years into the same little old wax cylinders. However, Gaskin signed an exclusive contract with the Columbia Co., consequently breaking up the Manhassett Quartet. Next you find me in a quartet the members of which were Harry McDonough, S. H. Dudley, William F. Hooley and myself. In 1898 C. G. Child, whom I had met through singing for Mr. Berliner, got us interested in a new company being formed, called the Victor Talking Machine Co. Eldredge R. Johnson was its founder, and, looking back over the years, in all seriousness I can say he is the one man responsible for the present marvelous development of the Victor talking machine of to-day. His "vision" and imagination has made possible the universal appeal of the talking machine and disc music as rated to-day. Mr. Child suggested that the quartet contract to j£ng*' exclusively for the Victor Talking Machine* Co. This is where the "Hayden Quartet" swung into line, and along with Caruso and the other stars, behold us for many years, about fifteen to be exact, singing harmoniously together in every sense of the word for the exclusive use of the Victor Talking Machine Co. We went to London in 1902 and showed the British how to make "real records." For two months we had a large time as American representative singers. The longer I worked for the Victor Co. the more I became interested in the machine itself. It was like getting religion ! You want everyone else to get the same experience, and so make yourself the village pest. I talked machines into the homes of all my neighbors, friends, even the man I was paying off the mortgage to. By degrees the selling, or rather distributing, end of the business got hold of my imagination. Having sung for the public for twenty odd years, I wanted to make it my business to see that they all heard what I had sung. To do that they had to buy a Victor talking machine, and the managers of the company seemed to realize that my enthusiasm might be used in a very practical fashion. So Mr. Child suggested to A. D. Geissler, vice-president of the New York Talking Machine Co., that I be put to work and help tell the folks about the Hayden Quartet and the only original disc machine. I am now combining business and pleasure every day of my life by convincing all that I meet that it is the only machine to have whereby you get the exact reproduction as originally made. Talking machine disc records composed of vulcanized India rubber were held recently by the Board of United States General Appraisers to be properly dutiable under the Tariff act of 1909 at 45 per cent, ad valorem, as parts of talking machines. The steel points used in talking machines to reproduce sound were assessed at the same rate as the discs. Owing to the famine in Victor records at the present time, the Victor Co. announced to its trade last week that its commercial committee had decided to postpone the exchange cut-out of records until July or August, by which time the company will be in a better position to take care of it.