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Harry Reser
Harrison Franklin Reser (January 17, 1896 – September 27, 1965) was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos. He was regarded by some as the best banjoist of the 1920s. Early life Reser was born in Piqua, Ohio, to William Scott Reser and Alberta Wright. The couple had another child, Ruth. Reser was a first cousin to Orville & Wilbur Wright, the Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane. When he was 2 years of age, his father moved the family to Dayton, Ohio. His musical talents became apparent, and it was also here that it was discovered that the young Reser possessed perfect pitch. His parents realized they had a child prodigy. A special guitar was made for him suited to his extremely small size, and this was his first instrument. By the age of 8 he was entertaining. Years later, he recalled, "Of course, being a kid, and playing for various minor concerts and recitals naturally gave m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piqua, Ohio
Piqua ( ) is a city in Miami County, Ohio, United States, along the Great Miami River. The population was 20,354 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located north of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton, it is part of the Greater Dayton, Dayton metropolitan area. History Etymology The word 'Piqua' is believed to be derived from a Shawnee language phrase: ''Othath-He-Waugh-Pe-Qua,'' translated as "He has risen from the ashes," related to a legend of the people. It became associated with the ''Pekowi'', one of the five divisions of the Shawnee people, who were eventually known as the Piqua. Early settlements In 1749, Pickawillany, Fort Pickawillany was constructed by the British to protect their trading post at a Miami people, Miami village of the same name. It was located at the confluence of Loramie Creek and the Great Miami River. In 1752, Charles Michel de Langlade, Charles de Langlade, an Odawa war chief of partial French Canadian descent, attacked the fort. He led more than 240 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okeh Records
OKeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name originally was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann but was later changed to "OKeh". In 1965, OKeh became a subsidiary of Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. OKeh has since become a jazz imprint, distributed by Sony Masterworks. Early history OKeh was founded by Otto (Jehuda) Karl Erich Heinemann (Lüneburg, Germany, 20 December 1876 – New York, USA, 13 September 1965) a German-American manager for the U.S. branch of Odeon Records, which was owned by Carl Lindstrom. In 1916, Heinemann incorporated the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, set up a recording studio and pressing plant in New York City, and started the label in 1918. The first discs were vertical cut, but later the more common lateral-cut method was used. The label's parent company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on Gramophone record, phonograph records. The discs, recorded at Revolutions per minute, rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early sound film, talkies, such as ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had sound-on-film, optica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiger Rag
"Tiger Rag" is a jazz standard that was recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions. In 2003, the 1918 recording of "Tiger Rag" was entered into the U.S. Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Background The song was first recorded on August 17, 1917, by the Original Dixieland Jass Band for Aeolian-Vocalion Records (the band did not use the "Jazz" spelling in its name until 1917). The Aeolian-Vocalion sides did not sell well because they were recorded in a vertical-cut format which could not be played successfully on most contemporary phonographs. But the second recording on March 25, 1918, for Victor, made by the more common lateral-cut recording method, was a hit and established the song as a jazz standard. The song was copyrighted, published, and credited to band members Eddie Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro and Larry Shields in 1917. Authorship "Tiger Rag" was firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vega Company
The Vega Company was a musical instrument manufacturer that started operations in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1881. The company began under Swedish-born Julius Nelson, his brother Carl, and a group of associates that included John Pahn and John Swenson. The founders had previously worked for a guitar shop run by Pehr Anderberg that made instruments for John C. Haynes, another Boston musical instrument company. Nelson had served as foreman of guitar and mandolin manufacturing at Anderberg's shop. Subsequently, Julius and Carl Nelson bought out the other founding associates and established the Vega company. In 1904, Vega acquired the instrument manufacturing firm (primarily building banjos) previously operated by A. C. Fairbanks. Vega also acquired the plectrum instrument division of Boston's Thompson & Odell Company, which made bowl-back mandolins, guitars, and several types of banjos. The emphasis remained true to Vega's origins, however, with about 60% of business centered on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gibson Guitar Corporation
Gibson, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation and Gibson Brands Inc.) is an American manufacturer of Guitar manufacturing, guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. Orville Gibson started making instruments in 1894 and founded the company in 1902 as the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to make mandolin-family instruments. Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available semi-acoustic guitar, hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. In 1944, Gibson was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI), which was acquired in 1969 by Panama-based conglomerate Ecuadorian Company Limited (ECL), that changed its name in the same year to Norlin Corporation. Gibson was ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans and had African antecedents. In the 19th century, interest in the instrument was spread across the United States and United Kingdom by traveling shows of the 19th-century minstrel show fad, followed by mass production and mail-order sales, including instructional books. The inexpensive or home-made banjo remained part of rural folk culture, but five-string and four-string banjos also became popular for home parlor music entertainment, college music clubs, and early 20th century jazz bands. By the early 20th century, the banjo was most frequently associated with folk, cowboy music, and country music. By mid-century it had come to be strongly associated with bluegrass. Eventu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Heatherton
Ray Heatherton (June 1, 1909 – August 15, 1997) was an American singer, Broadway musical theatre performer, and a New York City television personality in the early days of the medium. Early career Ray Heatherton was born in the New York City suburb of Orange, New Jersey (some sources indicate Jersey City) and was first introduced to music upon joining a boys' choir at his church. He sang with the choir until his family moved to another of the city's suburbs, the Long Island village of Floral Park before moving to nearby Rockville Centre. During his high school years, he continued to find outlets for his singing talents, performing with bands at various local functions and winning a radio talent contest sponsored by the manufacturer of radio sets, Atwater Kent. His first appearance on Broadway was in ''The Garrick Gaieties'', a revue which opened at the Guild Theatre on June 4, 1930, three days after his 21st birthday. During this time, Heatherton also attended Columbia Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peg LaCentra
Margherita Maria Francesca LaCentra (April 10, 1910 – June 1, 1996) was an American contralto singer, best known for her work on old-time radio and her singing with Artie Shaw's orchestra. She also performed as Barbara Fulton. Early years Born on 10 April 1910 in Boston, LaCentra studied at the Fenway Academy of Dramatic Art and the New England Conservatory of Music and graduated from Katharine Gibbs College. Radio LaCentra worked as an announcer at WNAC and performed on WBZ radio in Boston before moving to New York in 1931 to work on network radio broadcasts. She performed on NBC programs, including ''Beauty Box Theater'', ''Circus Night in Silvertown'', and ''Lucky Smith''. In 1934, LaCentra was billed as Barbara Fulton when she sang with Leo Reisman's orchestra on radio. Use of the pseudonym was necessary because Reisman's sponsor was a competitor of the one for which she sang on another program. In December 1934, she began singing with Harry Reser and his orchest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" is a Christmas song written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, and first recorded by Harry Reser and His Orchestra. When it was covered by Eddie Cantor on his radio show in November 1934 it became a hit; within 24 hours, 500,000 copies of sheet music and more than 30,000 records were sold. The version for Bluebird Records by George Hall and His Orchestra (vocal by Sonny Schuyler) was very popular in 1934 and reached the various charts of the day. The song has been recorded by over 200 artists including Mariah Carey, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, the Crystals, Neil Diamond, Fred Astaire, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Mitch Miller, Boxcar Willie, Bill Evans, Chris Isaak, the Temptations, The Pointer Sisters, Kylie Minogue, the Carpenters, Michael Bublé, Luis Miguel, Michael Bolton, Jschlatt, the Jackson 5, Dolly Parton and Lady Gaga. History Recordings The earliest known recorded version of the song was by banjoist Harry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Jones
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician, bandleader and conductor specializing in spoof arrangements and satire of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with various sound effects, including gunshots, whistles, cowbells, hiccups, burps, sneezes, animal sounds and outlandish and comedic vocals. Jones and his band recorded for RCA Victor under the title Spike Jones and His City Slickers from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, and they toured the United States and Canada as "The Musical Depreciation Revue". Early years Lindley Armstrong Jones was born in Long Beach, California, the son of Ada (Armstrong) and Lindley Murray Jones, a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley Jones was given the nickname 'Spike' for being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Stacks
Thomas De Armen Stacks, known professionally as Tom Stacks (November 9, 1899 – February 19, 1936) was an American musician who was the lead singer, drummer, and sound effects man for many of Harry Reser's late-1920s jazz and novelty bands that included the Six Jumping Jacks. Early life Born on November 9, 1899, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Elmer E. and Margaret A. Stacks, both of whom were also Pennsylvania natives. Career Stacks was an active musician by early 1920. During his career, Stacks worked as the lead singer and drummer for many of Harry Reser's bands. In 1936, he lived in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the .... He died in 1936 when the restaurant he was performing in caught fire. Reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
