The Vocalstyle Music Company of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

was one of the foremost manufacturers of

piano rolls A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note control d ...

. Founded around 1906, they were the first company to conceive of the idea of printing song lyrics on the piano roll so they could be viewed and sung as the music played. They patented this idea and collected royalties from all other music roll companies that printed lyrics. They had a huge stable of artists, and jazz legends

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe ( Lemott, later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American blues and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. Morton was jazz ...

, Clarence Jones, and Luckey Roberts were probably the most prominent of their visiting recording artists. Other prominent musicians who recorded for Vocalstyle include Amanda Randolph, (Mandy Randolph-''The Yellow Dog Blues'', by W. C. Handy in 1919, Vocalstyle roll # 11562) who in later life became a well-known television actress,

Art Gillham Art Gillham (January 1, 1895, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri – June 6, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia) was an American songwriter who was among the first crooners, a pioneer radio artist, and a recording ...

, and

Ernest Ball Ernest Roland Ball (July 22, 1878 – May 3, 1927) was an American singer and songwriter, most famous for composing the music for the song " When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" in 1912. Ball was not Irish and neither were the lyricists. Early life ...

. They were purchased by the QRS company in 1926, and ceased operations in 1928.

References

External links

Piano Roll Artists' Database-information on artists and songs with downloadable MIDI files
Defunct companies based in Cincinnati Manufacturing companies based in Cincinnati Music of Cincinnati {{Ohio-stub