Learn something every day. Pseudonyms used.

Discussions on Records, Recording, & Artists
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larryh
Victor IV
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Learn something every day. Pseudonyms used.

Post by larryh »

I have had this Raymond Wile book Edison Disc Artist & Records signed by the Editor Ronald Dethlefson. I have been reading though it more carefully since I only scanned it when I obtained a copy from Dethlefson. This morning I ran across the page of Pseudonyms used by Edison Artist. I won't begin to try and go into all of them, but the piano disc have always been a keen interest of mine. It was a shock to see that Franz Falkenberg and Harry Osborn were actually Ernest L. Stevens. Something I never had any idea of before. That made me wonder about something else pertaining to the Edison Records. Most of them are reasonably clean sounding with a normal piano tone. But I have long noticed the ones Labeled as Falkenberg have what I can only describe as a "tubby" sounding piano tone. Since it was the same person that made so many sharp sounding popular records I wonder if it was on purpose to give the piano a different sound to make you even more convinced it was indeed a separate artist. Did they use the same upright piano I wonder. If so did they tune it off a bit or use some other device to give the Falkenberg records a different sound? And not all of them would have been done at the same time I don't think at least, so it meant they had to be adjusting that piano effect in some way for each recording session.

Just a little something to wonder about. Perhaps Stevens wrote a biography which might give some clues as to how they differed the sound to fit the name of the artist used? Any body ever heard or read anything about that. There is a full page of artist whom used several names we see on the labels but actually are someone else, usually well known to buyers.

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