Jas. Brown Melodeon Solo on The Twin

[CptBob]

I haven't been buying records for very long, but I came across this on eBay. I've made a recording of it and put it onto You Tube. http://youtu.be/xk0lq51GhAI The things that caught my eye were that it was a melodeon solo and that it was an accoustic recording.

I can't find anything about this record Coon Songs - The Twin Serial 105 T5033 and not much about James Brown. From the discography I've found the number would seem to come from around 1909. Perhaps someone who knows more about these records could confirm that.

I've posted a couple of links about James Brown below. He fought in the first world war and died at the age of around 40 in 1919. He played a three or even four row chromatic melodeon with accordion basses, and in this recording he makes full use of the chromatic potential of his instrument, putting in chromatic runs where the opportunity arises.

http://www.raretunes.org/performers/james-brown/

http://www.concertina.net/forums/index. ... st&p=22950

The recording is pretty rough with lots of surface noise. The question I have is this. How should you determine the speed that the record should be played at? I'm not sure of the speed that my HMV 145 is playing at, but with the speed control set in the middle the music is just slightly flat of the key of G. My first thought was G's a good melodeon key, that's reasonable, but although it's plausible, on a three row chromatic instrument, he might as easily be playing in A flat, "just because I can".

I did try playing the record faster so that the music was bang on the key of G, but that resulted in the machine's speed varying for a few days. It's now settled down, so I'm leaving that alone for the moment.

Clearly, I'm new to all of this. These may be daft questions, or there may be something huge I've missed

Cheers Robert