Who is "Signor 'Grinderino'"?

[yankmycrank]

Recently acquired a wonderful Victor acoustic from 1915, #17884, with Floyd Dabney's "The Georgia Grind" and "It's Tulip Time in Holland", performed on what was described as a "Street Piano" (more like a sort of piano/barrel organ.) Who is the artist? I assume from Victor's cute name and use of quotation marks that it's a pseudonym. Thanks, Jim.

[Wolfe]

I think Signor Grinderino was Signor Grinderino.


This is from David Sarnoff's notes that are on the web:


1908: (early spring) The first notes of spring are always the birds and the hurdy-gurdy or street piano man, so early this spring we heard Signor Grinderino, down on the street, grinding out his tunes, and, as an experiment, we thought we would get Signor Grinderino to bring his hurdy-gurdy up on the elevator to the laboratory and have him grind out a couple of tunes for us in order that we could record same.

These records turned out to be so unusual that they were put on sale and made quite a hit, and so did we with Signor Grinderino because we gave him two dollars for his work and that was a lot of money for him.

After this date, we found it a task to get rid of him as every morning regularly he came around, stood in front of the laboratory and ground out his tunes until we had to chase him away in order to keep him from spoiling the other records which we were recording.


Hard to imagine how much of a 'hit' he was since the Victor library only lists three records he made, one in 1908 and two in 1915.

[estott]

I've heard a street piano medley on an Edison cylinder, complete with chatter in (mock?) Italian. I think that companies made records like this mostly as novelties, or ethnic buyers who wanted something from home. I've got an early 20's Columbia green label disc of two tunes on a very good European fairground organ.

[Lucius1958]

I've got an early 20's Columbia green label disc of two tunes on a very good European fairground organ.

Were these the tunes, perhaps?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9OqKctsyjs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoGEhjX6xJo[/youtube]

[Norfolkguy]

Recently acquired a wonderful Victor acoustic from 1915, #17884, with Floyd Dabney's "The Georgia Grind" and "It's Tulip Time in Holland", performed on what was described as a "Street Piano" (more like a sort of piano/barrel organ.) Who is the artist? I assume from Victor's cute name and use of quotation marks that it's a pseudonym. Thanks, Jim.

This was the only record that was with my vv-x1, it and the machine were purchased new by the sellers Great Uncle. I really enjoy it, wish there were more

[estott]

I've got an early 20's Columbia green label disc of two tunes on a very good European fairground organ.

Were these the tunes, perhaps?

Yes, that is the one. I played it for an organ collector who said he thought it was a Bruder organ, but couldn't be certain.