The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

My wife is president of a local historic site in the SF Bay Area, the West Point Inn (westpointinn.com). We're planning a special event in May to celebrate the centennial of the Panama Pacific International Exposition.

I can't believe I only have two local-themed records. One is a 1911 wax Amberol record by Billy Murray "On San Francisco Bay." The other is a 1915 Blue Amberol "Hello Frisco, Hello" which at least mentions the Fair, and also alludes to the first transcontinental long distance telephone call placed between Woodrow Wilson and Alexander Graham Bell at the Fair. (The actual telephones are going on exhibit locally next month.)

Does anyone know of any other songs that are relevant to the PPIE? Even if I can only download MP3s I'd love to get some other songs that refer to the Fair. Ideally I'd like to find any 78s that could be played on a Victrola X-XIV that is permanently displayed and used at the Inn.

The centennial of the Fair is a pretty big deal here this year, with lots of events planned. Interestingly, one of the very few buildings that survived at the close of the Fair was the Victor Pavillion. Originally a building within a building, for the last century it has been situated just a few miles from me. (It was restored within the last decade but is under private ownership and isn't open to the public.)

Did you know there was a San Diego Pacific Panama Exhibition in 1915 also? As a San Diego boy I have to know that. You can still see it, as it is the current Balboa Park area. Did your exhibition have those wicker electric carts too?

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/ ... p=yhs-001#

I know this isn't music, but there is a recording (or transcription?) of the first transcontinental long-distance phone call, made to Edison from the Exposition, on a very rare Diamond Disc.

Unfortunately, I can't find the link.....

Bill

http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedi ... 206-01.mp3

Volume warning: the mp3 is LOUD. It was actually a recording played over the telephone, not of the call itself.

Dontcha love Miller Reese Hutchinson's rolled rrr's combined with his best Jersey accent ("thoity-sixth annivoice-ary") ?

ps - One assumes Edison heard none of it, as he was about stone-deaf by then. The "little bones" in his ears had been removed by surgeons, he said himself. Did you know that shouting at his cheekbone was the best way for him to hear, by then? Just found that out, recently.

PANAMA EXPOSITION OVERTURE
Pietro Frossini, accordion
Edison Blue Amberol 2537

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wmn6FFFjIQ

Last spring I sold this in the Yankee Trader...

1914
Oxford Disc Record (single side),
1915 San Francisco (March Song), V
This song is an advertisement to come to the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.

listen...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBj1ZM9_RY0

James.

That Harry Burr recording is perfect! Now to find one....

http://libcudl.colorado.edu/sheetmusic/ ... oid=423465 Try this one! " At that San Fran Pan American Fair.." It was recorded by Arthur Fields on Columbia, I believe and it's pretty catchy for one of those " puff piece" genre of song. It makes me giggle every time I play it. Didn't " I Love You California" come out about the same time as the Fair?
Speaking of the Fair, the cultural events that were presented under it's aegis were very impressive If you can find a copy of Emily Kimbrough's book Now and Then ( Harper & Row , 1972 you can find a chapter about her youthful participation in some of the dramatic productions, specifically Margaret Ainglin's producttion of Euripedes' Medea . No slouch, aesthetically speaking, these folks in 1915 San Fancisco.
It was a big event indeed: I have a diary kept by a lovely lady from Rosedale ( Old Toronto money neighbourhood) who went with her husband to the fair. She mentions the concerts, specifically Alma Gluck and Efrem Zimbalist.

Jim

San Diego preserved on film. "Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition":

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/l8cebyi-s1k[/YouTube]

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/l8cebyi-s1k[/YouTube]

Here's a scan of San Franciso on Columbia. It really is a hoot. This is from the early days of World War 1 of course, when everyone still thought that that the war wouldn't go on for long. The first verse ends.....

Send out the invitations: don't forget the foreign nations!
Make them stop their plottin'
All will be forgotten
When they're Turkey Trottin'
To a Yankee melody!
We'll mend that map of Europe
We'll end that scrap in Europe
At that San Fran Pan American Fair!

Love it! The song is even catchier than I remembered. Highly recommended.
Speaking of phonographs and the fair, I've read that Edison supplied a batch of two minute( not four) Blue Amberols for use as the narration in a " sound and light" presentation for some unspecified display . I would love to know more about that.
In fact, I'd love to know more about the Fair in general. From what I've read it was QUITE the show, and was of course overshadowed in the media by " that scrap in Europe" which in 1915 was proving to be not the " hope before Xmas" conflict that they were expecting.


Jim