The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Any comments appreciated:

OKeh 8041 'Sugar Blues/Achin' Hearted Blues' -- Sara Martin
Marsh 'Autograph' 5001 'Moonlight and Roses/Sometime' -- Milton Charles (Tivoli Theatre Pipe Organ)

Thanks!

Is that an earlier Autograph? I don't know how to date those things.

As you may know, Orlando Marsh's experiments with electrical recordings in 1923-24 (on the Autograph label)pre-dates what is often regarded as the start of the electrical era (1925.)

If so, that's neat.

Wolfe wrote:Is that an earlier Autograph? I don't know how to date those things. If so, that's neat.

It has a checkerboard border around the circumference of the label and states 'Electrically Recorded' upon the label. This is the only Marsh 'Autograph' I have -- were there label variants?

So interesting that Marsh was electrically recording before WE . . . so hard to say "The first _____" in this hobby!

JohnM wrote: So interesting that Marsh was electrically recording before WE .

Indeed, he was.

JohnM wrote: has a checkerboard border around the circumference of the label and states 'Electrically Recorded' upon the label. This is the only Marsh 'Autograph' I have -- were there label variants?

The earliest Autographs didn't state electrically recorded on the label. Even though they were.

I think the Sara Martin disc was her first recording. I'd never heard of her before so had to do some googling on her, but according to Red Hot Jazz, she was signed to Okeh in 1922, and 8041 (recorded Oct '22") is her first recording listed in the online discography project, in any of the series recorded that year. Okeh 8043 was her next release, recorded Dec 1, 1922.
I always think it's nice to find artists first ever recordings.
Nice score.

I have a feeling that a teenaged Fats Waller was Martin's accompanist, also. I have another of theirs from that or the next year.

The acoustic process did not do her great voice justice. I have an old Riverside LP (wonderfully transferred) of her recordings on the QRS label (I think) with Clarence Williams and King Oliver, from 1928. They are amazing.

Thanks for the additional insight on Sara Martin. She also interests me because we have the same hometown -- Louisville. I have two other Martin records that I picked up in an antiques shop in Prestonsburg, Kentucky a couple of years ago. I can't recall the titles and I'm not at home to check, but they are in very worn condition. The lady gave them to me.