The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Does anyone know anything about the Pearl record label and a group on that label called The Pearl Trio?

I can find no reference to the label or the group anywhere.

I found the record (shown below) in a collection I bought quite a number of years ago which was mostly 40's Swing stuff. It has a crack, and I had stored it away with cracked records of interest. Getting around to repairing cracks now, I dug these records out.

I haven't played the record in years, but I do remember that side A is a very salacious novelty tune filled with raunchy dentistry double entendres. Perhaps it is a vanity recording? The record might be so rare that it is valueless. LOL.

Hmmm. I should have done a search again before posting the above. There was nothing to be found about this label or this group a decade or so ago. A cursory new search now turns up results.

There still isn't a lot of information about the label or the Pearl Trio. It was a small label set up in Kentucky in the 1940s which mostly specialised in the "Party Record" genre (for party read smutty). There have been some efforts to reverse engineer their catalogue. I don't think they ever got radio play as the content was not always that subtle, quite the opposite in fact. Larry Vincent was the song writer and one of the owners of the label. I don't know who the Pearl Trio actually were. Maybe ever changing session players? Did they ever perform live? Who knows?

https://myauctionfinds.com/2018/07/25/7 ... the-1940s/

"The auction stash also included party records distributed by Pearl Records, and recorded by the Pearl Trio and songwriter Larry Vincent, one of the company’s owners. Vincent had recorded for several labels and performed at clubs before settling in for five years at the Lookout House in Kentucky in 1942. His company, which he co-founded in 1946, produced both party and non-party records.

Pearl’s party records in the auction lot were “Sarah Sitting in a Shoe Shine Shop,” “She Came Rolling Down the Mountain” and “3000 Years Ago.” Perhaps his most popular party tune was “Freckle Song” – with the lyrics “She’s got freckles on her but.” It was not included in the lot. There are several other recordings that appear to be clean songs."


https://www.discogs.com/label/769376-Pe ... rd-Company


https://archive.org/search.php?query=cr ... RL+TRIO%22

I remembered a site that had a good discography for you to look over.
https://www.queermusicheritage.com/MAY2 ... e.html.pdf

James.

Roaring20s wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:04 pm I remembered a site that had a good discography for you to look over.
https://www.queermusicheritage.com/MAY2 ... e.html.pdf

James.

Thanks. An interesting resource.

"Party" records are not a genre I intentionally collect. I have some Jazz, Blues, R&B, and UK inter-war dance band stuff that strays into this territory, though. The Pearl recording is the only true/pure "Party" record that I own. I have not listened to it in a very long while. I remember it appealing to the prurient and puerile teenage boy still lurking somewhere in my soul the one time that I did listen to it. I have it glued and clamped up at the moment. Once the glue is cured, I will give it a spin. Then it will probably disappear into the collection - seldom to see the light of day again.

I've seen these around in groups of 40s 78s.They were party records. edisonplayer.

Well ... it is not as amusing or as raunchy as I remembered it being. In the decade or so since listening to it last, I have probably become both more jaded and more mature.

The repair job on the crack did not turn out all that well. The surfaces of the record across the crack did not align easily - in line one place, out another.

These were pressed on shoddy material. edisonplayer

Here is a footnote from a book I'm reading titled "Industrial Strength Bluegrass". Interestingly, Roy Lee Centers was a friend of mine. He played with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. He was murdered in the Spring of 1974.

Adult party records were also around in the 1950's and 60's too. I have a few in my jukeboxes and when a guest selects one.....they are in for a surprise.