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I just completed a record trade with another TMF member. One of the records I received in this trade is Little Wonder 569, The Smiler played by Vess L. Ossman. The catalog number indicates that the disc was issued c. early 1917.

According to The Banjo on Record (Uli Heier and Rainer E. Lotz, Greenwood Press, 1993), the recording on this disc was made on December 6, 1910.

I have no problem with a scenario indicating a 1910 Columbia recording having been issued on a Columbia subsidiary label in 1917. But, here is the dilemma: Why would Columbia produce a one minute and forty-eight second recording in 1910 when

1.) 5.5" Little Wonder records were not produced until 1914, and

2.) Columbia has abandoned its 7" records sometime earlier, ruling out the possibility that this recording would have been originally intended to be issued on a 7" disc

I'm hoping that someone here can clear this up for me.

I wonder if the LW is dubbed and edited for the LW format. Either that or Vess recorded it again for LW later and the discographers missed this.

Edit: His bio page on Wikipedia contains this snippet:
On December 14, 1917 he made his final recordings for Columbia Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vess_Ossman

I think a later recording date for LW is certainly possible.

Thanks, Georg. According to the banjo discography, two recordings were made by Mr. Ossman on Dec. 14, 1917. But neither was issued.

I think you might have hit on something when you mentioned an edit. Although I believe it would have been a tricky thing to remove material from a recording unless it were removed either from the beginning or end of that recording. But, I am beginning to believe that in his case, it might have been cut off at about 60% or so point.

I just listened to it again. The introduction seems typical and fine. But, at the end, I hear a sound that occurs on what would have been the very next beat of the music. Being a ragtime piece, it is in 4/4 time. The melody ends on the first beat of the measure. The sound I hear is on beat two of the measure. The banjo is accompanied by an orchestra and it is hard to tell what sound I am hearing on that second beat. If it is a musical sound, then the idea that this is an edit (by removing the last part of the recording) is both reasonable and likely. This would have been the easiest way to shorten an existing recording.

If anyone here has a copy of Little Wonder 569, please let me know if you also hear this sound.

Discogs lists this as "Artist is uncredited on this release but is likely to have been Fred Van Eps"
https://www.discogs.com/release/1305084 ... The-Smiler

Van Eps is a good guess based on the year 1917, at a time when his recording career was flourishing. That it was him was my first inclination.

According to The Banjo on Record, Van Eps recorded The Smiler in 1916 for Par-O-Ket (founded by Van Eps and Henry Burr) and in 1917-1920 for the Princess label, both of which were verticals and so would not have been issued on one of Columbia's labels.

I have learned much from discogs, but also have found errors on that site. Isn't the content contributed primarily by record collectors? I don't think we should necessarily accept that all info on that site has been well researched.

vintagetenor wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2024 5:03 pm Van Eps is a good guess based on the year 1917, at a time when his recording career was flourishing. That it was him was my first inclination.

According to The Banjo on Record, Van Eps recorded The Smiler in 1916 for Par-O-Ket (founded by Van Eps and Henry Burr) and in 1917-1920 for the Princess label, both of which were verticals and so would not have been issued on one of Columbia's labels.

I have learned much from discogs, but also have found errors on that site. Isn't the content contributed primarily by record collectors? I don't think we should necessarily accept that all info on that site has been well researched.

Was simply pointing it out.