Cal Stewart - Ticklish Reuben Download (right click and 'Save target as')
This one isn't mentioned in the book, but it's here because it's probably the earliest recording in my collection. It comes from a single-sided Victor disc and the date of recording is somewhere around 1907. It's a fine example of the 'laughing record', and much less well known than Charles Penrose's faintly sinister 'Laughing Policeman'.

Enrico Caruso -Je Suis Seul Download (right click and 'Save target as')
Another offering from the Victor studios at Camden, New Jersey, albeit much more highbrow. This is yer actual Caruso, the gramophone's first classical star, recorded about 10 years after he made his first discs for The Gramophone Company (His Master's Voice) in Milan. When he joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1904, Victor took over responsibility for his recording activities, but as an affiliate of Victor, HMV remained Caruso's label in the Commonwealth. This example comes from a test pressing made at the HMV factory in Hayes, Middlesex on 2 April 1912, if the date stamp on the largely hand-written label is right.

At the start of the First World War, record sales slumped disastrously. Initially, HMV stayed in business only by instituting massive pay cuts and turning much of its manufacturing capacity over to munitions work. It took Louis Sterling of Columbia to recognise that there was a huge potential market for patriotic records, which the company went on to exploit very successfully. HMV caught on to the idea shortly afterwards. And so to page 72 of the book:
"The big hit of the Great War was ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, which dated from 1913 and had not made much of an impression on its first outing. Once the War was underway, it became popular among the soldiers in the trenches, a phenomenon first noted by a Daily Mail reporter. Those who had it in their catalogue already reissued it and promoted it vigorously. Those who didn’t recorded it pretty sharpish. Another song, this time written in response to the situation, was Ivor Novello’s ‘Till the Boys Come Home’ (now perhaps better known as ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’), which soon featured in every recording label’s catalogue. The ever-versatile Stanley Kirkby knocked out versions for several of them, including Scala and Edison-Bell’s Winner label."
Bob Cannon - It's a Long Way to Tipperary Download (right click and 'Save target as')
Stanley Kirkby - Till the Boys Come Home Download (right click and 'Save target as')
I'll confess that I haven't done any research into Bob Cannon, who recorded this version of 'Tipperary' for HMV's ultra-cheap Cinch label in 1913. For all I know, the name might be a pseudonym for another better-known singer, anxious to protect sales of his higher-priced recordings while happily turning a coin from the bargain end of the business. If anyone does know more about him, I'd love to hear from them. There are no such questions about Stanley Kirkby, however, one of the most prolific recording artists of the gramophone's early days. For a little background on the man, we turn to pages 68 and 69:
"Kirkby’s typical payment for a session was the then-astronomical £90 for six titles in a three-hour session, something that the singer could do without breaking sweat. This figure was just slightly less than a skilled printer’s annual wage at this time. In his memoirs, recording engineer Joe Batten recalled Kirkby’s productivity: 'This was before the days of exclusive contracts and royalty payments. Stanley was a freelance and he was doing similar work at much the same payment with other companies, probably three a week…Much has been said about the colossal sums paid today by the gramophone companies to artistes, but I am sure that even such outstanding best-sellers as Gracie Fields, Donald Peers or George Formby never approached Kirkby’s weekly gramophone earnings of two hundred and seventy pounds during the peak recording months of September to January. He had the finest recording voice of all the artistes I have heard in recording studios. It was a pure baritone. His diction was perfect, and he had a versatility in interpretation that distinguished him from all others.'."

Jack Hylton and his Orchestra - Rhymes parts 1 and 2
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Referred to in the book on page 128, this is the recording that Hylton's band made in late 1931 for for HMV's cheaper sister label, Zonophone, rather than the version made a couple of weeks later, when they had moved to the fledgling Decca. The vocal is by the song's composer, Leslie Sarony, of whom I first became aware in the late 1970s, when he played the senile Uncle Staveley ("I heard that. Pardon?") in the wonderful and long-overdue-for-a-repeat Peter Tinniswood-written sitcom I Didn't Know You Cared. One word of the 'There was a young man from Belgrave' rhyme in the second part has been obscured by the recording engineers. Presumably, this was the part to which the BBC objected, but it's hard to imagine that the missing word was anything stronger than 'twit'. Sadly, there is no mention of my favourite limerick, which goes:
There was a young dancer called Gloria,
Who was had by Sir Gerald Du Maurier
Jack Hylton, Jack Payne,
Jack Hylton again
And the band at the Brixton Astoria.
Can't think why.

The Hottentots - In Geneva With Eva Download (right click and 'Save target as')
Back to the bargain bin for a 1932 recording made for the Eclipse label. These were 8" discs (2" smaller than the standard pop 78) which retailed at sixpence each, and were produced by Crystalate exclusively for Woolworths. Behind the nondescript band name lurks an outfit under the direction of Crystalate's dance music director Jay Wilbur. Listen out for the line about sending Eva a message via 2LO (the BBC's first London transmitter, perched atop Marconi House until 1925, when it moved to the roof of Selfridge's department store on Oxford Street), which is charming, if anachronistic, as 2LO had been superseded by the Brookmans Park station over 2 years before the recording was made. Honestly...

Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra - Stars Over Devon
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When Henry Hall toured Germany in the spring of 1939 (he was the last British bandleader to perform over there before the war), he was subjected to a number of restrictions on the repertoire he could perform. Anything composed by Jews was unacceptable, which ruled out some of the biggest hits of the day. The story of what happened is told on page 141, and here to illustrate what Hall's band sounded like is one of my favourite recordings from the dance band era, made for Columbia circa 1933. The vocalist is Dan Donovan. Regrettably, I broke the disc accidentally shortly after transcribing it.

Ras Prince Monolulu - I Got An 'Orse Download (right click and 'Save target as')
I come from Epsom, home of the Derby, and my family are no strangers to the pleasures of the turf. On one family visit to the Downs, I was distracted from the main pursuit of seeing if my money was enough to slow down any horse on which I cared to place it by my nan's reminiscences about Ras Prince Monolulu, the legendary tipster, who had livened up many an Epsom meeting with his ostrich feather head-dress and his shout of 'I Gotta Horse!'. Some while later, I was delighted to find that he had committed his race-track spiel, complete with the laudable suggestion of skinning the bookie, to shellac some time around 1933 for the Regal Zonophone label. The choral refrain at the end is hilarious. According to the massed ranks of the Mormon Tabernacle Mr Cholmondeley-Warners, the Prince hails from 'Sunny Honolulu', presumably because that's the only place that rhymed. In fact, he was born in what is now Guyana, and his real name was Peter Mackay. A little more background on him can be found here.

Jack Parnell and his Band - Summertime Download (right click and 'Save target as')
This number, from George and Ira Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess' must be one of the most frequently recorded items ever, but when it comes to jazz renditions of it, I think this magnificently brooding version tops even Miles Davis' famous recording. Set down onto the new-fangled medium of magnetic tape in Abbey Road studio 2 on 28 October 1952 for EMI's Parlophone label, the arrangement is by Laurie Johnson (later better known for writing the theme to the Avengers) and the trumpet soloist is the incomparable Jimmy Deuchar. An honourable mention also to Max Harris, who plays the superbly menacing celeste part. When EMI put out a CD of the Parnell band a couple of years ago, this and its flip-side - a raucous, ferocious reading of 'The Champ' - were unaccountably absent. This bizarre oversight is, I believe, directly responsible for the 1500 job losses announced by the company recently.

Ted Heath and his Music - Seven Eleven Download (right click and 'Save target as')
The big bands are a great musical love of mine and this record is the main reason why. When, at the age of 8 or 9, I was given a pile of 78s by my grandparents, this was among them, and it became (along with 'The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt' by the Shadows on 45) my main drum practice record. It was recorded at the Decca studios, Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead on 6 October 1953; the chart is by Reg Owen; and the soloists are, in order, Frank Horrox (piano), Danny Moss (tenor saxophone), Roy Willox (alto saxophone) and Don Lusher (trombone), with some brief, invigorating drum breaks towards the end from the fabulous Ronnie Verrell - best known to the younger generation as the drummer on The Frank Skinner Show until his sad death in 2002. Again, this one appears to be unavailable on CD - it was once available on a compilation of the Heath band's 1950s singles, but the transfer they used sounded like it had been played back with a rice paper needle. Strangely, everything else on the disc was master-tape clear.

Hermione Gingold and Gilbert Harding - Takes Two to Tango/Oh Grandma!
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And finally, the fourth record to be released by the Philips label when it set up its UK operation in January 1953 (Catalogue number: PB 104). I first found out about its existence when my research for the book led me to plough through back issues of the Gramophone at the British Library. I saw it advertised and reviewed and, instantly, I knew I had to have a copy. A few months later, luck prevailed, and I found one in mint condition, on sale for 10p at the Musical Museum in Brentford. For the uninitiated, it should be explained that Hermione Gingold was a character actress, a star of revue and the ex-wife of Eric Maschwitz, who wrote the lyrics for 'These Foolish Things' and 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square', as well as being the BBC's first head of variety. Meanwhile Gilbert Harding was a radio and television personality, better known for the gruff manner in which he expressed himself on programmes like Twenty Questions and What's My Line than for what he actually expressed. He was equally famous for liking a drop, hence the Scotch joke in 'Takes Two to Tango', and it must be assumed that the recording (with backing from Peter Yorke's orchestra) took place after Harding and Gingold had enjoyed a good lunch. Anyway, both sides are utterly splendid, and it gets a mention on page 171.

The above recordings have been transferred and remastered from original 78 rpm discs of varying condition and quality, using Adobe Audition. All of them are over 50 years old, and thus assumed to be out of copyright, but if any are not, I would be grateful of a polite notification.