A Rare Recording of 1920's American Vaudeville

Variety entertainment dominated the popular recording industry's acoustic era (pre -1925), from its beginnings in the 1890s, when records were made on wax cylinders, right up to the beginning of the jazz age in the mid-1920s. From slapstick vaudeville routines and ethnic dialect skits to romantic ballads and dramatic recitations, sound recordings brought variety entertainment into the homes of millions of Americans. The following are three recordings from the era. The Arkansas Traveler, performed by Steve Porter and Ernest Hare, recorded in 1922. A classic "rube" sketch, The Arkansas Traveler was probably the best-selling example of the popular genre "descriptive scene," a humorous dramatic sketch that often included sound effects and music. Steve Porter was a versatile vaudeville comedian who wrote and performed many comedy routines on early sound recordings. Here is teams with singer and comedian Billy Jones. Desperate Desmond, written and performed by Fred Duprez, recorded in 1915. Duprez was a vaudeville comedian famous for his comic monologues. An Edison record catalog, circa 1927, had this to say about the Desperate Desmond bit: "Duprez invented all this himself and has given it before many audiences. It is really very cleverly worked out; some of the incidental music fits the characters with a burlesque fashion, and some of it, apparently to Duprez's intense disgust, is wildly inappropriate. To quote a popular advertisement If you can't laugh at this, see a doctor." Laughing Record (Henry's Music Lesson), performed by Sally Stembler and Edward Meeker, recorded 1923. This comic sketch was so popular nearly every early record company sold a recording of it. This is the Edison Company's version. Known as the "laughing girl," Sally Stembler was recalled in Jim Walsh's seminal column, "Favorite Pioneer Recording Artist," in Hobbies Magazine (September, 1973): "Miss Stembler was a vaudeville comedienne who for a generation or more entertained audiences with laughing specialties."