Henry Burr
Henry Burr (January 15, 1882 – April 6, 1941) was a Canadian singer of popular songs in the early 20th century, an early radio performer and producer. He was born Harry Haley McClaskey and used Henry Burr as one of his many pseudonyms, in addition to Irving Gillette, Henry Gillette, Alfred Alexander, Robert Rice, Carl Ely, Harry Barr, Frank Knapp, Al King, and Shamus McClaskey.[1][2] He was one of the first singers to make popular acoustic recordings and one of the most prolific recording artists of all time, with more than 12,000 recordings by his own estimate.[3] A tenor, he performed as a soloist and also in duets, trios and quartets. His most famous collaboration was the Peerless Quartet.
Early years
Recording artist
It was around 1902 that he started to make recordings with Columbia Records and he used the name Henry Burr at that time. He arrived at a particularly opportune time for Columbia, as their star tenor George J. Gaskin was in the final years of his career.[4] He started recording for Edison Records as well in November 1904, under the name Irving Gillette.[4] Disagreements with company executives resulted in him no longer recording for Edison after October 1914.[4] He first recorded with Victor on January 4, 1905, and the recordings were first released that March.[4] On April 7, 1905 he recorded Egbert Van Alstyne's "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" which proved to be highly popular.[4] It was also recorded by contemporary Billy Murray the same year. Burr proved to be a successful artist, recording as noted, thousands of songs for various labels under various names. He would record with Leeds Talk-O-Phone and the American Record Company as well.[4]
Collaborations
In 1906, Burr joined the Columbia Male Quartet which was recording for the Columbia Record Company as second tenor under the management of Frank C. Stanley.[1] They were later renamed the Peerless Quartet when they moved to the Victor label. When Stanley died in 1910,[4] Burr took over management of the group.[3] It continued on as a popular recording and live performance team (with various personnel and name changes over the years) until 1928, when it disbanded.[1] Burr was also a member of other recording groups, including the Metropolitan Trio and the Manhattan Mixed Trio, both of which featured him with Frank C. Stanley and Elise Stevenson.[4] In 1921, he was a minor collaborator on Broadway, contributing music to a summertime review called The Broadway Whirl.[6]
Burr also recorded successfully in a duo with Albert Campbell. The pair had a succession of major commercial hits between 1911 and 1925, including "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1913); "Till We Meet Again" (1919); and "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" (1919).[7]
As a businessman
By 1915, he was in a comfortable position financially, and he began to seek ways to invest his money. That year, he formed the Paroquette Record Manufacturing Company with Fred Van Eps, based in New York City. The Paroquette system used vertical cut records and featured his own recordings and those of several other performers. As a novel introduction in a highly competitive market, the Paroquette recording technique was an early failure, and the company was out of business by 1917.[3] Burr also tried music publishing, and he also shared ownership in a banjo factory with Van Eps for a short while.[4]
Early radio
By the late 1920s, his recording career was over – electrical recording technologies had led to the crooner style of tenor first exemplified in the singing of Gene Austin and Al Bowlly – but the commercial potential of radio continued to interest Burr. As a result, he became involved in early radio programming, forming Henry Burr, Inc. in 1928 as a producer of radio programming.[3] He produced numerous programs for commercial radio networks into the 1930s. He originated the Cities Service broadcast, which he produced for two years.
In October 1929, he reportedly lost a substantial portion of his wealth in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[4] Within a month, however, he was appointed Director of the Artist's Bureau at CBS which had just been organized under the ownership of William S. Paley.
Around 1935, he returned to performing on the radio as a member of the WLS Chicago National Barn Dance troupe, which was broadcast over NBC on Saturday evenings. He soon became a featured performer on the show, which he stayed with for five years until shortly before his death. He suffered from throat cancer and died in Chicago on April 6, 1941. Buried near his stepdaughter Marguarite in Mount Vernon, New York, where he had lived,[5] he was survived by his wife, Cecilia.[4]
Cultural references
Although Burr is rarely heard today in mainstream musical culture, his beautiful 1922 rendition of "My Buddy" was used on the soundtrack of a Boardwalk Empire episode, originally broadcast on October 8, 2012 (Season 3, Episode 4, "Blue Bell Boy").
Notably, in the 1960s, the famous ukelele-playing singer Tiny Tim frequently played Burr songs on stage and on such programs as The Johnny Carson Show.[8]
See also
- The Haydn Quartet
- 1903 in music
- 1909 in music
- 1918 in music
- 1922 in music
- "Peg o' My Heart"
- "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Edward B. Moogk. "Burr, Henry". Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.
- ↑ "Exhibit of the Month: Psuedonyms [sic] & Those Who Used Them". Stanford University. December 6, 2002.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Henry Burr, tenor (1885-1941)". Collections Canada. 2007-07-18.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 Tim Gracyk (2006). "Henry Burr".
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Doug Dougherty, St. Stephen - Yesteryear, n. d. (ca 2000), St Stephen: Parsons Publishing company.
- ↑ Playbill Vault, Henry Burr Broadway Theater credits
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research, Inc. pp. 69–70. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.
- ↑ Clark (interviewer), Ernie. "TINY TIM, A LOOK BACK:". Remembering Tiny tim. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
External links
- Discography of Henry Burr on Victor Records from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)
- Arthur Makosinki: Henry Burr online Makosinki attempts to trace the convoluted changes in Burr's various quartets, trios and other ventures. The web site also provides various additional stage names.
Audio
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Burr. |
- When you and I were young Maggie (1916 solo performance) From Virtual Gramophone.
- Henry Burr in concert This site contains direct links to the above site, which eliminates the need to search the database.
- Samples from Archeophone Records
- AVTrust.ca - Henry Burr (video clip)
- Henry Burr recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
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