Furry Lewis, a 77 year old, wooden-legged street sweeper from Memphis, told the audience that when he got married he had 15 cents and his wife had 25. "Then the next day she left me flat, sayin' I had got her just for the money" - Michael Lydon, New York Times, April 1970, Oh, What a Beautiful City
Don't think this one has been mentioned here before. Someone has scanned a helluva lot of issues of Music Trade Review and Presto, two historical music trade weeklies, and put them online in PDF format. They are music industry trade publications which have a lot of information on old instruments. If you're looking for background info on your weirdly named and dubious instrument(s) from the first half of the 20th century, this may be a useful resource. Or if you're looking for a dead tenor banjo teacher, ads for piano rolls or folding organs, or info about talking machines, this is for you. I think Todd's new Fraulini ad would have fit right in.
..well, already lost about 2 hrs scanning the journals, but I discovered that weenie's own Mr. O. Muck in was in pretty heady company back in the day! check this list from the MTR
C. F. MARTIN & CO., INC., Nazareth, Pa. 620. Exhibit of Martin guitars and other string instruments. In charge: C. Frederick Martin. In attendance: John J. Shea. MAYBERG CO., INC., 1860 Broadway, New York. 709. Musical instrument insurance. MUCK & SONS, INC., J. R., 125 E. 126th St., New York. 745. Band instrument accessories. NATIONAL DOBRO CORP., 400 S. Peoria, Chicago, 111. 701-702. The Dobro line of guitars and mandolins. In charge of Harry Gerstin. Sales Mgr.
Yes back in the day, actually maybe only as far back as twenty years ago there was a small obscure shop dealing in old and oddball instruments called Rudy Muck. I believe it was on 46th or 47th street. Its last incarnation was on 57th St. in a second or third floor space in a building hard by the Steinway piano showroom. Its most memorable association for me was when my schoolmate at the High School of Music & Art, Eric Bibb showed up at school one day with an ancient huge voiced Stella or Stella like Twelve string or twelve string harp guitar contraption which filled me with awe and deep green envy. I of course asked where he'd found such a beast, in the vain hope that perhaps there was another one lying around. The answer delivered like an edict of lost forever guitar longing was, RUDY MUCK! Come to think of it it was right around the time that my stage moniker Grungie O'Muck was rolled out for a one week trial. If it didn't produce the desired effect, the next week I intended to appear as Blind Charlie Hingemoan. I hope i'm remembering the details of this correctly. An alternate scenario gnawing at my brainstem has me playing the guitar at Muck's and finding out in discussing it with him later that Eric had snatched it up. Well forty years is a long time so it was something like one or both of those.
Logged
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)
I love browsing through those MTR editions. Clearly they were totally fixated on shifting pianos though. It's a real shame non-keyboard instruments were not given equal weight, From that I guess we can deduce where the big profits were.
Dani, if you find out anything please let us know, sounds like a very interesting article that personally I would love to read.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 07:06:12 PM by Rivers »
After exploring a bit further, I think that the article was published in "The Music Trades" and not in "The Music Trade Review." The citation for the article appears in several bibliographies and unless we're dealing with a mistake copied and then repeated, my guess is that the periodical, "The Music Trades," is where you want to look.
A couple of years ago I checked on an early music industry publication for an acquaintance who also does research in this area. The librarian with whom I spoke told me that while many trade publications have been donated to libraries over the years, they tend to sit in storage and remain uncatalogued, due to both lack of demand and to limited resources. She said that this is changing, however. My advice would be to ask a reference or research librarian at a library system that has a music library. He or she may be able to access resources that are unavailable to us mere mortals and assist you with your search for the article, possibly through inter-library borrowing or other services.
Dani, you could also try and contact Karen Linn through the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. She has cited tha article in question in her great book: "That Half-Barbaric Twang - The Banjo in American Popular Culture". Alternatively you could try to contact her through her publisher (University of Illinois Press).
Yeah--He was probably looking for one specific answer or piece of information. For some of us, however, there's just no cure for curiosity. (--Paraphrasing Dorothy Parker, IIRC.)