Croonette: an Elsie Carlisle Discography
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CROONETTE An Elsie Carlisle Discography by A. G. Kozak Version 1.0.3 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8307-9716 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3753041 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Conventions Reference List Abbreviations Discography 1 INTRODUCTION Elsie Carlisle started her career as a child chorus girl on the late Edwardian stage and effectively retired by the end of the Second World War with the well-earned epithet “Idol of the Radio.” Radio was the medium through which millions had come to love her. She had reached the public through other means as well, including short films and television (when that technology was in its infancy). Yet for an appreciation of her contribution to culture, twenty-first-century connoisseurs of popular song are almost entirely dependent on her voice’s persistence on the brittle shellac records of the time (or on the rare alternatives, primitive plastics or cardboard and acetate). In order to distinguish very similar records from one another and to identify which ones preserve which individual takes of a song, and in order to relate the physical discs to the historical recording sessions, we must rely on the aid of a discography. Two discographies have been written about Elsie Carlisle’s artistic output. The first, Edward S. Walker’s Elsie Carlisle – With a Different Style, was no doubt impressive when it was published in 1974, but it has been in almost every respect superseded by Richard Johnson’s 1994 Elsie Carlisle: A Discography. Johnson includes extensive information (often based on archival research) about the identity of bands and accompanists, even going so far as to identify individual band personnel. His work is nearly complete; it omits only one Decca Rhythm Maniacs recording (present in Walker but misidentified by Rust and Forbes), two HMV “C” series sides, and two songs on Panachord. It would be hard to improve upon Johnson’s deep knowledge of band personnel, so I do not attempt to do so. Rather, I aim for greater completeness and accuracy, providing more information about known additional takes and identifying the presence of other singers or speakers, using as my primary evidence the labels, the shellac, and the music itself. I frequently cite other varieties of discography. Ross Laird’s 1996 Moanin’ Low is an ambitious collection of artist discographies documenting the careers of popular female Anglophone singers who recorded from 1920-1933. Laird builds upon Johnson’s work, although the narrower focus of his book necessarily omits the latter half of Elsie’s career. An even more general discography that cannot be overlooked is Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes’s British Dance Bands on Record, which Johnson must have benefited from himself. I also cite the sixth edition of Rust’s Jazz and Ragtime Records. Label discographies are another useful source of information. I include a few of these in my reference list, but by far the most relevant to the study of Elsie Carlisle’s records is Michael Smith’s two-volume study of the Decca “F” series. No less useful are Mike Thomas’s online resources for British 78 rpm record labels, which provide extraorinarily useful information about some of the less well-documented record companies and which continue to be updated regularly. In this discography, session descriptions are based primarily on the wording of the record labels themselves and supplemented when necessary with other known information. Dates are mostly taken from Ross Laird’s book, when possible, and from Johnson in other instances. It should be noted that dating Dominion and Imperial records is notoriously difficult, and those dates will probably always remain approximate. For recording locations, we must always depend on Johnson’s unique research. I wrote the first draft of this new Elsie Carlisle discography while self-isolating during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. It is based on six years’ worth of notes and observations that I have made while collecting Elsie’s records and creating elsiecarlisle.com. My hope is that by publishing my discography online, I will encourage collectors to help me identify previously unattested takes. One result of Michael Smith’s study of ledgers for the Decca “F” series is that we know that many takes existed at one time that have never been particularly identified “in the wild”; I put these takes in dim, grey italics, but I would encourage anyone who has run across an actual copy of one of them (perhaps as a Decca vinyl test pressing?) to contact me so that I may mark it as confirmed. Likewise, there are a number of record labels that I have not been able to inspect myself; these are in black italics, and I would be most grateful to anyone who can share photographs of the labels so that I may improve my session descriptions. And who knows? Perhaps one of us collectors will someday hear Elsie’s voice on a previously unscrutinized record and enable me to add a few lines to this list. I would like to express my gratitude to the following people: Enrico Borsetti Terry Brown Michael Fenwick 2 Charles Hippisley-Cox Jonathan David Holmes Clive Hooley Erik Høst Mick Johnson Erin Elisavet Kozak Barry McCanna Stephen John Paget Ray Pallett Henry Parsons Mike Taylor Mike Thomas Peter Wallace David Weavings John Wright A. G. Kozak Berkeley, California 3 Conventions Basic Session Information For any given session, this discography attempts to identify singers, speakers, and accompaniment, but not individual band personnel. This information is worded and abbreviated, as much as possible, in accordance with the wording of the record labels. Information in parentheses is supplementary and not on the labels. If a session header is simply a date, that means either that the artists and accompanists are the same as at the last session, or (in the case of uncredited studio bands) that the accompaniment is similarly uncredited. NAMES IN ALL CAPS If a name is capitalized in the session description, that means that the name is actually printed on the label. Italics When a take number is listed in dim, grey italics (e.g. the “-1” in “GB-4589-1-2-3”), it means that the take is only attested in Michael Smith’s label discography and nowhere else. If, by any chance, you happen to own that take, please contact me so that I may mark its present existence as having been confirmed. When a label and catalogue number are italicized (e.g. St 1023), it means that I have yet to inspect that side of the label. If you own that record, please contact me so that I can be sure the description of the session resembles the wording of the label as much as possible. (Songwriter Names) Songwriter names are included after each song name inside parentheses. They are written as much as possible just as they are on the labels; exceptions are when a name has been misspelled on labels, or when a known contributor has been omitted from the label. Underlined Label and Catalogue No. On occasion, an unissued take can be found on an LP; the LP’s label name and catalogue number will be underlined. SMALL, BOLD INITIALS AFTER SESSION Small, bold initials after a session represent salient sources for the information listed (see Sources, below). I have adopted this practice from John Wright’s Len Fillis Discography. I always list BDBR, RJJ, RL, and JRR (see below) when a session is listed in any of those four sources; other texts are referenced by initials only when their contribution to knowledge of a session and its takes is in some way unique or unusual. 4 REFERENCE LIST Andrews, Frank and Dean-Myatt, Bill. The Imperial Records. CLPGS Reference Series No. 33. London: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, 2014. (ADM) Andrews, Frank and Smith, Michael. “His Master’s Voice” -- the “C” series. Complete Catalogue of Records. Wells- next-the-Sea: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, 2004. (AS) Badrock, Arthur. Dominion Records: A Catalogue & History. Second Revised Edition. Bournemouth, England, UK: Talking Machine Review, 1986. Badrock, Arthur with Andrews, Frank and Pilcher, Grant. Filmophone Discography. Gillingham, Kent, England, UK: Talking Machine Review, 1998. (AB-Film) Hayes, J. G. Disc Research England. Rex 8000 Series. 8001 to 10241. Sep. 1933 to March 1948. An A to Z Artist Catalogue. Liverpool: J. G. Hayes, 1974. Hill, Dick. Silvester Ahola: The Gloucester Gabriel. Studies in Jazz, No. 14. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1993. (DH) “H.M.V.” Melody Maker (Archive: 1926-2000) 2, no 24 (Dec 01, 1927): 1271-1273. Johnson, Richard J. Elsie Carlisle: A Discography. Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Richard J. Johnson, 1994. (RJJ) Johnson, Richard J. “Elsie Carlisle (with a different style).” Memory Lane 174 (2012): 22-26; 175 (2012): 39-43; 176 (2012): 32-37; 177 (2012): 38-43. Laird, Ross. Moanin’ Low: A Discography of Female Popular Vocal Recordings, 1920-1933. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. (RL) Hughes, Spike. “Decca Days.” Swing Music 1.4 (June 1935): 83-84, 112. “Needlepoint.” “The Gramophone Review.” Melody Maker (Archive: 1926-2000) 2, no. 20 (Aug 01, 1927): 779-786. Pallet, Ray. They Called Him Al: The Musical Life of Al Bowlly. Albany, Georgia, USA: BearManor Media, 2015. Rust, Brian. Jazz and Ragtime Records 1897-1942. Sixth Edition. Free Personal-Use Edition. Littleton, Colorado, USA: Mainspring Press, 2016. (JRR) Rust, Brian and Forbes, Sandy. British Dance Bands on Record, 1911 to 1945, and Supplement. Bungay, Suffolk, UK: Richard Clay, Ltd., 1989. (BDBR) Smith, Michael. Decca Records Company, Ltd. Royal Blue and Gold ‘F’ Series 10 Inch 78 rpm Records.