MONARCH OF THE MICROPHONE A Maurice Elwin Discography by A. G. Kozak mauriceelwin.com Public Working Draft Version 0.2.2 (Updated July 22, 2021) Monarch of the Microphone: A Maurice Elwin Discography by A. G. Kozak is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8307-9716 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.4939404 Many thanks to Jonathan Holmes for providing me with the signed photograph of Maurice Elwin that graces the front page of this discography. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Reference List Abbreviations Discography 1916-1922 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 Difficult to Date: Homochord Little Marvel & Fairy Parlophone Pathé Actuelle and Derivative Labels Rex Solex Sterno Trusound Unconfirmed: Bert and Bob (Decca) Creighton and Laughton (Decca) Other Decca Groups Parlophone Groups Melody Boys (Homochord) Mellow and Rich (Broadcast) Other Possible Recordings Recordings Not By Elwin Appendix: Conventions Used in This Discography 1 INTRODUCTION I started this Maurice Elwin discography on January 31, 2021, at a time when a possible abatement of the global pandemic was in sight, in the expectation that it would be a few months before the bittersweet leisure afforded me by the crisis might be interrupted by my resuming my former activities. It was always my intention to publish it, as I have done, as a working draft on Elwin’s 125th birthday (June 14, 2021). The task was daunting, as I had reason to believe that Elwin might prove to be the second most prolific British singer of his era — a claim borne out so far by my research. Compiling even a fairly complete account of his recorded artistic output would take years, not months. British dance band singers were seldom credited by name, and Elwin compounded the problem of identifying his vocals by using over sixty pseudonyms, some of which were also used by other artists. For that matter, he also made records under variations of his real name, Norman MacPhail Blair. My research aims not just to identify Elwin vocals, but also to document records that have been misidentified as including his voice or that could conceivably be mistaken for his work. So far I have counted 2,127 discrete matrices that are either definitely by Elwin or that I have not yet been able to rule out as his. My experience so far leads me to believe that while I shall eventually be able to mark as spurious some of what I have listed here, there must be at least an equal amount of material that I have not yet identified. So the number 2,127, while obviously not the final count, should be an indicator of the order of magnitude we are dealing with. To put that number into perspective, John Wright, working from Barry Wolsey’s Sam Browne Discography and its supplements, estimates that Sam Browne, by far the most prolific British singer of his sort, made at least 2,818 recordings over the course of a career spanning from 1928 well into the 1950s. Elwin made all of his publicly issued recordings between 1925-1936 — a much shorter period — so he may emerge, in the final assessment, as the harder-working recording artist. Artistic quality is not measured in numbers, however. Elwin’s singing exhibits an unpretentious elegance; it is subtle and precise, evoking sincerity as much as any other quality. It is interesting to note, though, that he was the regular vocalist for some of the most exciting bands of the period (I think particularly of those of the Firmans and of Arthur Lally). To the extent that his comparative restraint contrasted with their hotness, I think the effect must have been intentional. For reflections on Elwin’s artistic merits, I would refer the reader to my website, mauriceelwin.com. To my knowledge, what I have written here is the first Maurice Elwin discography. The groundwork for it was laid, however, in 1980 by Chris Hayes and George Carpenter (1980b), who tried to estimate how many records Elwin made, and in the process revealed some of his more obscure pseudonyms and collaborations. I do not believe that I am done yet following their leads. Much of my most reliable data comes from Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes’s 1989 British Dance Bands on Record, but even that discographical “bible” is not free from errors, and it does not recognize “Guy Victor” as an Elwin pseudonym. It also accounts for less than half of the recording sessions Elwin was involved in, a majority of which did 2 not involve dance band music per se. Rust’s Jazz and Ragtime Records (2016) makes a good effort at identifying some of Elwin’s solo work as being of “jazz interest.” I have made use of a great many label discographies which can be found in the reference list. Most of the best print and CD-ROM resources are published by the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society (CLPGS). Special mention must be made, however, of the online discographies of Mike Thomas, who seems to have accounted for every British label for which the CLPGS does not yet have a book. This discography includes recordings that are difficult to date and that have been therefore relegated to the end of the list. There is also the problem of identifying Elwin’s vocal partners. “Maurice and Sydney” seems always to include Maurice Elwin, but his partner can be either Sydney Nesbitt or Sydney Wilson. “Solemn and Gay” likewise always includes Elwin, but his partner is only mostly Cavan O’Connor. Decca’s “Bert and Bob” records do not even always have Elwin in them. There are other such vocal groups. For the time being, I am focusing on identifying Elwin’s voice rather than that of any vocal partners. There are certain kinds of material that I have not included. The Regal duettists “Sweet and Low” were considered by Hayes and Carpenter to feature Elwin (1980b, 32), but I get the sense that that is seldom if ever true. Rather than list a lot of records that probably do not have Elwin’s voice on them, I have put off addressing these pseudonymous duettists until I have a convincing example or two of Elwin’s involvement. I intend to continue publishing updates to this book in web format at mauriceelwin.com and as a PDF on Zenodo. Please contact me with any suggestions you have for its improvement. I am particularly keen to see label scans (the catalogue numbers in italics are the ones I have not seen yet), to confirm take numbers, and to hear transfers. Special thanks for research assistance go to: Terry Brown Charles Hippisley-Cox Robert Girling Jonathan Holmes Jerry King Erin Kozak Steve Paget Henry Parsons Javier Soria Laso John Watson John Wright I would also like to thank all members of the Facebook group “The Golden Age of British Dance Bands,” as well as all those who so generously upload transfers from their collections to YouTube and other sites. 3 A. G. Kozak Berkeley, California mauriceelwin.com June 14, 2021 (Maurice Elwin’s 125th birthday) (Introduction updated for version 0.2.0 on July 13, 2021) 4 REFERENCE LIST Andrews, Frank. 1985. Columbia 10″ Records, 1904-30. London: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (FA-Col) ⸻. 2006. Zonophone Double-Sided Records 10 and 12 Inch Numerical Listing – Volumes 1 & 2. Wells-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (FA-Zon) Andrews, Frank, and Ernie Bayly. 2000. Catalogue of HMV “B” Series Records. Wells-next- the-Sea, North Norfolk: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (FAEB) Andrews, Frank, and Bill Dean-Myatt. 2013. Homophone & Homochord Records in the United Kingdom. CD-ROM & book. Hailsham, East Sussex: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (ADM-Hom) Andrews, Frank, and Bill Dean-Myatt. 2014. The Imperial Records. CLPGS Reference Series No. 33. Hailsham, East Sussex: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (ADM-Imp) Andrews, Frank, et al. 2019. Vocalion Records. CLPGS Reference Series No. 42. Third edition. Wells-next-the-Sea, UK: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (VR) Badrock, Arthur. 1986. Dominion Records: A Catalogue & History. Second Revised Edition. Bournemouth: Talking Machine Review. (AB-Dn) ⸻. 1994. The Parlophone Red Label Popular Series E5000 — E6428. Hunstanton, Norfolk: Witley Press Ltd. (AB-Par) Badrock, Arthur, and Frank Andrews. 2005. The Complete Regal Records. United Kingdom: City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society. (BA-Re) Badrock, Arthur, with Frank Andrews and Grant Pilcher. 1998. Filmophone Discography. Gillingham, Kent: Talking Machine Review. (BAP) Dean-Myatt, William. 2012. Scottish Vernacular Discography, 1888-1960. Draft (December). Preview copy. https://www.nls.uk/media-u4/1056406/section-03-b.pdf (SVD) Hardy, Rick, and Arthur Badrock. 1994. “George van Dusen: A Life by Rick Hardy; A Discography by Arthur Badrock.” Talking Machine Review 86 (Spring 1994): 2502- 2505. (GvD) Hayes, Chris, in collaboration with George Carpenter. 1980a. “Chris Hayes Remembers Maurice Elwin. Part One: The Singer-Composer with Sixty Names.” Memory Lane 48 (Autumn 1980): 24-27. (CH1) ⸻. 1980b. “Chris Hayes Remembers Maurice Elwin. Part II: The Vocalist Who Made at Least 2,000 Recordings.” Memory Lane 49 (Winter 1980/1981): 30-33. (CH2) Hayes, J. G. 1974. Disc Research England. Rex 8000 Series. 8001 to 10241. Sep. 1933 to March 1948. An A to Z Artist Catalogue. Liverpool: J. G. Hayes. Hill, Dick. 1993. Silvester Ahola: The Gloucester Gabriel. Studies in Jazz, No. 14. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press. (DH) Kelly Online Database: A searchable database of recordings made by the Gramophone Company and its successor corporations during the 78 RPM era.