Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919

33 Edward H. Boatner

470 lost sounds offering “printing of every description.” This would be George Broome’s occupation for the rest of his life. George W. Broome died in Medford on April 1, 1941, of heart disease, at the age of seventy-four, and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. He was survived by his son, Charles, and his sister-in-law, Fannie Ellis. An obituary in the local paper indicated that he had been a resident of Medford for forty-five years and had run the Shawmut Press in South Medford for twenty. It added that he “was very well known and highly thought of in that section [of town]. He was active even in his last years managing his business and directly supervising the printing establishment up to a few weeks before his death.”16 Broome Special Phonograph Records were for years forgotten, unknown even to specialists in recording history. Only recently has information about the label come to light. It has been rumored that members of the Broome family were still living in the Medford area in the 1990s, but efforts to contact them were to no avail. As for the records, one collector recalled seeing “hundreds” of them in a black music store in South Philadelphia in the mid-1950s.17 The store and the collector are now gone, but hopefully the records survive—somewhere. Due to their unusual content, they are extremely important sound documents and deserve to be preserved and reissued. 33 Edward H. Boatner George W. Broome’s Broome label preserved the artistry of several black musicians who were pioneers in introducing African Americans to the world of concert music during the first half of the twentieth century. One of these, Edward Hammond Boatner, was best known as a composer, arranger, and choral director. He was twenty years old and just embarking on his career when he recorded for Broome in 1919. Boatner was born on November 13, 1898, in New Orleans to Dr. Daniel Webster Boatner, a well-educated Methodist minister who moved his family several times during Edward’s childhood as he assumed new positions.1 The surname was derived from the slave owners who had owned Edward’s grandparents. Musically inclined, young Edward was fascinated by the spirituals he heard at his father’s prayer meetings and began collecting them at an early age. Nevertheless he was initially denied music lessons by his stern father, who wanted him to become a minister. Dr. Boatner eventually relented, and by the time Edward graduated from high school in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1916, he was giving recitals locally as a baritone. It was at one of these recitals that he was heard by tenor Roland Hayes, who advised him to go to Boston to seek further training. Hayes was a hero to many young blacks aspiring to careers in the previously all-white world of concert music, and his encouragement fired young Boatner’s enthusiasm. His father would have none of it, so he was forced to work for months to save the money to go to Boston on his own. 05.335-496_Broo 12/22/03, 1:44 PM 470 471 Boatner arrived in Boston in 1917 with, as he later recalled, five dollars in his pocket. Taking odd jobs to support himself, he introduced himself to everyone who would listen, and tracked down Hayes, who helped him make further contacts. By 1918 he was giving piano lessons, and in that year he published his first arrangement of a spiritual, “Give Me Jesus.” Boston had a thriving black cultural community, and it was not long before Boatner crossed paths with George W. Broome, an arts entrepreneur who in1918 was managing Roland Hayes’s private recording venture. The following year Broome launched his own mail-order label, Broome Special Phonograph Records, dedicated to advancing the cause of black concert music. He was particularly anxious to record the spiritual arrangements of Harry T. Burleigh, which were gaining considerable currency in the white concert world through performances by John McCormack and others. Burleigh himself consented to record one of these (“Go Down, Moses”), and Broome recruited Boatner to record some others. The young baritone traveled to New York City, probably during the summer of 1919, where he made at least three recordings for Broome. Burleigh was present at the sessions to ensure that the performances met his high standards.2 Two titles are known. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is sung very slowly and deliberately...