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

30 Roland Hayes

436 lost sounds Rogers’ Band, Par-O-Ket 105 (June 1917) Wilbur Sweatman’s Jazz Band (with “Memphis Blues”), Pathé 20167 (July 1917) “Hesitating Blues” (1915) Prince’s Band, Columbia A5772 (Mar. 1916) Arthur Collins, Emerson 751 (Aug. 1916) Jim Europe Orchestra, Pathé 22086 (c. June 1919) Adele Rowland, Columbia A2769 (Oct. 1919) Art Hickman’s Orchestra (with “Beale St. Blues”), Columbia A2813 (Feb. 1920) “Shoeboot’s Serenade” (1915) Morton Harvey, accompanied by Malvin Franklin, piano, Emerson 729 (1916) “Ole Miss” (1916) Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis, Columbia A2420 (Feb. 1918) New Orleans Jazz Band, Okeh 1156 (Apr. 1919) Wadsworth’s Novelty Dance Orchestra, Pathé 22206/Empire 507 (Dec. 1919) “Beale Street Blues” (1917)—see also “Hesitating Blues” Prince’s Band (with “Jogo Blues”), Columbia A2327 (Oct. 1917) Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band, Victor 18369 (Nov. 1917) Wadsworth’s Novelty Orchestra, Pathé 20441 (Nov. 1918) Davies Trio, Empire 6268 (Jan. 1919) Futurist Jazz Band, Arrow 504 (Feb. 1920) Al Bernard, Edison 50536 and 3784 (July 1919) All Star Trio, Lyric 4209 (Feb. 1920) Gilt-Edge Four, Grey Gull H-1007/L-1014 (1920) “Hooking Cow Blues” (1917)—see also “Yellow Dog Blues” Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis, Columbia A2420 (Feb. 1918) This list includes original issues only. Some minor label releases may remain untraced. Sources include the trade paper Talking Machine World, original records and catalogs in the author’s collection, and various modern discographies. 30 Roland Hayes Of all the fields of music and art in the early 1900s, none was so thoroughly closed to black Americans as that of classical music. Blacks could succeed in popular music and theater. Comedy was open to them, as was, to a certain extent, poetry and literature. They could sing their spirituals. But the classical concert stage was the exclusive province of America’s white elite. In 1905 Sylvester Russell, a budding tenor as well as a talented and successful writer, abandoned his concert career after years of struggle, stating ruefully, “there is no financial future for a colored male classical singer in America, no matter how great he may be.”1 Into this hostile environment came an ambitious young man from a farm in Georgia, with no money, no sponsors, and little education. What he had, however, was undeniable talent and extreme determination. He would need them both, as 05.335-496_Broo 12/22/03, 1:43 PM 436 437 during the 1910s and 1920s, by sheer force of will, he single-handedly broke the “color line” in classical concert music, opening the door for many to follow. Roland Hayes was born on June 3, 1887, to Fanny and William Hayes, ex-slaves who were barely scratching out a living on their poor farm near Curryville, Georgia . The sixth of seven children, he had to work to help his parents make ends meet, although their determination that their children would have a better life than they had allowed him to get at least a grade-school education. When his father died about 1897 Roland went to work full-time to help pay off the family’s debts. Around 1900 the family moved to Chattanooga. For the next few years he worked at a foundry and at odd jobs. Hayes began to take singing lessons while in his teens, although his mother thought it was a waste of time. Hayes’s love of European classical vocal music was awakened when his teacher, Arthur Calhoun, played him some recordings by Enrico Caruso. The beautiful, controlled voice that came pouring out of the acoustic phonograph made him realize the beauty of singing as a finished art, and he decided that he would one day become such a singer himself. He wasn’t interested in popular music, the usual venue for black entertainers, and doesn’t seem to have paid much attention to it, although he couldn’t necessarily avoid it. On one occasion he was supposed to assist Professor Calhoun at a performance in a nearby town, and Calhoun was unavoidably detained. The expectant audience insisted that the An advertisement for Roland Hayes’s self-produced recordings, 1918. (Boston Symphony Orchestra program; courtesy of Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives) Roland Hayes 05.335-496_Broo 12/22/03, 1:43 PM 437 438 lost sounds young man perform himself, which he did, running through all the “simple songs” he knew. Finally he was reduced to making up songs. He recalled in his biography...