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Bob
Roberts' first recordings for Edison, made in late 1903,
were released in February 1903—among them, "The
Woodchuck Song" (no. 8617). Over the next several
years, Roberts was a popular singer of coon songs and
other comic fare for Columbia, Victor, Edison, and Zonophone.
He had once warned newcomer and occasional singing partner
Billy Murray to stay away from Columbia because Roberts
was their main comedian. Nonetheless, before long, Roberts
and Murray were doing competing versions of many of
the same numbers for the different companies. Tim Gracyk
supposes in his Encyclopedia that "Edison executives
probably viewed Roberts as an easy substitute for or
alternative to Murray" (290).
"No Wedding Bells for Me" was one such song
that both Murray and Roberts recorded in competing versions.
Murray recorded it for Victor 5123 and Zonophone 742.
Roberts sang it for Edison 9538 and Columbia disc 3659
and cylinder 33139. The song comes from The Orchid,
which starred Irene Franklin and Eddie Foy, and which
opened April 8, 1907 and played for 178 performances.
We're doing something a little unusual with this one.
Look for the Columbia version (taken from the Climax
double-sided issue) of Roberts' "No Wedding Bells
for Me" on our upcoming volume of the Phonographic
Yearbook, 1907: "Dear Old Golden Rule Days."
But in the meantime, we're putting up the Edison version,
which has a beginning and ending that sounded a little
too rough to put on the CD. When you play it back through
an acoustic horn, you can hardly tell, but with an electric
pickup, all the noise comes through. What do you think?
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