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Our
Valentine's Day offering: a little-known song by Bob
Roberts. Featuring an unusual vocal arrangement—a
straight-laced chorus of women—"Ada, My Sweet
Potater" (as reported on the cylinder rim) uses
stock "coon song" images to tell of a man
who woos his dark-skinned lover with his banjo playing.
After the turn of the century, probably no one recorded
more coon songs than Bob Roberts (1879-1930), with the
possible exception of Arthur Collins. Having begun recording
for Columbia in 1902, his notable songs in the coon
genre include "By the Sycamore Tree" and "The
Woodchuck Song." Roberts also teamed for novelty
selections with Billy Murray ("Won't You Fondle
Me?") and Fred Duprez ("Blitz and Blatz in
an Aeroplane").
By 1913, Roberts was no longer working for the "Big
Three" companies—Victor, Edison, and Columbia.
One of his best known songs was also one of his last
for Victor, "Ragtime
Cowboy Joe" (Victor 17090).
Notable for their cardboard cores and steel reinforcing
rings, Indestructible cylinders were made briefly by
Snowden and McSweeney's Indestructible Record Company
of Augusta, Maine (as successors to the celluloid moulding
patents of the Lambert Company of Chicago). The reorganized
Indestructible Company of Albany, New York sold cylinders
through Columbia's distribution arm during the years
1908-1912. Their last incarnation was as "Everlasting
Indestructible" records.
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