The Canadian Connection: Brunswick
by Brian Boyd
Brian Boyd, discographer
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This is the first in a series of articles authored by
the late Brian Boyd. a well-known and respected collector and discographer, and a member of CAPS.
Brian,
who died on February 26th 1991,
built up over many
years an extensive collection of
"personality" records,
mostly of popular vocalists of the 1920's and 30's. He
was a regular speaker at CAP meetings.
Brian
Boyd dictated
the
following
in
January
1991
from
memory
alone,
without referring to his
records
nor
to his
books.
He
stressed that
some
of
the
statements are
based,
not
on
positive proof, but on the evidence
that
he
had
built
up
over
many
years of astute observation of the
physical
records.
He
was
anxious
that
the
reader
understand
that
what
follows is not
a definitive
history. Rather,
he hoped that this
article
would
arouse interest
and
foster
research
so
that
the
definitive history could be written
by others.
The
American
Brunswick-Balke-Collender
Company used Canada to test-market the production,
distribution
and
sale
of
their
phonograph
recordings.
This
seems to
have
occurred
between
1916 and
1920.
Most of us
have
seen
those
fabulous
green
and
gold
labels that
were
used. it
was
a vertical-cut
record.
The
patent situation
had
not
cleared
up
and
they
were
unable to
make
lateral-cut
records,
which
were controlled
by
Columbia
and by Victor.
The
Brunswick
verticals
appear
in
a
5000
series.
They
don't
appear to
be Canadian
recordings - that
is, recordings by
Canadian
artists.
I believe
some
work
has
been
done
to try to trace the source of
them,
and it
may
be
a company like Pathe or
one of the
other
smaller
American
companies
that
supplied pressings for sale in Canada.
Around
1920
the patent situation
was resolved
in
favor of the
non
Victor-Columbia
interests,
and
everybody
was
able
to
produce
lateral-cut records.
At that point
Brunswick
abandoned
its
attempt
in
Canada
to
market
a
vertical-cut
record and began to make
lateral-cut records that
could
be
played
on
a
standard phonograph.
The
standard
Brunswick
record
was
introduced
in
1920
simultaneously, or almost so,
in Canada and the U.S.A.,
and that
may
give
an
approximate date for
the
establishment
of
a
Toronto
pressing
facility.
I
believe
the
green-label
Brunswicks
had not been pressed
in Canada.
The
black-label
ten-inch
records
were
a
standard
popular
series,
much
like
the
black-label
ten-inch
Victors.
They started
at the
number
2000,
or
perhaps
2001,
and
ran right up into the 4000s
and
6000s with
a gap for the 5000s.
The
5000s
had been
a
series
for
premier artists
such
as
Isham
Jones
in
the
early
twenties.
They
had
a
purple
label
instead of the black,
and had
all
the characteristics
of those acoustic
Brunswick
labels that we've seen so often.
In
terms
of
the
corporate
continuity
of
Brunswick
in
Canada,
it
continued
in
one
form or
another as,
what
I
would call,
an
independent
company.
Of
course,
It
was
a
subsidiary of
the
American
Brunswick-
Balke-Collender
Company
— only one of
many
subsidiaries
because
Brunswick
continued to
make
pool
tables
and
phonograph
cabinets
both under contract for other companies and
under their
own name.
So the music division
was
a
separate
entity
from
some
of
the
Brunswick-Balke-Collender
Company's
other
activities.
It
continued
to
produce
records.
I
don't
know
if it recorded
much
in Toronto,
but it
recorded
occasionally
around
Montreal.
There is evidence that the Jack
Denny Orchestra,
which
was popular
in one of the
Montreal hotels,
made
some
of its records
in
1928
-
tunes
like
"Hello,
Montreal"
on
Brunswick
3884 -
in
Plattsburg
which
was
right over the border
and very accessible to
Montreal.
Possibly there were
union
problems
that might dictate
a location
in the United
States
instead of
Canada,
especially if the
particular
orchestra
was
augmented
with
musicians
from
New
York.
There are several
masters that
show
up
with
a
PB prefix,
and
Brunswick
had
a habit of
using
the
location
for
the letter prefix to the
actual
master
number.
So
you
had
KC
for
Kansas
City,
C for Chicago
and
so on.
The Canadian
labels
were
printed
in
Canada
and
identified
"Made
in
Canada".
There's
absolutely
no difficulty
at all, at least
from the time of the
introduction
of
the
1920
lateral-cut
record,
in
distinguishing
a
Canadian
pressing.
Everything
about it
makes it
obvious that
it's Canadian
and not an
American pressing,
unlike
Columbia
where the
information
is
a
little
harder
to
decipher.
The
mere
fact
that it
says
"Made
in
Canada"
is
obviously
the critical point.
There are
some interesting things with the
labels
in the early electrical
period.
Many
collectors
will
have seen
the little
tag
"Light-Ray
Electrical
Recording"
on
the
label
of
a
circa-1926
Brunswick.
That
note
was
on the
Canadian
label
in the upper-left
position just around the level of or slightly
higher
than
the
spindle
hole. It also
showed on west-coast American pressings, but
the east-coast American pressings never used
"Light-Ray
Electrical
Recording".
I'm
not
sure why.
I'm fairly certain that I've never
seen
an
east-coast
American
pressing
with
"Light-Ray
Electrical
Recording"
on
the
label.
An interesting thing about the Canadian and
west-coast American pressings that
show the
legend
on
the
label
is
that
there's
a
slightly different
period
when it appears.
I can't
remember if the Canadian pressings
show it earlier
and
end earlier,
or vice
versa.
But the introduction of that
legend
and then its
disappearance
vary slightly in
in time
between the two
countries.
The Canadian
version,
I believe,
does
not
abbreviate
"Light-Ray
Electrical
Recording".
The
American
ones
use "Elec." for "Electrical
and
"Rec."
for
I
guess
just
because
of
the
space requirements.
That was Brunswick's
famous touted electrical
recording
system
which
had
been
developed
somewhat
independently
from
the
Western
Electric
process
which
Victor
and
Columbia
had joint interest in. It
was
not
a
very
good electrical
system,
and
had to
pay the exorbitant royalties that Columbia
and
Victor
always
charged
for
access
to
those patents.
From
my
perspective
Brunswick
was
a city
label.
They
had
sophisticated
artists
in
their
vocal
catalog
—
people
like
Libby
Holman, Belle Baker,
and so on. They had Al
Jolson,
the world's greatest entertainer.
They had Harry
Richman. These were the cafe
favourites,
the people
who were big
in
New
York
but probably
had
a relatively
limited
appeal
in the smaller
urban centres
in the
U.S.A.
They
also
had
a strong Los Angeles
component,
and
in
the
twenties
Brunswick
did quite
a
lot of recording
on the west
coast.
They
had
a
west-coast
pressing
facility,
certainly
as of
about
1924/1925.
There's
a
wonderful
photo
in
a
book I've
seen of
Al
Jolson
holding
a pressing that's
just
come off
one of the Los
Angeles
pressings.
All
of the
majors
established
west-coast pressing facilities
in the early to
mid-twenties
because
shipping
costs
were
just so high.
By that time there was
a sufficient population on the west coast that it
made
more
sense to
send
a
metal
part
for
stamping
purposes out to the west coast and
press
the
records
there,
saving
a
very
considerable
amount of
shipping cost across
a
largely
unpopulated
middle
of
the
continent.
Brunswick Factory, Hanna Avenue, Toronto, 1921
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Brunswick did quite a lot of recording on the
west
coast.
They
also
had
a
pressing
facility
in the
Chicago area
and one
in
New
York.
I
have
no
proof
of this other
than
differences
in pressing characteristics.
It
seems
to
me
quite
evident
from
physical
evidence
that
Brunswick
had
at
least
two
pressing facilities
by the middle twenties,
and three later
on
in the twenties.
It
may
be that the Vocalion works were one of those
facilities.
I think it's Muskegon, Michigan,
that
was
the factory
location
in the mid-west.
Although
I call it a
New York or city label,
Brunswick's
headquarters
were
in
Chicago
as
a
company,
and
they
always
maintained
a
business
address
in
Chicago.
For
example,
the
Brunswick Brevities radio pressings that
were
made to advertise
Brunswick records and
products
in the
late twenties
identify the
Brunswick-Balke-Collender
Company
of
Chicago,
Illinois.
So that
was definitely
their
corporate
headquarters,
probably
for
all of their operations
including the
music
division.
Brunswick
was
a slightly
anomalous
company.
It
had
subsidiaries
all
over the
world -
Argentina,
Germany,
France,
perhaps
other
eastern
European
countries,
Britain of course
where it started out using the Chappell
company's
Cliftophone
label
as
the
Brunswick
label
in Britain,
and
Canada.
It's
a gold
mine of interesting information.
Multiple
takes
were
a
phenomenon
on
Brunswick,
surprising
for
a
major
label.
I
have
one recording
in which the English issue uses
one take, the American west-coast issue uses
another,
and
the
American
east-coast
uses
a third take,
while the Canadian issue
uses
one
of
the
two
American
takes.
So
there's three takes
of
one
side,
and
with
evidence of differences that are indisputable
in the rendition of the song. It's almost as
if the two singers,
who are Esther
Walker and
Ed Smalle, are rehearsing
in the earlier
two
takes
and finally
come
up with
a definitive
version
in
the third take.
But,
of course,
because
we don't
have the master
numbers
we
can't actually
put them
in exact sequence of
recording.
But that
was
so typical
of
Brunswick.
In the
late twenties there would
even
be
separate
versions
of the
same title.
On
Brunswick
4873, "If
I
Could
Be With
You"
and
"Little
White
Lies"
by
Marion
Harris,
there
are two separate recordings
made at different
times
with different
master
numbers of both
sides of the record. If
you hunt hard enough
you
can find these different versions issued
under the
same catalog
number
and noticeably
different, at least to a tuned ear.
The
same
occurred
with
some of the
Hal
Kemp
sides.
For
the first
four
sides
on
which
Bunny Berigan
appears,
there are two takes of
each.
I
have
them
and
they
are
noticeably
different in Bunny's solos and
in
some of the
other musical aspects of the arrangement.
Why
Brunswick
did this - these
multiple
takes,
issuing more than one take,
and making
a re-recording
in
which
they'd
record the
same
song
on
a
new master
and
issue it with the
same catalog
number
as
the
original -
is
just
impossible to decipher. There's just
no
logical
reason other
than that they really
didn't care
very
much.
There
usually isn't
any
technical
reason.
On the Marion Harris
record
I
was
referring
to,
she
does
a
rather
different
softer
version
of
the
titles
on one recording than the other,
but
you can't hear any technical fault on either
that
would
have
suggested
why
they
were re-recorded. It's just a total
mystery.
In
Canada,
only one take ever
seems to have
been
issued.
There
may
be
examples
where
more than one take was
issued
in
Canada,
but
my belief
remains that
they sent
up a metal
part and that was usually sufficient for all
the
Canadian
pressings
that
needed to
be
made.
The
market
in
Canada
was
just
so
limited
compared
to
the
American
market.
They
may
have
sent off different takes to
different countries because it saved them in
metal
parts.
If
they
had
a
mother
of
two
takes it
might
have
been just
as
simple to
send
one
to
Britain
for
the
British
pressings
and
keep
the
other
for
the
American, and not make off yet another metal
part
from the
American
mother
for the foreign
issues.
But it's
just
impossible
to
say. There doesn't
seem to be
any
rhyme or
reason to it.
There were also the foreign-language recordings
in
which
you'd
get
the
essentially
identical
recording
but
with
no
vocal
refrain.
These
were used
a lot
in
Germany,
but
an
unexplored
area
where there
were
a
great
number
issued
was
South America. They
appear
to
be
American
pressings
but
with
Spanish-language
labels.
It
may
not
even
have
been
for
South
America;
it
may
have
been
for
Mexico.
I
have at
least three
or
four
examples
in
a 40,000 series;
I
think
the
lowest
number
I
have is
in the 40,900s,
and the highest
in the 41,200s or
41,300s.
That
suggests that the series
continued for
some
time;
whether it started at 40,000 or
40,500 is hard to know. But these recordings
for
a non
English-speaking
market were regularly
made
by Brunswick.
We
know of
a
few
that
were
made
by
Columbia
for
Brazil
or
Argentina.
But
I think there
were far
more
U.S.
Brunswicks
made for those markets than
Columbias.
The
music
division
of
the
Brunswick-Balke-Collender
company
continued
in
operation
until
circa early
1930
when
Warner Brothers
Pictures purchased
the
music
division
from
Brunswick.
That
gave
them
a music-publishing interest as well
as the record division.
With
talking pictures,
Warner was interested
in
having
a
label that it could market its
stars on.
Jim
Kidd
has
a dealers'
catalog
which
is
a
gold-mine
of
information. It's
a
numerical
listing of all
Brunswick records
in stock,
I
think,
as
of
January
1931.
I
guess it
was
called the
1931 dealers' list but it really
only went
up to the end of
1930.
It lists in
numerical
order,
for
virtually
every
Brunswick
series
that
was
available,
the
records that were still
in the catalog,
and
also
noted
those
which
were
going to
be
deleted before the next annual catalog.
There
are
quite
a
substantial
number
marked
for
deletion,
mostly
pop tunes that
would
have
had a relatively limited vogue.
A lot of the
standard
numbers
went
right
back
to
The
acoustic
era and were
kept
in the catalog.
The
popular
items
always
had
a more limited
appeal
and would be deleted more quickly.
It
was
an
American
publication,
with
gaps
for
items
which
were
meant
to
be
territorial,
regional,
foreign-language, or
whatever.
Very
often
you'll
find
a
dotted
line
with
no entry
except
a
hand-written
word
such
as
"Spanish".
Jim
Kidd
has
verified that the
hand-writing
belongs
to
H.S.
Berliner,
the founder
and president of
Compo.
Many
of
these
hand-written entries
are
in
short-hand
or
in
such
an
illegible
hand that it's difficult
to
make
them out.
an
example
I
can think of is
Brunswick 4770.
I
don't
know
if
the
entry
has
"Canada"
printed
in it.
Sometimes
they have the
name
of the country that the number
was
assigned
to,
sometimes they don't. But the titles are
there,
and
I
can
make them out although I've
never seen the record. lt's "Hallelujah"
by
Harry
Richman,
coupled
with
"Sometimes
I'm
Happy"
by
Vaughn
de Leath.
Interestingly,
that was the
same as the English
coupling of
those titles
when
they
were
released
in
Britain, but by the time
Brunswick
4770
came
out
they
were
at
least
a
couple
of
years
old.
Maybe it
had
something
to
do
with
a
film version
of the musical
coming out
and
their
wanting to have something back
in the
catalog. But, interestingly, that number
was
never
issued
in the
U.S.A.
- it
was
Canada
only.
In
that
dealers'
list
there
were
some
numbers
or
entries
assigned
to
Canada.
There's
some
Scottish
ethnic
recordings
which
I
have
never
seen
but
which
are
entered
as
"Canada"
in the
book.
And
then
there
are
the
odd
jazz
recordings
which
appeared
issued
on those
Brunswick
numbers
only
in
Canada
coming
from
Vocalion
or
whatever,
or
in
a
couple
of
instances re-coupling
American
Brunswick
recordings onto
a different
number
for Canadian issue.
One
Jazz-related
item
-
Brunswick
4723,
the
famous recording of "Goin' Nuts" by the
Six
Jolly Jesters -
came
from American
Vocalion
15843
and was not issued on
Brunswick
in the
United States.
So there are
a
number
of
interesting
things
to
be
discovered
in
that
list,
which
was
clearly
used
in
Canada
and
must
have
been
acquired
by
Compo
when
it
took
over
Brunswick.
There
appear
to
be
inventory
numbers
written
in pencil
in the
left-hand
column,
which probably
indicate the stock of
records
that
were
still
extant
at
the
warehouse. For the most part the numbers are
very
small - it would be five, ten, three,
seven.
I
assume
that
Compo
was
able
to
acquire
that
stock,
limited
though
it
appears to have been.
The
dealers'
list
in
numerical
order
was
obviously
kept
up
during
the
year
because
after
the
last
number
entered
there
are
pasted-in entries
which
probably
came
from
supplements
which
continue
the
numerical
series
through
quite
some time
in
1931.
It
stops
suddenly
at the point that
Brunswick
went
under
and there were
obviously
no more
Brunswick releases or
supplements.
I believe
that
Brunswick
6128,
on
which
the
Boswell
Sisters are vocalists
with the Victor
Young
orchestra on "I
Found
A Million-Dollar Baby"
and
"Sing
A Little
Jingle",
is
one of the
items
that's
included
in
those
pasted-in
numerical entries.
I have seen a copy pressed
by the
Brunswick
company (not by Compo). the
highest number pressed
by Warner
Brunswick -
I
think
the
company
became
known
as
the
Brunswick
Radio
Corporation,
subsidiary
of
Warner Brothers
Records
with
a similar
name
in the
U.S.A. -
was
Brunswick
6214,
a
Cab Calloway recording.
The
Melotone
label
was
introduced
in Canada
at
approximately the
same time as it
was
in
the United States.
Brunswick's first budget
label
was
an extremely attractive silver and
blue,
although
the
Canadian
version of the
label
is
not quite
as
bright
and
shiny
as
the American.
But it
was
a quality product.
Given the
low numbers that I've seen in the
Melotone series
pressed
in
Canada,
I think
Melotone
started
in
Canada
just
about the
same
time
as it
did
in
the
U.S.A.
and
continued
along
with
the
Brunswick
label
until
Brunswick's
bankruptcy
in the
United
States. Calling it
"Brunswick's
bankruptcy"
is
a bit unfair. Warner Brothers allowed it
to
go
into
bankruptcy
because
they
just
weren't
making
any
money.
I
guess it
was
a
separate
corporate entity
as
part
of
the
Warner
Brothers
Pictures
empire
and
they
Just
let it
go
into
receivership.
At the
same
time
the
Canadian
company
followed
suit.
I
think
it
was
in
December
1931
that
Canadian
Brunswick
ceased
operation.
I'm
fairly
sure that it
went into receivership.
It wasn't
immediate
bankruptcy,
and it took
quite
a
number
of
years for the bankers to
get
rid
of
the
remaining
assets
of
the
company.
I
have
a friend
who
remembers,
at
the age of less than ten, visiting
Vancouver
with his
mother
from the Okanagan Valley
(I
think
he
lived
in Penticton at the time).
Outside
the
Hudson's
Bay
store
on
Georgia
Street at Granville there
were big trestle
tables
with piles
of
absolutely
brand-new
Brunswick records from
1931
which were being
sold
off
at
ten to
the
dollar.
Bob
was
allowed
to
spend
a
dollar
and
bought ten
records,
most of
which
he still
has
in his
collection.
So
I
think it
was just
in the
very early post World
War
Two years that the
assets
were finally being disposed of.
Alex
Robertson told the story
of
learning
that
there
were
Brunswick
materials -
I
think it
was mostly paper
material
(whether
it
included
things
like
ledgers
I
don't
know)
-
in
a
factory
building
in
Toronto
that
was
unused,
and
had
been
for
many
years,
and
apparently
was
a
Brunswick
warehouse.
In the United States
ARC never purchased the
Brunswick
interests.
They
leased
the
name
and the copyrights that
were
necessary
to
make
Brunswick records.
The factory that
was
used to
make
Brunswick
records or at least
the
principal
factory,
was
left
doing
odd
things
as
a
pressing
plant
-
radio
transcriptions,
and so on. It was eventually
acquired
by
Decca
in
1934
when the
Decca
label
was
established
in the
U.S.A.
If
you
look
carefully
at the
sequence
of
master
numbers
you can see that Decca picks up the
old
Brunswick
master series with
a
gap of
maybe
a
couple of
thousand
numbers,
which
probably
represents
transcriptions
and
other personal recordings that were pressed
at the old Brunswick plant
in that interval
of close to three years,
between
late
1931
and
1934.
I
think
the
Brunswick
master
numbers
were
in
the
36,000s
when
they
ceased operation
as
an
independent entity
in
1931,
and
Decca started
with
38,000s.
But it's
interesting
that
in
the
U.S.A.
Decca
acquired
the
Brunswick
facility
rather
than
build
a
new
one.
Of
course,
Decca being
a budget label it probably
made
sense
to
acquire
an existing
unused,
or
largely
unused, facility to
do its pressing.
When
Canadian
Brunswick
went
into
receivership,
there
was
no buyer to purchase
the facilities.
Compo
acquired
the
licence
rights to press and market the
Brunswick
and
Melotone
labels
in
Canada.
They
never used
the Brunswick facilities. they did acquire
a
few stampers
which they used -
you
can read
the
Brunswick-style
catalog
numbers
in the
wax.
But
very
soon it
became
an entirely
ARC-oriented product.
There
were
some
metal
parts
obviously
prepared for further pressings and they
were
used
by
Compo.
In the U.S.A.
you will
find
these
recordings
with
an
"E"
followed
by
five digits
and
a take.
I
don't
know that
there
are
many
that
show
the
ARC-style
matrix
number
in
Canada.
Compo
hand-wrote
the master
number
on its pressings as It did
for
all
of
its
other
products
with rare
exception.
I
can
recall
one
Isham
Jones
recording
which
has
the
Chicago
matrix
number
with
the
American-style
stamped
number,
rather
than
a
Compo-style
hand-written master
number. That would date from,
say,
1932.
So it wasn't
an
infallible rule
but it certainly
was the case that
most of
the
master
numbers
were
done
by
Compo.
I presume they just marked the metal part they
got
accordingly
to
keep
it
in
their
own
system.
I want to go back now to 1925 and the
acquisition of the Vocalion company by
Brunswick. There was a Canadian Vocalion company pressing
in Canada, and the records
are easily
distinguished
from the
American
counterpart.
The
Canadian
pressings
have
"Stamped
in
Canada"
on them
in the wax area
after
the
end
of the recording
before
the
label
starts.
The
American
Vocalion
was
a
red-wax
record
and
most
of
the
Canadian
Vocalions
have
black
wax.
The
typefaces
used
on
the printed
label
for the artist,
catalog
composer,
and title,
are
distinctively different to my eye. It's clear
that it's
a different
product
and that the
labels were,
in fact, printed
in
Canada.
The real point is that
Brunswick-Balke-Collender company
in
Chicago
acquired
the Vocalion company.
At that point,
for
one reason or another,
there
were
no
further
Canadian
Vocalions.
The
label
was
no
longer
pressed
in
Canada,
although it
may
have been imported in limited quantities.
I think that
was
in
early
1925.
It
could
be
that
Brunswick
didn't
think
there
was
a
sufficient
market to
have
another
label
in
Canada.
It's
hard to
know
why
they didn't
maintain
the
label
in Canada. It certainly
hadn't
been
in
existence
very
long
in
Canada,
at
most
maybe three or
four years.
It
was
one
of
the
labels
that
began
in
Canada
with
the
patent
situation
resolved
so that they could
do lateral-cut records.
I
think there
are
vertical-cut
Vocalions
at
the beginning.
Whether
any of the vertical
cuts were
done in
Canada
I can't say;
I don't
recall
ever
having
seen
one.
but
the
Canadian
Vocalion
Label
is
a
relatively
scarce
item.
They did
do
twelve-inch
pressings,
as did
Brunswick
in
Canada.
Despite
perhaps
evidence to the
contrary,
even
In
the
early thirties
Compo
had the
very
occasional
twelve-inch
pressing
of
a
popular catalog item.
The one that
I
know of
particularly
that
I've
actually
seen
and
handled is a twelve-inch
Guy Lombardo medley
of
songs
from
"The
Cat
and the Fiddle"
on
one side.
So that basically
is a very brief discussion
of
what
happened
to Vocalion
in
Canada
in
relation to Brunswick.
Again, it's
an area
that would be useful to research to find out
where its facilities were.
Curiously enough,
the
Vocalions that
I've
found
have
largely
been
in the
Ottawa
Valley,
but
I don't
know
if that had to
do with
where they
were
made
or
whether
there
was just
a
good
salesman
marketing
the
product
in that part of the
world.
That's all
I
have to say about Brunswick,
up
to the period
where
Compo
took
over.
The
Compo
story
is
one
of
very
considerable
complexity,
and
I don't really think
I'm the
one to tell that story. It is
Brunswick that
to
me is the most fascinating
subject.
(Our
thanks to
Jack Litchfield for transcribing Brian's taped memoirs
and submitting
them to us for unedited publication.)
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