Peerless Quartet

Now available in an improved second edition: a career-spanning retrospective, featuring 27 songs, recorded over 25 years by Henry Burr--the most popular ballad singer of the first 30 years of the recording industry. The collection begins in 1903, when disc technology was still in its primitive stages, and ends in 1928, during the early electrical recording era, showing Burr in full vocal power. Duets with Ada Jones, Albert Campbell, and Frank Stanley, trios with Campbell and Oakland and the Sterling Trio, and quartets with the amazing Peerless Quartet-they're all here on this outstanding collection.  Read more
List price: $16.99

Featuring 56 tracks, Archeophone's The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy traces the history of American involvement in World War I by reviewing the kind of records that were released. What unfolds is a drama in which the U.S. transforms through a series of stages: from curious bystander and political neutral to naive dove, then from idealistic booster to jingoistic hawk, and finally from jubilant victors to street-wise questioners asking "What was it all for?" With a 76-page full-color booklet featuring historical graphics, original research on the recording industry and a personal reflection on the war, The Great War is an essential release for those who love the music of World War I. Read more
List price: $29.99

26 hits from 1908, the year that Fred Merkle's boneheaded play cost the Giants a trip to the World Series but sent the Cubs to their last series championship. Included here is baseball's anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" by the Haydn Quartet, along with 2 hits by the newly-christened Peerless Quartet and standards by the acoustic-era's great "teams": Collins and Harlan, Stanley and Burr, and Jones and Murray. Also features the collectible hit by Lucy Isabelle Marsh, "The Glow Worm" and hits by vaudeville greats Eddie Morton and Clarice Vance. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. Read more
List price: $17.49

26 hits from 1911, the year the nation got wrapped up in the aviation craze and the Triangle fire changed workplace safety laws. Highlights include Gene Greene's "King of the Bungaloos," Blanche Ring's "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine," and Collins and Harlan's "Alexander's Ragtime Band. The set includes a 24-page full-color booklet with an interpretive historical essay on key events of the year and notes on all of the selections. Read more
List price: $17.49

24 hits from 1913, the year that Henry Ford rolled out his first fully operational assembly line. Big songs by Alan Turner, Ada Jones ("Row! Row! Row!"), Al Jolson's first sides for Columbia ("Pullman Porters Parade" and "You Made Me Love You"), the Peerless Quartet, Campbell and Burr doing "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine", Charles Harrison with "Peg O' My Heart," and spirited numbers by Prince's Band ("Too Much Mustard") and the American Quartet, plus many more. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. Read more
List price: $17.49

25 songs from 1915, the year submarine warfare and the sinking of the Lusitania hit the news. Popular songs included the American Quartet's "On the 5:15" and Billy Murray's "The Little Ford Rambled Right Along," Al Jolson's "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers," and one of the most famous war protest songs of all, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." 1915: "They'd Sooner Sleep on Thistles" includes a 24 page full color booklet featuring an essay on the Lusitania and the push to war, discographical information on the records, notes on the songs, and rare images and photographs. Read more
List price: $17.49

25 hits from the year that Woodrow Wilson won re-election to the U.S. presidency on the campaign, "He kept us out of war." Behind the scenes, however, Wilson was preparing the nation for entry into the conflict, which came in April 1917. At the same time, child-labor laws were passed, and Emma Goldman found herself convicted for breaking the Comstock law.  Read more
List price: $17.49

1917: "Yankees to the Ranks" presents 25 songs from the year the U.S. declared war on Germany and entered into World War I. The 24-page color booklet includes extensive notes on all the songs and an interpretive historical essay that tells the story of patriotic volunteerism. Old favorite artists such as Billy Murray, Campbell and Burr, and Collins and Harlan are all here in clear restored audio; so too are newcomers Van and Schenck, Marion Harris, Dietrich and Wright, Anna Wheaton with James Harrod, Arthur Fields, and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on their first record! Read more
List price: $17.49

1918: "Like the Sunshine After Rain" features 24 selections from the year World War I came to a close and an influenza epidemic swept the nation. Selections include wartime and comic songs, songs that would become part of the Great American Songbook, and early jazz and dance numbers by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The CD includes a full-color 24-page booklet featuring an interpretive historical essay, notes on the selections, full discographical information and a bounty of historic photos and illustrations. Read more
List price: $17.49

24 hits from 1922, the year that sales of radios to American homes skyrocketed. The music was also getting jazzier, witnessed by hits such as "Lovin' Sam" by Miss Patricola and the Virginians, "On the Alamo" by Isham Jones, and "Hot Lips" by Paul Whiteman with Henry Busse. Other hits are by Fanny Brice ("My Man" and "Second Hand Rose"), Jones and Hare, Henry Burr, Al Jolson, and Lucy Isabelle Marsh and Royal Dadmun. Features the last hit by Jones and Murray, and the song of the year, the insanely popular "Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean" in two different versions. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics.  Read more
List price: $17.49