Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan

Before Phil and Don Everly, before Simon and Garfunkel, long before Hall and Oates . . . the most popular recording duo over the first quarter of the 20th century was the team of Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. Dubbed “America’s Favorite Entertainers” as they crisscrossed America in the late 1910s and early 1920s promoting Edison’s superior talking machines, Collins and Harlan came face to face with the thousands of ordinary people who bought the records that became the comical soundtrack of a generation. They represented the best and the worst of popular culture: advancing the career of Jewish émigré Irving Berlin and Black songwriters such as Chris Smith, W.C. Handy, and Shelton Brooks, while also perpetuating racist stereotypes. The issues, as usual, are thorny, but Archeophone tackles them with care and honesty. GRAMMY-recognized authors Ryan Barna and Richard Martin present the clear-eyed but accurate case of these two rough-and-ready unlikely partners who also became friends and took the phonograph by storm. Over 29 tracks, we lead you from 1902 to 1924, depicting a story that has never been told in LP form until now. Fantastic sound, too—you won't believe how great these records sound! Read more
List price: $16.99

29 songs from 1898-1923, 28-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and rare graphics. Includes two extremely rare Berliner discs. Banjos by Ossman and Van Eps, raggy marches by Pryor and Sousa, vocals by Collins, American Quartet, and 'Gene Greene, and much more. These are the ragtime records people heard during the genre's formative years. Read more
List price: $16.49

For all the vexed issues they pose to us now, minstrel shows were an important part of American social life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early days of the phonograph industry, the record labels attempted to bring the experience of minstrelsy into consumers’ homes. The records were popular; hundreds of titles and thousands of examples survive to this day.

A few of these records have been issued by modern labels, but never before has an attempt been made to deal authoritatively with the genre as a whole. At the Minstrel Show fills the void with 51 tracks on two CDs and a 56-page heavily annotated booklet by Tim Brooks, author of the new McFarland book, The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media. Disc One features three complete minstrel “shows”—that is, series of discs or cylinders that were intended to be listened to sequentially to give the listener the experience of a whole minstrel show. Disc Two has a number of minstrel “first part” routines (some extremely rare) and songs and skits about minstrelsy, recorded between 1894 and 1926. Read more
List price: $28.99

1904: “Call It the Land of Dreams” presents 27 popular recordings from the year the St. Louis Exposition introduced the world to ice cream cones and America took lead on the Panama Canal. Highlights include “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” “Under the Anheuser Bush,” and “Toyland.” Read more
List price: $17.49

1905: “Deliver Daniel From the Lion’s Den” features 27 popular recordings from 1905, the year Einstein seemingly emerged from nowhere to publish four works that made his reputation and permanently changed our understanding of light, mass, and energy. Highlights include Arthur Collins’ “Preacher and the Bear,” Bob Roberts’ “Back Back to Baltimore,” and two works that helped establish Billy Murray’s reputation as the premier interpreter of George M. Cohan on record: “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Read more
List price: $17.49

1906: "When Things Was Lookin' Bright" features 27 tracks from the year of the great San Francisco earthquake and the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The CD comes with a generously illustrated 24-page full-color booklet, including notes on each of the selections and an interpretive essay on the events of the year. Read more
List price: $25.00

25 hits from 1907, the year that American banks suffered one of the worst panics in U.S. history, ushering in a two-year depression.  Features sentimental favorites by Byron G. Harlan ("School Days") and Frank Stanley ("Auld Lang Syne"), comic hits by Collins and Harlan, Bob Roberts, and Helen Trix ("The Bird on Nellie's Hat"), and the first stateside hit for Harry Lauder ("I Love a Lassie"). Other top artists include Billy Murray ("San Antonio" and "Harrigan"), Bert Williams, Ada Jones, Stanley and Burr ("Red Wing"), Enrico Caruso ("Vesti La Giubba" from Pagliacci), and the U.S. Marine Band doing a rousing version of Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag." 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 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

Our newest Phonographic Yearbook features 28 selections from 1909, the year Theodore Roosevelt handed the presidential reins to William Howard Taft and cries of "Oh You Kid!" scandalized the nation. 1909: "Talk of Your Scand'lous Times" includes a 24-page full-color booklet with notes and illustrations that bring the year to life. 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 1912, the year that the unsinkable Titanic went down and Teddy Roosevelt launched his Bull Moose Party. Big songs by Billy Murray and the American Quartet, Heidelberg Quintet, Ada Jones, Bob Roberts doing "Ragtime Cowboy Joe," a very young Al Jolson singing "That Haunting Melody" and "Ragging the Baby to Sleep," Collins and Harlan, Harry Lauder, and 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

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

1914: "Her Memory Haunts You" features 25 selections from the year that the hopes and dreams of the progressive coalition that had put their faith in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson saw their agenda put on hold while economic issues--and then the beginning of World War I--took center stage. The soundtrack to the year brings us a good mix of future classics and songs of the moment, odes to country life, and more than a handful of songs longing for home and hearth, both pathetic and humorous. As with Archeophone's other Phonographic Yearbooks, 1914 includes a full-color 24-page booklet.  Read more
List price: $25.00

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: $25.00

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