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Among the performers added to the second edition of Brian Rust's and Allan Debus's Complete [sic] Entertainment Discography (Da Capo, 1989) was comedienne Flo Bert. Her one-line biography included the curious notation, "r.n. [real name] Florence Talbert." Appended to the end of Rust & Debus' highly incomplete list of Bert recordings were several operatic arias by Florence Cole-Talbert on the Black Swan label, with the note, "The following ... may be by the same artist using her real name to disguise her association with vaudeville."

Thus, two eminent and utterly unrelated artists — Flo Bert, a white vaudeville headliner and contralto; and Florence Cole-Talbert, a black operatic soprano — were erroneously labeled as one.

The error persists to this day in hobbyist's websites and online postings, despite having been at first questioned, and then debunked, in every edition of Pseudonyms on American Records since 1993. In addition, the identification of Bert as Cole-Talbert has been questioned, if not decisively rejected, in such carefully researched and highly respected works as Dixon, Godrich & Rye's Blues and Gospel Records (Oxford, 1997) and Tim Brook's Lost Sounds (University of Illinois, 2005).

Florence Cole-Talbert was a pioneer black concert and operatic soprano. Born in Detroit, she graduated from the Chicago Music College in 1916, made her professional debut at Aeolian Hall (New York) in 1918, and was married to Wendell P. Talbert, a pianist and conductor. Cole-Talbert went to Europe in 1924, where she was acclaimed for her performance in the role of Aïda, then returned to the United States in 1927. Her first recordings were made for Broome in or around 1919. Several of her 1921 Black Swan recordings were later reissued on Paramount, and one was even reissued on the cut-rate National Music Lovers label under the pseudonym of "Maria Pecelli" — the only verifiable instance of a Cole-Talbert recording having been issued under a false name. All of Cole-Talbert's recording were of concert fare or operatic arias.

Flo Bert (1898–1981) was a popular white vaudeville headliner, touring both as a solo act and in partnership with her husband, the Swedish-dialect comedian El Brendel. The team began playing the lesser New York–area vaudeville houses around 1918. By the mid-1920s, they were a featured act at the Hippodrome (New York) and other major houses. They also appeared in the New York productions of Cinderella on Broadway (Winter Garden, 1920) and The Mimic World of 1921 (Century Promenade). Together, they made one Vitaphone short in 1929. She resurfaced in the 1950s with small character roles in such films as "Laffing Time" and "The She-Creature."

Bain Collection, Library of Congress

Bert's first known recording was issued by Gennett in January 1920. This was followed by a short recording hiatus, but by September of that year Bert was back in the advance record lists with new titles for Gennett and Paramount. For the next two years she recorded for both companies, and her records were widely reissued on those company's many subsidiary and client labels, including Broadway, Claxtonola, Famous, Puritan, and Regal. Perhaps the most convincing evidence that it is Bert herself on those records, and not Cole-Talbert, is a series of promotional photographs of Bert posing with various Paramount and Puritan phonographs. Taken by the Bain News Service, the negatives are undated, but the phonograph models that are depicted all date to the 1919–20 period.

At this point, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that Flo Bert's recordings were made by anyone other than Bert herself. The appearance in a major reference work of such an unfounded assertion, at the hands of two well-known discographers, certainly demonstrates the dangers of relying solely upon speculation and one's ears — particularly in the case of acoustic recordings by such low-fidelity operations as Paramount and Black Swan — in identifying performers on early recordings.