|
|
The
BILLY MURRAY ONLINE DISCOGRAPHY
The Beacon Record Murray’s Last Commercial Recordings By Allan
Sutton
Joe
Davis, the producer for whom Billy Murray made his last commercial recordings,
was a veteran composer, performer, music publisher, and talent broker.
In the mid-1920s he had been responsible for placing dozens of blues and
pop singers under his management with major and minor labels, while pursuing
a radio and recording career as "Joe Davis, The Melody Man"
and operating Triangle Music and other successful publishing ventures.
In May 1942, after years of brokering talent for other labels, Davis launched
his own Beacon Record Company.
A
review-copy mailer that once held "Casey and Cohen in the Army,"
unfortunately Davis favored jazz, big bands, and blues-influenced pop singers on his early Beacon releases. One release that definitely did not fit the Davis mold was Beacon 2001, a two-part comedy sketch titled "Casey and Cohen in the Army," by the venerable Billy Murray and Monroe Silver. Other than some children's sides recorded by Murray in the mid-1930s, neither artist had made commercial records for more than a decade. However, Murray and Silver were not the first studio veterans Davis had recruited. Shortly before their session, Davis had brought Irving Kaufman into the studio to sing vocal choruses on two sides by Buddy Clark's Orchestra, although Kaufman was disguised as "Happy Jim Parsons" on the labels. Davis's
motives in recruiting Murray and Silver probably had little to do with
nostalgia or respect for the artists. Their session was held during the
American Federation of Musicians' recording ban, which prohibited union
musicians from making records. Desperate for new material, record producers
recruited non-union performers just for the sake of meeting monthly release
quotas. Small producers like Davis and his counterpart, Eli Oberstein
(who recorded Arthur Fields during the ban), even recorded amateurs to
help flesh out the catalogs, lending credence to legal publisher Jimmy
Martindale's claim to have provided "sound effects" on the
Beacon session.
The
Beacon agreement was the last recording contract Murray is known to have
signed. Lacking his own studio, Davis booked the Murray and Silver session at the Muzak Transcriptions studio in New York on February 11, 1943. The results were issued in June 1943. As with all of his other artists during Beacon's first year of operation, Davis allocated Murray his own catalog-number block. However, 2001 would be the only issue in that series. Martindale, a close friend of Murray's in the singer's later years, was with Murray at the session, and later that day wrote to researcher Jim Walsh,
For their efforts, Murray and Silver received a flat payment of $50 each, with no mention made of royalties. Despite Martindale's optimism, sales of the record appear to have been disappointing, and neither Murray nor Silver was invited back. The record's failure was no doubt due in part to its inappropriateness for juke-box use; however, it apparently fared no better when later offered for retail sale. Some of the blame can certainly be ascribed to the outdated material, as reflected in the negative New York Times review. "Casey and Cohen" would prove to be Murray's final commercial recording. Billy Murray Beacon Record Discography Billy Murray and Monroe Silver (speech), with unidentified harmonica and sound effects (one or both possibly by Jimmy Martindale)
|
No
portion of the material on this site may be reproduced, altered, or distributed
in any form or by any means without prior written
consent of the copyright
holder(s). Unauthorized use will be addressed under applicable U.S. law.
For permission to reproduce from any Mainspring Press online or print publication,
e-mail the publisher.
