Velda

 

Written on the back, "(Velda Hartley) June 1950 Fort Collins, Colo."  I wonder if she still plays the accordion?  I wonder if she's still alive? She'd probably be in her eighties. 

Strike Up The Band

Or lock up the band.  Emeryville is in the bay area.  So is San Quentin.  Not exactly Johnny Cash, but then again, this might be the county jail rather than California's infamous big house.  I'm assuming that the Emeryville VFW hadn't been arrested for illegal marching, so it looks like they were nice enough to give a free concert to the prisoners. 

Ukulele Ladies

What can I say, I love the ukulele.

The Pforzheim Album 9

So, the town band, and what, the ladies chorus?  What happened if a woman wanted to play the coronet and a man wanted to sing?

Only one image on this page.  There's a photographer's stamp on the back, but it's so faded that I can't make it out.

Mystery History 7

This is it.  The last of this collection, and it's still all a mystery.  I don't know if these photos were taken in the United States or Europe.  Don't know the backgrounds of these people, their ethnicity, their politics, or their intent.  Anyway, one final thought.  Play balalaikas, not war.

The Town Band

Yesterday I listened to music on the CD player, (I've yet to go the Ipod route.) watched a DVD, and broadcast television.  I started off the morning with all news radio, and have moved on to sports, and right now, I'm sitting in front of a computer.  Every time I run across one of these late nineteenth, early twentieth century photos of the town band, or people singing around the piano, I wonder if we could go back to the pre-electronic media age, and amuse ourselves.  

How Not To Take A Picture

A young man is receiving some sort of prize.  That prize obscures the bottom half of his face.  The presenter has his face turned away from the camera.  The announcer's face is blocked by the microphone.  At least we can see the trombone players.  Stamped on the back, "FOTO-DOMES EICHSTATT."  Eichstatt is a town in Bavaria, Germany.

Home Entertainment

Once again, it's time to visit the world, before radio, before television, and just barely into the gramophone age, when people were expected to entertain themselves.  We have a woman with a horn, a man with a violin, and a piano in the background.   We also have a rather odd crowd.  It's one man who makes this real photo postcard something different.  In an age where it was rare for people of different races to socialize, there is one Asian gentleman in the front row.

Eileen Heckenbach Loved the Accordion 3

Perhaps this post should have been titled Eileen Heckenbach loved HER accordion.  I don't know who Hal was, but he knew that Eileen was an aspiring, professional accordionist.  So who was Eileen, and did she make it in the world of accordion professionals?  Well, I ran Eileen and I got a couple of hits.  Not much information and there wasn't anything about music in what I found.  I don't even know if it was the same Eileen Heckenbach. For what it's worth, An Eileen Heckenbach was born in Chicago in 1923.  That means that the dated photo of Anthony Galla-Rini from the first of these posts was inscribed when she was 17 years old.  I also found an Eileen Heckenbach Retzke, the wife of Norbert Retzke.  All three of the photos in this series had pin holes.  I think Eileen had these photos up on her bedroom wall.

Eileen Heckenbach Loved the Accordion 2

Who was William Switzer?  Well, obviously he was an accordionist, but I would loved to have gotten something else on the man.  I checked IMDB, IMBD, Google, The American Accordionist's Association, and even tried EBay, thinking there might be some old 78 for sell.  But, nothing?  Maurice, the photographer,  is most likely Maurice Seymour.  Click the name in the labels section to come up with some other examples of his work.

Eileen Heckenbach Loved the Accordion 1

Anthony Galla-Rini was an American accordionist born in 1904.  At the age of four, he was part of his father's Vaudeville act.  In time, Galla-Rini would master twelve instruments including the accordion.  In 1924, he quit his father's act in a salary dispute and formed a new act with his sisters.  In 1932, he left the act and opened an accordion studio in San Francisco.  In addition to teaching, he also began composing and arranging for the accordion.  Within a few years, Galla-Rini and his wife and son moved to New York City to be closer to the music publishers located in the city.  In 1938, he founded The AAA, The American Accordionist's Association.  In 1941, he composed the Accordion Concerto in G Minor (No. 1) which premiered with The Oklahoma City University Symphony Orchestra.  In 1942, he returned to California, formed a rumba band which headlined the Trocadero in Los Angeles.  He also began a long career composing music and performing for the movies.  In 1976, he returned to classical music with the Accordion Concerto in G Minor (No. 2).  In 1983 he composed the Sonata in D Minor For Accordion.  Anthony Galla-Rini died in 2006, aged 102.

The Apeda Studio was in business in New York City from 1906 to 1990.  It was founded by Alexander W. Dreyfoos, the photographer, and Henry Obstfield, the businessman.  With it's industrial developers and mechanized postcard printers, the Apeda Studio was an immediate success.  Like many studios servicing the theatrical community, Apeda, and it's staff of photographers sold prints to the general public of their sitters.  They also bought up the negatives of their competitors as well as making copies of photographs distributed by other photo studios, going so far as removing other studio logos and replacing them with the Apeda mark.  Dreyfoos and Obstfield would eventually be sued for violating the copyright of rival The White Studios.  Apeda won by arguing that copyright was the property of the sitter, and not the photographer.

German Girls

Old photographs do present some mysteries, and this one is a beaut.  There is an "Agfa Lupex" water mark on the back of this print.   The particular version of the logo dates from 1935 to 1945.  The name, "Willi Bergins" is also written on the back.  Agfa was a German company then, and Willi is a common German  name, so can we conclude that this is a German, as opposed to a Norwegian or Swedish photo?  If so, things get interesting fast, because that would make this a photo of a Nazi youth group of some kind, most likely the League of German Girls, or the Bund Deutscher Madel, the BDM.

Hitler Youth groups go right back to the beginning of the party, but it wasn't until 1929 that a separate branch for young girls was formed, The Sisterhood of German Girls.  In 1932, it was reorganized as The League of German Girls, the BDM.   In 1933, all youth groups not affiliated with The Hitler Youth were banned.  I thought I could confirm the organization by  matching the symbol on the pennant.  I Googled as many combinations of German girls, Hitler Youth, and BDM  I could think of and  couldn't  find a match anywhere.  So are these  girls, happy young Nazis, out on a picnic, musical instruments in hand, or are they something else all together?  Who knows.

The Hitler Youth, including the BDM had several leaders including Baldur von Schirach.  Schirach had an American mother, with ancestry that first came to North America on the Mayflower.  At least one of his ancestors, Arthur Middleton, signed The Declaration of Independence, and another was governor of Pennsylvania.  In 1934, the BDM got it's own leader, Trude Mohr.  Mohr resigned in 1937 when she married and the position of leadership fell to Dr. Jutta Rudigar.  Bad luck for her as she was the one who had to answer for war crimes.  (Schirach was sentenced to twenty years in prison for his part as Gauleiter of Vienna and the deportation of Austrian Jews to concentration camps.)  In 1945, as the Soviet army entered Berlin, members of the BDM were called out to defend the city.  Few survived.  The BDM was banned by the allies in 1945.

Me And My Uke

So, how did the ukulele get it's name?  Well, I've got two stories on that one, and  the first is the better known of the two.  Ukulele is from the Hawaiian and it roughly translates as jumping flea.  One would normally think that because the instrument is so small  and the strumming movement so fast that it would recall the insect, and that is part of it.  But, there is just a hint of British imperialism that goes along with that version of the story.  It seems that King Kalakaua employed Edward William Purvis, one of those ubiquitous Englishman, imperialist adventurer turned mercenary, in his officer corps.  Unlike the rest of the King's retainers, Purvis was a very small person, and full of nervous ticks.  He was also a lover of the instrument, and played rapidly.  His Polynesian comrades liked to make fun of him behind his back.  He was the jumping flea, and the name got transferred to the instrument.  The other story is a lot less interesting, and much more likely to be true.  It comes from Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii.  According to her, the name comes from two Hawaiian words, uku, which translates as gift and lele, which means to come.  Therefore ukulele means the gift that came here.

 And while we're on the subject of Hawaiian rulers, the next time a Texan says, "Well, after all, Texas was the only state that was once an independent country, and that's why we're so special," remind them of Hawaii.

So, even though the ukulele is thought of as an Hawaiian instrument, it's origins are actually Portuguese.  It was very popular with Portuguese whalers and they may have introduced the uke to the islands. (There was also a wave of Portuguese immigration to Hawaii in the late nineteenth century, an alternate explanation.)   In the nineteenth century, the Hawaiian Islands were at the center of the world's whaling industry.  With the Atlantic hunting grounds all but exhausted, European and American whalers were forced to seek their prey in the Pacific Ocean.  The waters around Hawaii were teaming with whales, and unfortunately for the native Hawaiians, they were rather friendly and welcoming of strangers.  The Hawaiians got the ukulele from Portuguese sailors, (Or settlers.) as well as a whole host of western diseases, land taken and carved up among sugar interests,  an overthrow of their government, and a certain amount of cultural corruption.

Fun fact about Hawaiian music.  In 1929,  Hawaiian born Yukihiko Haida went to Japan, his parents homeland, and formed The Moana Glee Club, a band that played Hawaiian music.  Their popularity soared and ukulele music became very popular in Japan.  During World War 2, the Japanese government attempted to suppress American music.  Jazz, big band, and Hawaiian music were targeted as degenerate forms of expression.  Despite the imperial government's best efforts, Hawaiian music retained it's popularity throughout the war.  In 1959, Haida, still living in Japan, formed The Nihon Ukulele Association.  Today, Japan is a hotbed of Hawaiian music and culture.

And finally, I have to recommend one of my favorite bands, Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys.  Klein, the chanteuse of the ukulele, performs and records songs from the twenties and thirties with the occasional klezmer tune thrown in.  Type her name in your favorite search engine and bring up her website.  She posts a number of old, vaudeville related photos that are worth seeing.

Written on the back of the photo, "Me and my uke."  I'm thinking cabin in the Adirondacks rather than Hawaii.

Los Lobos Is Still In the Future

Dated "OCT  60"  An exotic vacation in Mexico, or was this photo taken here, in the United States?

Love Those Accordions

Please tell me he's wearing a pith helmet.  Who doesn't love an accordion?

The Lady Violinist

My favorite violinists are Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli, and Regina Carter.  If you don't know who they are, you're not a jazz fan.  From the forties or fifties, I would think.

Strike Up the Band

No names, dates, or locations on this one, and it's hard to guess based on a band uniform.

Number 750, Men In Skirts

 I don't know why 750 is a significant number.  I get the whole three quarters to 1000 thing, but why is it better than, say 800, 8/10s to 1000?  Anyway, going on tradition, it's time for another visit to the lightly visited early days of The New Found Photography in honor of post number 750!

As I've mentioned more than a few times, I spent decades as a professional black & white printer.  In all those years, I printed thousands of negatives of men wearing women's clothes.  Some were like these two guys, fooling around for the camera.  Some were guys who went all out, with not just clothes, but wigs and make-up.  And some were so good, that if I hadn't been told, I would have assumed they were actual women.

On the 40th Anniversary of Watergate

Forty years ago, today, a group of semi incompetent burglars broke into Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.  The were employees of CREEP, The Committee to Re-Elect the President.  Their capture lead to a scandal that would force the newly re-elected president to resign in disgrace.

I was born during the Eisenhower administration, have clear memories of both the Kennedy and Johnson years, but it was Richard Nixon's administration that was the  presidency of my youth.  I can remember the Watergate investigation, the press coverage, and the congressional hearings that, had Nixon not quit in disgrace, would have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.

The caption on the back of this postcard, "AMERICA'S FIRST FAMILY  President Richard M. Nixon and Mrs. Nixon are shown with their two daughters Patricia (Tricia) and Mrs. Julie Eisenhower and her husband, David.  It's evident that they're enjoying the President's piano playing."  The card was never mailed, Published by "Scenic AMERICA Postcards, BESSEMER, ALA. 35020."

Roy at the Piano

Well, that's what is says on the card and I'm going with it.  Is it just me, or does this guy look like Derek Jeter?