[78-L] Sutton's American Stage Performers Discography

[Michael Biel]

Have I missed something or has there been no discussion here about Allan
Sutton's American Stage Performers Discography?  I hadn't heard about it
or seen it before, but I bought it from Kurt on Sunday at the Wayne
Mechanical Music show, and it is great.  It is essentially an update to
the CED although 1) it only goes to 1932, and 2) does not include people
unless they appeared on STAGE as a live performer.  Some minor quibbles.
Radio performers are not included unless they also did live appearances
in a significant way. For some reason Gosden and Correll are not here
despite years of Joe Bren stage show productions.  Neither are Jones and
Hare despite Hare being Jolson's understudy on several shows. Vaughn
deLeath is mentioned but without a discography "although she performed
briefly in several Broadway productions . . ."  Kate Smith is included
because she appeared in "Honeymoon Lane" and "Flying High."  In a great
move, Sutton includes listings of the syndicated discs recorded by
Brunswick for thenselves and the National Radio Advertising Co., and
also film soundtrack discs.  On the other hand, showing a collector
orientation rather than a historical point of view, sound-on-film
doesn't count, so Sissle & Blake's and Eddie Cantor's deForest
Phonofilms are not listed.  I was surprised to see that Jessel made two
Vitaphone shorts in 1926 (release 355) and April 1927 (release 355)
before he would have made The Jazz Singer.  Although a Sept 1930
Vitaphone film "Politics" (release 1100 and 1101) is listed, "Lucky Boy"
is not, although I know it is on discs because I have a tape dub of the
discs that Jerry Valburn used to own.  

I'm in Brooklyn so I don't have my CEDs at hand, but Sutton assures us
that where this ASPD doesn't agree with Rust that we should trust that
this is a correction of CED and other earlier works.  I am surprised
that I haven't seen anybody make references to ASPD when discographical
references have come up.  It certainly seems to be a worthy addition to
the literature.  If you haven't gotten it yet, you need to.


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com