[78-L] Accent you hate [FWD]

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Mike Harkin wrote:
>  > Many years ago Masterpiece Theatre ran an adaption of Last of the
> Mohicans;
>> at first I thought it funny that alll the Indians had British accents, 
>> till I realised that probably we all had British accents....  Or at least 
>> the remnants of one, as I understand that by Irving's time Brits were 
>> deriding Americans' strange accents.  It sure would have been nice to 
>> have had the phonograph/gramophone back then!
>> Then there's Jean Marsh, who Alastair Cooke told us during the first run 
>> of Upstairs, Downstairs was a true Cockney.  Which means she probably 
>> spent millions of pounds on elocution lessons to get rid of her Cockney
>> accent....  So which was her most famous part?  Rose, the Cockney 
>> 'ousemide'!  Go know!
>> Mike in Plovdiv
> ======================
> An interesting side issue is about American male popular studio singers.
> Until crooners came along most seemed to sing with an English-type or,
> at least, a neutral "accent": Irving Kaufman, Scrappy Lambert, Arthur
> Fields, Sid Garry etc.
>
Judging by my many vocal 78's of the 1900-20 era, "serious" male singers
used a fairly specific "accent"...with rolled "R's" and British-sounding 
vowels!
As well, most "popular"vocalists of that early era affected this "pseudo-
operatic accent." This disappeared from c.1925 onward, as "crooners"
discarded the old style (and its "accents!"). This also seems to have been
standard on the very few "spoken word" recordings of that early era...
note the "Columbia demo" of c.1910..."The puh-pose of this r-r-rec-ohd
is to dem-on-strate the Columbia dou-ble disc r-r-rec-ohd..."!

...stevenc