[78-L] No -- this is the world's rarest record ....

Michael Biel mbiel at mbiel.com
Sun Jul 11 11:25:06 PDT 2010


Banjo Bud wrote:
> Henry Burr was dubbed "The Dean of American Ballad Singers."  A well 
> deserved title, for the times.
>
> Bud
>   

This makes much more sense than "The King Of Pop", which he certainly 
wasn't.  That the Elvis collector chose to cite Billboard Chart 
positions from an era decades before Billboard charts shows his lack of 
knowledge or understanding of anything non-Elvis (and even some things 
Elvis). 

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 


> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
>
>   
>> From: "agp" <agp2176 at verizon.net>
>>     
>>> I was kinda thrown by these statements, too:
>>> In describing Henry Burr....
>>> --quote--
>>> That recording of "Over There" is one of Billboard Top singles of
>>> 1917.16 It can be heard at the Virtual Gramophone. He is described as
>>> the original King of Pop.
>>> --unquote--
>>>
>>>       
>> This is based on the HIGHLY dubious "expansion" of the Billboard
>> listings to cover the 1889-1941 period...which itself has all the
>> reliability of the typical "five days from now" weather forecast...?!
>> The description of Henry Burr as "The king of 'pop'" is, in fact,
>> fairly accurate; in those early days, artists weren't "signed to
>> labels," and Burr recorded for virtually every company! Given
>> that minimal records exist for even the major record firms of
>> that era, we have NO way of knowing the total sales of Burr's
>> discs; however, he WAS a very popular artist of that period...?!
>>     
>> Steven C. Barr




More information about the 78-L mailing list