[78-L] Billy Murray's death date

[David Sanderson]

On 8/17/2011 7:48 AM, bruce78rpm at comcast.net wrote:
> Oh my, they celebrated a Funeral Mass. for Billy, on the day prior to his unexpected death !
>
> I listened to the entire radio broadcast last evening, and it was really fascinating. Your command of Billy's history was very evident, and it kept me glued to the Broadcast until it was over. I was completely surprised by that 1938 Radio Broadcast that you obtained from Michael Feinstein. You got to hear Frank Crummit and Billy Murray Speaking at length, and then Billy singing the George M. Cohan classic, "45 Minutes from Broadway". Thanks for sharing your knowledge, and keeping the Memory and legacy of this Great Entertainer alive .
>
> Bruce

My recent Billy Murray surprise was to find him on 1923 12" Victor doing 
the calls for a quadrille - "Uncle Steve's Quadrille," 34739/40, 3 
parts, 3 sides, plus "Haymaker's Jig" on the extra side.  He does an 
explanation of the dance moves, then calls the dance, hollering over the 
Victor Band. I dare say he got picked because his voice recorded so 
clearly. This is one of a series of Victor recordings arranged and 
produced by a woman named Elizabeth Burchenal, one of the first scholars 
of traditional dancing in America, then at Columbia, I think. I find it 
interesting because it's a high-class production, 2 12" disks and the 
band, to say nothing of Billy, obviously seen as being in a different 
category than the hillbilly/old-time dance sides with fiddle and piano 
etc. Burchenal had collected the dance from Stephen Kimball, of Lovell, 
Maine, about 10 years earlier, and printed it in one of her collections. 
  Kimball himself actually visited New York a year or so after the 
recording and taught dancing with Burchenal, then was back in 1927 with 
Lovell friends as the floor show at one of Don Dickerman's clubs; but 
unfortunately was never recorded.


-- 
David Sanderson
East Waterford Maine
dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com
http://www.dwsanderson.com