Arthur Collins

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Arthur Collins was an American baritone and actor, born in 1864 in Philadelphia and later raised in New Jersey. He had singing lessons, toured for more than fifteen years with theatre companies and appeared in summer opera. Real success came only when, around 1898, he discovered the recording studio. Until his retirement in 1926 he recorded for virtually every record company in the United States. He is thus among the first true recording artists.

Music and breakthrough

Collins specialised in ragtime songs and in the dialect numbers of vaudeville and minstrel shows, a genre that present-day listeners find uncomfortable because of its racist caricature. He used all kinds of vocal effects and character voices, so that it seemed as though more people were standing around the horn. From 1901 he worked with the tenor Joe Natus, later mainly with Byron G. Harlan. In 1909 he joined the Peerless Quartet. His best-known recording is The Preacher and the Bear from 1905, which was the most popular non-operatic recording of the first decade of the century and sold more than a million copies.

Influence

Collins was called the king of ragtime singers and recorded more ragtime songs than anyone else of his time. Together with Harlan he made That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland in 1917, the earliest known record on which the word jazz is heard. His recordings let you hear how popular music sounded just before jazz and radio took over.

Listening