Artist: Arthur Collins & Byron G. Harlan
Author: Irving Berlin
Label: Victor/Columbia
Year: 1911
N°1 US. One of Irving Berlin's oldest compositions. First popularized by Emma Carus, corpulent shouter from Chicago, who worked it into her vaudeville act. Her picture's on the oldest sheetmusic edition. Introduced that same year by Eddie Miller and Helen Vincent on the Frolic of the author's Friars Club, but unsuccessfully. Set the standard for Berlin's later hits.
Covers:
Billy Murray [n°2 US]
Prince's Orch. [n°3 US]
Bessie Smith [hit US]
Boswell Sisters [hit US]
Louis Armstrong [hit US]
Alice Faye [in musical film Alexander's Ragtime Band]
Bing Crosby & Connee Boswell [n°1 US; charity recording; introduction by Eddie Cantor, then main fundraiser in Roosevelt's national campaign against Infantile Paralysis (polio)]
Hank Williams [with Pee Wee Moultrie, one of his first recordings]
Most popular and most lucrative ragtime-era tune ever written, while it ain't ragtime strictly speaking: it's about ragtime. Uses part of Stephen Foster's Swanee River tune to cleverly bridge the gap between old-time march music and hip ragtime. May have been written about the same Alexander as in Harry Tilzer's 1904 song Alexander (Don't You Love Your Baby No More). More likely it's about Jack Alexander, cornet player and bandleader where Berlin wrote Alexander And His Clarionet for (1911). That was no hit and so Berlin (a Harry Tilzer discovery) re-used part of the lyrics in Alexander's Ragtime Band.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)