J. W. Myers

Welsh baritone John W. Myers was probably the most important singer in the first decade of the American phonograph industry. Although he was born in Wales around 1865, nothing is known of his background and it hasn't been confirmed that "J.W. Myers," the name he used for recording, was his genuine one. But the tradition from which he comes is well-known, the 19th century baritone cum basso profundo who delighted audiences with his strong voice; loud, low notes; genteel parlor songs; and ballads of male gusto and bravado. Myers' trade was plied in music halls, traveling variety shows, and early vaudeville. J.W. Myers is identified as an already seasoned recording artist in a North American Phonograph Company bulletin of 1892, which suggests that he may have begun recording as early as 1889-1890, the first years the phonograph served as a public conveyance of entertainment. Myers recorded at least hundreds, possibly thousands, of selections for practically anyone who was active in the record business in the decade of the 1890s -- Edison, Berliner, many of the fractious regional phonograph licensees, and, in particular, Columbia. In 1896, Myers was one of the founders of a runaway cylinder company of his own, the Globe Talking Machine Company. He may have gotten involved in this venture knowing of the imminent breakup of North American, but Globe Talking Machine foundered in just a few months, well before Edison's phonograph combine entered the bankruptcy courts in 1897. Myers continued with Columbia into the disc era, and ultimately recorded more for them than any other company. Myers was present, practically from the first day of business, in the studios at Victor Talking Machine Company and made more than a hundred records for Victor in its first year. Then, for reasons unknown, Myers disappears from the industry for a time, toward the end of 1902. Although Myers returned to recording in 1904, his production of records is much spottier from that time forward. By 1907, Tin Pan Alley was on the rise and the basso profundo was beginning to be seen as old hat; therewith singers like Myers were becoming an extinct species in entertainment. In 1909, he invested in another runaway record concern, the U.S. Everlasting Cylinder Company of Cleveland, which lasted longer than Globe, hanging on until 1913, but he apparently never recorded for them. Myers last recording date -- almost certainly for Columbia -- is not known, as Columbia was not in the habit of noting in their books when they remade older titles with an original artist; it could have taken place anywhere from 1912 to 1914. In 1950, researcher Jim Walsh proposed a death date of 1919 for Myers, although in doing so Walsh didn't consider that Myers may have returned to the U.K., where his imported records were still enormously popular; Columbia was still carrying a few of Myers' recordings in its catalogs of the early '20s. Myers remains of interest not just as a representative survivor of a long gone 19th century genre, exemplified by such records as "The Arrow and the Song," "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," and the ever ubiquitous "The Holy City." By chance, many of the topical songs future generations associate with the 1890s, such as "The Baggage Coach Ahead," "Break the News to Mother," "In the Good Old Summertime," and "Always in the Way," were ones that only Myers recorded in versions that can be considered historically contemporary. Myers had a loud and excellent voice, one well suited to the hard-to-hear early phonograph, and belongs to a small fraternity of singers from the time before Enrico Caruso whose recorded work can be seen as representative. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis