78 RPM - Vernon Dalhart - Wreck Of The Old 97 / The Prisoner's Song - Victor - USA

78 RPM Record

Artist:	Vernon Dalhart
Label:	Victor
Country:	USA
Catalogue:	19427
Date:	3 Oct 1924
Format:	10"
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	17 Own, 1 Wants
Price Guide:	$30
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PRICE GUIDE

$30

Track	Artist	Title	Composer	Rating
A	Vernon Dalhart	Wreck Of The Old 97		Rate
B	Vernon Dalhart	The Prisoner's Song	Guy Massey	Rate

Notes

Mountaineer's song (Title descriptor)

A mx: B-30632-1; B mx: B-30633-2.
Acoustically recorded New York, NY, August 13, 1924.
Vernon Dalhart (tenor vocal); Carson Robison (guitar); Lou Raderman (viola on B);
Unknown performer does train whistle effects.

A mx: BVE-30632-4; B mx: BVE-30633-6.
Electrically re-recorded New York, NY, March 18, 1926.
Vernon Dalhart (tenor vocal; hamonica on A); Carson Robison (guitar); Lou Raderman (violin).
(DAHR)

The Talking Machine World, October 15, 1924, page 217: "List for October 3"

Images

Comments and Reviews


xiphophilos 4th Oct 2021		I thought the needle promotion was added in 1924 and labels without it would be older. The new variant without the promotion must be younger, though (1925?), because it gives credit for "The Prisoner's Song" to Guy Massey, whereas the original release didn't. There's a similar phenomenon with Victor 19627, which was released in May 1925.



historyofcountrymusic 3rd Oct 2021		Added 2 more pairs of label variants: a batwing pair with no ‘needle recommendation’ and a scroll pair with ‘Orthophonic Recording’ instead of the needle recommendation.



xiphophilos 10th Apr 2019		DAHR reports that the record was on sale for 10 years, until 1934, but gives no sales numbers. It is certainly telling that Victor felt this record warranted an electrical re-recording after it had been on sale for more than a year already. The record sold so well, in any case, that a telegraph operator who had been a spectator at the site after the 1903 crash, David Graves George, sued Victor, claiming he held the copyright to the song. At some point, he was awarded "$65,000 on sales of five million records," but Victor appealed.(source) The Wikipedia entry on "The Prisoner's Song" may have the most reliable numbers: "Although contemporary data show that Victor pressed slightly over 1.3 million copies during the record's peak years of popularity,[3] anecdotal accounts sourced from a 1940s promotional flyer report sales as high as 7 million.[4]"



Bob1951 10th Apr 2019		Judging from how many copies I have, I would say that 7,000,000 is correct. However, where did he get that number from? Being the first record to sell over a million copies, makes 7 million seem like quite a stretch. But, I guess it could have happened over a number of years.



xiphophilos 10th Apr 2019		Dave Tabler's Appalachian History Blog claims that this record sold more than 7,000,000 copies.



fixbutte 21st Aug 2017		It seems also curious that DAHR lists Lou Raderman as violinist of the 1926 recording of "Wreck Of The Old 97". People discuss on YouTube if their videos are the 1924 or the 1926 recordings but there seems to be no version with a violin, and it is not mentioned on the record labels either. Vernon Dalhart's role as the harmonica player on the original 1924 has been confirmed anyway, see Texas State Historical Association: In May 1924, Dalhart talked Edison into letting him record a song he had heard and thought he could do well with his native accent. His "The Wreck of the Old 97" (also known as "The Wreck on the Southern Old 97"), made with Frank Ferera on guitar and with Dalhart playing the harmonica between choruses, did well enough that Dalhart asked Victor, a much larger company, to let him do it on trial. This time Carson Robison, a contract artist for Victor, played the guitar along with Dalhart's harmonica and vocal. For the B-side, an old folk song was rearranged and used. Dalhart had heard the song from his cousin, Guy Massey. It was recorded with Robison again playing guitar and Lou Raderman playing viola. Both songs were accepted by Victor and issued in November 1924. "The Wreck of the Old 97," with its B-side, "The Prisoner's Song," achieved phenomenal success as the first million-selling country record in the history of American music and launched country music onto the national market as a viable genre for major record companies. This paragraph suggests that the B-side without the composer credit [1422006] was the earlier one: As soon as the B-side showed signs of popularity, Dalhart copyrighted "The Prisoner's Song" under his cousin's name and split the royalties with Guy Massey, 95 percent for himself and 5 percent for Guy. (Years later all rights were returned to the Massey family.)



fixbutte 21st Aug 2017		Strangely DAHR, from where the instrumental credits in the notes have been taken, lists no name for the distinctive harmonica in the 1924 version of "Wreck Of The Old 97". As Vernon Dalhart is stated as the harmonica player of the 1926 version, I guess he played it on the earlier session as well. The uncredited train whistle effects seem to come from Carson Robison, as slholzer has commented. Another curious thing is that DAHR lists Lou Raderman's instrument as viola on the 1924 recording of "The Prisoner's Song" and as violin on the 1926 recording whereas the record labels say "viola" for both versions. I'm no expert and I'm not sure if I have really heard both versions but it may be a violin in the beginning and a (lower) viola in the middle of the same recording (as available on YouTube). It also seems that Victor ledgers already state for the 1924 version, "With violin and guitar" (as quoted by DAHR).



fixbutte 21st Aug 2017		Two entries (with same cat# and labels) have been merged here. The merged entry with the second set of Batwing labels ([1422005] and [1422006]) had been added (by Uwe1001) with the comment: Both sides of this record are electric remakes of the songs first recorded acoustically on August 13, 1924. The 1926 remakes had the same matrix and release numbers. Hence we can assume that the first copies of the electrically re-recorded sides still had the Batwing label (which was available by the end of July 1926), although the electrical recordings were generally released with the Scroll label, see 78 rpm Record Labels: As the electric era kicked in Victor changed the labels once again to the "Scroll" label, which ran from 1926-1937. As commented by slholzer, none of the composers of the A-side (completed as "Gilliam Banmon Grayson, Henry Whitter" on the merged entry) are actually identified on the label, neither on the Batwing nor on the Scroll version. Interestingly, the second set of Batwing labels has the composer credit on the B-side (Guy Massey) omitted.



slholzer 21st Aug 2017		None of the composers are identified on the label. This is also true of the variant version discussed below. Apparently everybody agrees that Guy Massey is the actual composer of The Prisoner's Song. However, Bolig's Victor Black Label Discography 18000/19000 Series gives the composers of "Wreck Of The Old 97" as Work, Whitter, Noel. To confuse matters more, Bolig indicates that two versions of this record were issued, with different takes of each track used on the two versions. One version, recorded August 13, 1924 and issued Oct 3, 1924, presumably the version shown here, used take 2 of the Prisoner's Song and take 1 of "Wreck Of The Old 97". The other, recorded March 18, 1926 and issued in 1926 (probably matching a scroll label version in my database), used takes 6 and 4 respectively. Both B sides feature Louis Raderman on viola and Carson Robison on guitar. The earlier A side features Carson Robison on guitar and as a whistler. The later A side has Carson only on guitar with Louis Raderman on violin. One could make fairly compelling cases both for treating them as variants of the same disc or giving each its own entry based on very real differences.



vocalion red 6th May 2017		Side A on this record was also done on Edison (51361), 1924. Same artist but with a slightly different title.



slholzer 6th May 2017		Per John Bolig's Victor Black Label Discography 18000-19000 series, the re-make of this disc took place on March 18, 1926. The new takes (#4 for side A, #6 for Side B) were used from sometime in 1926. The original takes would be found on the Batwing label copies. The new takes would be more likely on the Scroll labeled copies. The original takes are found on HMV copies, the new takes on Victor, Bluebird, Montgomery Ward and Sunrise re-issues.



Bob1951 24th Apr 2017		Scroll- electrical recording, label images added.



thebluesneverdie 17th Mar 2014		First "million seller" country record. Artist was actually an opera singer who was persuaded to cover a popular song by George Grayson &Henry Whitter. B-side was written by his cousin. When artist realised the potential in the "hillbilly" market, he completely abandoned opera for this emerging genre, of which there had been no major sellers prior to this record. Was re-recorded in 1928 with the new electrical system (the original had been an acoustic recording), but retained the same cat. no.



nicoldo64 11th Jul 2013



nicoldo64 11th Jul 2013



nicoldo64 11th Jul 2013

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Linked Releases

USA - Bluebird - 1940