The annual Channel 10/36 auction doesn’t start for another three months, but donations are already starting to come in. I happened to be at the auction site in Brookfield last week and something caught my attention: a box of cylindrical records to be played on an old Edison phonograph.
Hmmm, I thought to myself, maybe I’ll want to put in a bid for those old records. What would I do with them? Well, I could send them to my 88-year-old Aunt Mae in Oregon because she and her family still have the old wind-up phonograph that has been in our family since Mae and my mother were girls in 1920. When I was growing up on a farm in rural Westfield, Wisconsin, the phonograph sat on top of the wooden bookcase in the upstairs hallway. My two sisters, my brother and I had a good time winding up the machine and singing along. When the phonograph started winding down, the tempo lagged and then we’d crank it some more.
Seeing those cylindrical records from the early 1900s brought back some of the tunes and lyrics. The most ridiculous one I can remember was “I Laughed at the Wrong Time” (and the word the was strongly accented, sounding like thee.) It was a song about various incidents which caused uncontrollable outbursts of laughter – in fact, there was much more laughing than singing.
Another silly song was “What Does the Little Dog Mean. . .” (when he says ‘ruff ruff, bow wow’?) and then there was “Oh Katarina, Oh Katarina” (to keep my love, you must be leaner.) One ballad, “Casey Jones,” told the story of a railroad engineer who took his last ride to “that promised land.” It went on for five or six stanzas, and I used to know every word.
Curious to learn more about the “laughing” song, I did some Internet searching and learned this song was written and recorded by Cal Stewart. Born in 1856 or ’57, Stewart became known for his humorous monologues and the character Uncle Josh Weathersby from a make-believe town of Pumpkin Center. When he was about 40 years old, he began recording some comic sketches of the Uncle Josh character.
According to Tim Gracyk, author of Popular American Recording Pioneers, Cal Stewart recorded many songs that include hearty laughing; not all of them make direct reference to the Uncle Josh character. On March 30, 1899, he cut "Laughing Song" for Berliner 046. Later recordings included "Ticklish Reuben," "And Then I Laughed." The one I remember, "I Laughed At The Wrong Time," was first recorded in 1911.
To hear the recording, go to: http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/21700
For more information about Cal Stewart and other early recording artists, see http://www.glowingdial.com/joshartc.htm
