Peg o 'My Heart
Peg o 'My Heart is a 1913 by Alfred Bryan (text) and Fred Fisher (music) for the Broadway - Musical Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 written song , the 1947 instrumental track became known worldwide.
Original and first cover versions
The original Peg o 'My Heart was made for the Broadway musical Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 , which ran at New York's New Amsterdam Theater . One million copies of the sheet music of the song published on March 15, 1913 were sold. The musical began on June 16, 1913 and ran 108 performances until September 6, 1913. In the musical, the singer Jose Collins performed the song. The first commercial sound recording was made on July 24, 1913 by tenor Charles Harrison ( Victor Records 17412), whose single rose to number one hit on December 12, 1913 . This was followed in 1913 by the cellist Rosario Bourdon (Victor 17492B, November 4, 1913), the Victor Military Band (Victor 17465; November 6, 1913), tenor Henry Burr ( Columbia Records 1404; August 1, 1913, rank 2) and Walter Van Brunt (Edison Blue Amberol 2036, September 1913, rank 7). These versions already sold a total of two million times.
Cover of the Harmony Cats
History of origin
The harmonica trio The Harmony Cats worked on their own arrangement since December 1946 with the line- up of Jerry Murad , Domnick Leshinski and Al Fiore. The three musicians played a chromatic lead harmonica, accordion and a bass harmonica. In February 1947 the group went to music producer Bill Putnam to record some songs in his Universal Recording Studios . However, they couldn't afford the $ 108 studio cost for a 3-hour, four-track recording session. The sound recordings took place in March 1947 at Universal Recording Studios in Chicago . The planned A-side Peg o 'My Heart was completed in 20 minutes.
The song is considered to be the first sound recording with artificial reverb, generated by a tiled men's toilet used as an echo chamber . Bill Putnam is considered to be the commercial inventor of the echo chamber. A loudspeaker transmitted the finished recording into the tiled toilet, in which a microphone transmitted the reverberation effect back to the control room and was recorded again there. This reverb effect was integrated into the studio recording. This resulted in a resonance effect with an exaggerated sounding reverberation . The reverb effect was so exaggerated that its artificiality can be heard without disturbing the listener. Putnam designed an acoustic montage and changed the sound image during the recording.
Publication and Success
Putnam deducted the recording costs from the expected sales proceeds and had 1000 singles of Peg o 'My Heart / Fantasy Impromptu (Vitacoustic # 1; B-side composed by Frédéric Chopin ) pressed by Mercury Records . The single was released on the Vitacoustic Records label that Putnam had just founded. The short-lived Vitacoustic label was founded in March 1947 by Putnam, Lloyd Garrett and Jack Buckley, started with this hit, Putnam left in August 1947, and it was liquidated in October 1948. Billboard magazine reported on the publication in its March 1, 1947 issue: “Universal Recording, a local recording studio owned by Bill Putnam, is playing with the idea of having its own record label and will publish 1000 copies of a test single by the harmonica trio Harmonicats. “The record review appeared on the Billboard on April 12, 1947.
To Putnam's surprise, all 1,000 copies of the single Peg o 'My Heart were sold within two days of being released in April 1947 after radio disc jockey Eddie Hubbard (WIND Chicago) played the song several times on the radio. The DJ received over 200 requests, so the record became a hit in Chicago overnight. By June 1947 175,000 copies had been sold, in July 1947 the limit of one million copies had been reached, and by September 1947 a total of 1.4 million copies had been sold. In the US hit parade , Peg o 'My Heart stayed at number one for eight weeks from June 21, 1947.
More cover versions
There are at least 49 cover versions in total . In 1947 four other very successful frames came onto the market, namely Art Lund (MGM 10037, May 12, 1947, rank 4), Buddy Clark (Columbia 37392; May 1947, rank 1), Clark Dennis (Capitol 346, June 1947 , Rank 8) and The Three Suns (RCA 2272, June 1947, Rank 1). The fact that an instrumental piece was made a top hit by three performers in the same year is unmatched to this day. The song was never forgotten, the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys covered it in 2011 with Bruce Springsteen on their LP Going Out in Style .
Individual evidence
- ^ David A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley , 2004, p. 139
- ^ Peter Doyle, Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording , 2005, p. 143
- ↑ Axel Volmar / Jens Schröter, Auditive Medienkulturen , 2014, p. 71
- ^ Albin Zak, I Don't Sound Like Nobody , 2010, p. 155
- ^ Billboard Magazine, March 1, 1947, Music As Written: Chicago , p. 32
- ↑ Kim Field, Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers , 2000, p. 64
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 47
- ^ Billboard magazine of September 6, 1947, Ececutive Dissension Forces Cats to Exit Vitacoustic Stable , p. 17
- ↑ Soundonsound, June 2001, Universal Appeal