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The
late George Blacker spent many years researching what he termed
the "Pennsylvania Vertical Group" (PVG), a cluster of
seemingly related 78 record brands produced in the Philadelphia area from
1912 through early 1918. Inevitably, his research led him to investigate
an alleged link between the PVG labels and Okeh.
Blacker interest in this link was piqued by Fred Hager's
claim, made many years after the supposed event, that the Otto Heineman Phonograph Supply Company (manufacturer
of Okeh records) had gotten its start by acquiring assets of the
Rex Talking Machine Corporation of Philadelphia. There seemed little
reason to doubt Hager's story. After all, he had been Okeh's first musical director and a leading figure in the
label's growth, and researchers of the period accepted
his account without question. Blacker, however, eventually came to dispute
Hager's claim based on largely circumstantial evidence, which he
outlined at length in Record Research magazine.
But Fred Hager was correct.
Evidence gleaned from 1918 issues
of The Talking Machine World confirms that Heineman acquired
Rex's studio in 1918. Less certain, but still highly probable, is
that Heineman also acquired Horace Sheble's Domestic pressing plant
at about the same time.
The article that follows examines the early years of Okeh as well
as the histories of the ill-fated companies that gave rise to this
major American label.
By
the time Otto Heineman introduced his Okeh label in May 1918, the
vertical-cut disc had established a niche in the American market.
Beginning in 1910, a few American record manufacturers attempted
to challenge Victor and Columbia's domination of the 78 record market by employing the vertical,
or "hill-and-dale" cut, which - unlike the standard lateral
cut - did not enjoy patent protection in the United States. Many
new record companies joined the fray in the years around the outbreak
of World War I. A few would survive and thrive. Two that did not
became the foundation upon which Heineman would build his legendary
Okeh label.
The
Keen-O-Phone / Rex / Imperial Group
The roots of Okeh's first recording studio can be traced back to
the Keen-O-Phone Company, ancestor of the later Rex label. The
Talking Machine World for February 15, 1908 announced that
the Keen-O-Phone Company had been incorporated in Delaware by Monroe
Keen, Gustave Lyon, and Alfred Gordon. Doing business in Philadelphia,
Keen-O-Phone initially marketed phonographs but did not produce
records until 1912, when it unveiled its sapphire-ball vertically
cut Keen-O-Phone discs.
For
its musical director, Keen-O-Phone recruited Fred Hager, a violinist and recording
pioneer whose work dated to the earliest years of commercial record
production, from the nearly defunct Boston Talking Machine Company
(makers of Phono-Cut vertically cut discs). In 1912 a large market
for vertical discs had not yet developed in the United States, and
after two years of weak sales Keen-O-Phone was reorganized as the
Rex Talking Machine Corporation of Philadelphia. Incorporated in
Delaware in 1914, Rex retained Fred Hager as musical director. Charles A. Hibbard—an expert studio technician who had trained at Edison before moving to the United States Phonograph Co., makers of U.S. Everlasting cylinders—was recruited as recording engineer. The company either operated
or contracted its work to Hibbard's new studio at 35 West Thirty-First
Street, New York, and operated a pressing plant at 9 Vandever Avenue
in Wilmington, Delaware.
With
a large backlog of Keen-O-Phone masters to draw upon, Rex's first
catalog (which continued Keen-O-Phone's 5000-series catalog numbers
for popular releases) was an ambitious one. Rex also supplied pressings
to several client labels, including Empire, Imperial (unrelated
to the earlier Leeds & Catlin brand), McKinley, Mozart (unrelated
to the earlier International Record Company brand), Playerphone,
and Rishell. Most of these labels duplicated Rex's couplings and catalog numbers.
One of the last known Imperial advertisements
(Talking Machine World, January 1918)
Rex
apparently underwent a final reorganization, as the Imperial Talking
Machine Company, in mid-to-late 1917. The November 1917 Talking
Machine World trade directory cited Imperial (which, like its
predecessor, was incorporated in Delaware) as the manufacturer of
Rex as well as Imperial discs. By the end of 1917, however, the
newer Imperial label seems to have supplanted Rex entirely. A January
1918 Imperial advertisement claimed a catalog of more than 2,000
selections, a feat that likely would have been impossible for the
newcomer had it not had access to the tremendous inventory of existing
Rex and Keen-O-Phone material. Imperial also produced new releases
at the former Rex facilities, extending Rex's catalog numbering
series from the point at which Rex ceased operation. The Keen-O-Phone
- Rex - Imperial line came to an end in early 1918, with the last
known Imperial releases listed in the Talking Machine World
for February 15, 1918.
Confirmation of an Okeh—Rex connection appears in the Talking
Machine World's October 1919 history of the Otto Heineman Phonograph
Supply Company, which states that Heineman did indeed purchase the
"record laboratory controlled by Messrs. Hibbard and Hager"
- in other words, the former Rex-Imperial studio.
Why, then, didn't older Rex and Imperial material appear under the
Okeh label? That was the question that led George Blacker to dispute Hager's
statement in the first place. After all, a six-year accumulation
of master recordings would have provided a ready-made catalog perfectly
suited for a new label. Unfortunately, we can only guess at the
answer. In all likelihood, Hibbard and Hager were operating
as independent contractors to Rex, but didn't own rights to the material the produced;
or perhaps Heineman's perfectionistic personality dictated that
his new label start from scratch. Whatever the reason, no evidence
has been found to date of Rex material having been reissued on Okeh.
Horace
Sheble and the Domestic Talking Machine Corporation
For his pressing plant, evidence suggests that Heineman acquired
the facilities of Horace Sheble's recently defunct Domestic Talking
Machine Corporation.
Sheble
was one of the pioneers of the American phonograph industry, if a bit of a rogue, as
well as a persistent thorn in the side of the major record manufacturers.
With partner Ellsworth A. Hawthorne, he founded the Philadelphia
firm of Hawthorne & Sheble in or around 1894 to deal in Edison
products. Almost from the start, the company showed little regard
for patents and licensing agreements. After being blacklisted by
Edison in 1900, Hawthorne & Sheble turned to manufacturing after-market accessories and parts for Edison phonographs. Eventually, the company tunred to producing its own records and complete phonographs. In 1904,
Hawthorne and Sheble joined forces with John
O. Prescott (brother of International Talking Machine's Frederick
M. Prescott) to market a series of distinctive blue-shellac discs
manufactured by the American Record Company, the U.S. affiliate of the Berlin-based the International Talking, makers of Odeon records. The American venture was forced out of
business as the result of patent litigation in 1907. Hawthorne and
Sheble carried on minus Prescott (who in 1908 attempted, apparently
without success, to introduce his Champion TwoforOne disc),
producing Star records and phonographs until the business was absorbed
by Columbia around 1910.
Horace Sheble surfaced again in 1916, as founder of the Domestic
Talking Machine Corporation of Philadelphia. A trademark application,
filed on June 22, 1916, claimed use of the Domestic brand on phonographs
since February 4 of that year. Records apparently were an afterthought;
neither the trademark application nor the 1917 Talking Machine
World trade directory mentioned Domestic discs.
Domestic's first records were 7-inch fine-groove vertical cut discs
produced by the Domino Record Company,
a short-lived venture unrelated to the 1920s label of the same name.
They were announced in the November 1916 Talking Machine World.
An 8-inch series, produced by Operaphone and duplicating material
on that company's fine-groove vertical cut discs, followed a short
time later.
In November 1917, Sheble announced an entirely new line of Domestic
records. He had acquired a pressing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts—almost certainly the site of his former American Record Company facility—and
was once again producing discs in the same distinctive blue shellac
that more a decade earlier had graced Hawthorne, Sheble & Prescott's
American Record Company pressings. The new vertical-cut Domestics
were playable with either steel or sapphire point and were offered
in 10- and 12-inch series. Some of the latter offered three selections
per disc.
A Domestic blue-shellac issue, 1917
Sheble
took an active hand in designing the Domestic phonograph line. Patent
records show that he assigned rights to several phonograph cabinet
designs to the company in 1916, and he also worked closely with
inventor Thomas Kramer, an associate from the American Record Company
days. In a 1916 TMW interview, Sheble characterized his new
products as suited to those who "enjoy all the comforts of
life without false extravagances." But the Domestic line vanished
suddenly, and the last known Domestic records were released in January,
1918. The label was later revived briefly by a company in Latrobe,
Pennsylvania, which simply relabeled Operaphone pressings.
For
many years, collectors assumed that Heineman produced the last Domestic
series, based on similarities in the pressings and 1000-series catalog
numbers that seemed to coincide with Okeh's. We now know, however,
that this was not the case.
The
lack of a Domestic connection becomes obvious when comparing Talking
Machine World release lists for Domestic and Okeh. The two company's
masters do not correlate in any way. Domestic's version of "Over
There," for example, was performed by Meyer and Campbell, whereas
Okeh offered a different version by the Sterling Trio (Burr, Meyer,
and Campbell). But the most convincing bit of evidence appears when
comparing the dates of these release lists. Domestic vanishes from
the TMW listings in January, 1918, five months before the
first Okehs were announced. Clearly, Domestic's demise preceded
Okeh's introduction by many months, and thus Domestic could not
have been pressed from Okeh masters.
Did
Okeh purchase the Domestic plant? No exact statement to that effect
has been found in TMW, but the purchase seems likely, based
on strong circumstantial evidence. Okeh began pressing in Springfield,
Massachusetts just a few months after Domestic ceased operations
in the same city. The typefaces seen in the wax of Domestic and
Okeh pressings are identical, a fact that caused many collectors
to misattribute the pressings to Okeh. And finally, there is a business connection between Heineman and Sheble. Heineman
was a part-owner of, and received financial support from, the Lindström
Company of Berlin, successor to the International Talking Machine
Company, with which Sheble's American Record Company of 1904–07
had been affiliated.
Sheble
went his own way after Domestic's demise. At one point he placed
a personal ad in TMW offering his services as an independent
consultant to start-up record companies.
Otto
Heineman and the Birth of Okeh
Early in the twentieth century, Otto Heineman, in partnership with
Max Strauss and Heinrich Zunz, purchased Carl Lindström Aktien-Gesellschaft,
a small manufacturing plant in Berlin, for the newly formed International
Talking Machine Company (makers of Odeon
records). Heineman came to the United States in 1914, with his brother
Adolph, to study industrial conditions for the rapidly expanding
Lindström organization.
Stranded in the U.S. at the outbreak of German hostilities, the
Heineman brothers formed an import company at 45 Broadway, New York.
In 1915, Otto contracted with the Garford Manufacturing Company
of Elyria, Ohio, to produce high-quality phonograph motors to his
specifications, and in December 1915 he incorporated his new business
at the Otto Heineman Phonograph Supply Company, Inc. (25 West Forty-Fifth
Street, New York). Heineman initially sold only motors, a lucrative
line at a time when dozens of new phonograph lines were being introduced,
and his 1918 trademark application claimed use of the phrase "The
Motor of Quality" since September 1915.
In April 1917, Heineman purchased the Meisselbach motor factory
at Newark, New Jersey, and in late 1917 he diversified a bit, purchasing
the John M. Dean needle factory at Putnam, Connecticut. By 1918,
the Heineman company was a major supplier
of high-quality phonograph motors, reproducers, needles, and parts,
although Heineman himself expressed no interest in building complete
phonographs.
In early 1918, Heineman began production of vertically cut Okeh
records, supposedly taking the name from an Indian word that, coincidentally,
displayed his initials very nicely as originally designed. Heineman's
strategy had been to buy existing, well-established companies to
manufacture his products, and he remained true to form in creating
his Okeh label, acquiring the former Rex-Imperial studio (and with
it, veteran recording engineer Charles A. Hibbard and musical director
Fred Hager), and probably acquiring Horace Sheble's Domestic pressing
plant in Springfield. Heineman retained Imperial's advertising slogan,
"The Record of Quality," for his new label.
The first Okeh releases (10-inch vertically cut discs bearing
dark blue labels with an Indian-head trademark) were announced to
the trade in May 1918. The label was slightly modified soon after
its introduction to remove the banner that ran across its center,
and some pressings are known that bear the older and newer versions
on opposite sides.
The first Okeh label, 1918. The center
banner was removed after a few issues.
Okeh's
early catalogs offered little to set the label apart from its many
competitors. Run-of-the-mill pop, standard, and light classical
material by the usual New York-area studio free-lancers predominated,
and early advertisements didn't even bother to cite artist credits.
Trade journals praised the new label, a judgment that might have
been influenced more by Okeh's massive advertising campaign than
by the records themselves. Sales seem to have been weak, if present-day
rarity is any indication.
The
General Phonograph Corporation
On October 1, 1919, Otto Heineman officially reorganized his company
as the General Phonograph Corporation. Financed by and closely allied
with the powerful Carl Lindström organization (which by that
time was producing Beka, Da Capo, Favorite, Fonotipia, and Parlophone
records in addition to Odeon), Heineman introduced a new line of
standard lateral-cut Okeh discs in the same month, still bearing
the blue Indian-head labels but with the legend "LATERAL RECORD"
added in oversized type. The blue labels were soon replaced by a
slightly redesigned version gold on red that retained the Indian
trademark. By 1920, when the Indian trademark finally gave way to
Okeh's distinctive script trademark, sales and technical quality
were improving steadily,
Okeh
might have gone the way of so many other uninspired start-ups but
for an accidental hit that cast it in a new and unexpected role.
The story of Mamie Smith's "Crazy
Blues" (Okeh 4169), the first authentic vocal blues record,
is too well known to bear repeating here, but its release in November
1920 revealed a vast, untapped market for recordings by black performers.
Its unexpectedly strong sales pointed Okeh in an exciting new direction.
Foregoing the stodginess that then characterized the American recording
establishment at the time, Okeh soon began to scour the nation for
performers and material that was often far removed from the mainstream.
In the process, it would reshape the American recording industry
as perhaps no other label had to that point.
Selected
References
Advance
Record Bulletins. Talking Machine World (monthly, 11/15/1916
- 1/15/1921)
Blacker, George. "Pennsylvania Vertical Group." Record
Research 131 (1/1975)
Blacker, George. "Pennsylvania Vertical Group Update."
Record Research 146/147 (5 - 6/1977)
Carson Pirie Scott & Co. "Domestic Talking Machines - Domestic
Blue Records" (advertisement). Talking Machine World
(10/15/1917)
Domestic Talking Machine Corp.: "Domestic." U.S. Patent
Office: Trademark application #96,052 (filed 6/22/1916)
Empire Talking Machine Co. "Empire." U.S. Patent Office:
Trademark application #91,603 (filed 12/20/1915)
Empire Talking Machine Co. "The Empire Proposition Is a Big
Winner" (advertisement). Talking Machine World
(9/15/1916)
"Empire Talking Machine Co. News." Talking Machine
World (9/15/1918)
"Heineman Okeh Record Now Ready for the Trade." Talking
Machine World (5/15/1918)
Imperial Talking Machine Corp.: "Imperial Records" (advertisement).
Talking Machine World (2/15/1918)
"Keen-O-Phone Company Incorporated." Talking Machine
World (2/15/1908)
Otto Heineman Phonograph Supply Co., Inc.: "Okeh." U.S.
Patent Office: Trademark application #116,453 (filed 3/11/1919)
Otto Heineman Phonograph Supply Co., Inc. "Okeh - The Record
of Quality." U.S. Patent Office: Trademark application
#112,064 (filed 7/11/1918)
"Otto Heineman's 20th Anniversary in Industry." Talking
Machine World (12/15/1922)
"Sheble Talks of 'Domestic' Age." Talking Machine World
(8/15/1916)
Trade Directory. Talking Machine World (11/15/1917)
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