S. H. Dudley "Military Mollie" "Military Molly" (1899) George J. Gaskin, J. W. Myers, Will F. Denny

Описание: S. H. Dudley, born on January 15, 1864, may have been the most popular baritone to record at the turn of the century. His output by 1900 exceeded that of baritone J. W. Myers.

S. H. Dudley was in the right place at the right time in that his voice suited the crude recording devices of the time better than most. As a featured solo artist he was in studios regularly from 1898 to 1904, after which there is a noticeable drop-off.

In a letter to Jim Walsh quoted in the May 1946 issue of Hobbies, Dudley even calls himself the Bing Crosby of 1900, stating that "more records were sold of Dudley, Kernell, duets, quartets, than of any other singer of the time."

Dudley adds, "Too bad the days of royalties had not arrived!" The Bing Crosby analogy is misleading since Dudley records did not dramatically outsell those of Arthur Collins, Harry Macdonough, and a handful of other pioneers.

He was born Samuel Holland Rous in Greencastle, Indiana. His father was a professor at Asbury College and then a superintendent of county schools, a position that required constant moving. Rous wrote to Walsh in a letter transcribed in the May 1946 issue of Hobbies, "I never even went through high school, but was forced to get a job at 13 when my father lost his hearing and could no longer teach. Then I jumped into opera without ever having a single voice lesson!"

The singer adopted the name S. H. Dudley as a stage name early in his career, and this is the name used for most of his Berliner, Victor, and Edison records. Some cylinders from 1898 and early 1899 give the name S. Holland Dudley, including Excelsior cylinders--the three principal Excelsior artists in 1898 were Dudley, Roger Harding, and William F. Hooley.

From mid-1899 onward the shorter "S. H. Dudley" was used on records. On a few Victor discs, he is identified as Frank Kernell, such as on "The Whistling Coon" (1982). When making duets with bird imitator Joe Belmont, he also used the name Kernell. His real name, Samuel Holland Rous, appears as the byline for some editions of The Victor Book of the Opera.

He spent some early years of his career singing opera with touring companies, including the Boston Ideal Opera Company.

Walsh states in the October 1962 issue of Hobbies that the Edison Quartet (or Edison Male Quartette) was organized "about 1894 to make soft brown wax cylinders. Original members were Roger Harding, J. K. Reynard, S. H. Dudley, and William F. Hooley." An 1896 Edison Quartet photograph once owned by John Bieling and duplicated in the September 1979 issue of Hobbies includes Dudley.

He became important as baritone for the Edison Quartet and Haydn Quartet. Dudley's signature is etched in several Berliner discs of the Haydn Quartet, and he added the word "manager" after his name (an example is 021, "Nearer My God To Thee," recorded on March 23, 1899). He recalled in the 1931 letter that in the earliest days at the studio he sang "simple old-fashioned stuff--Old Oaken Buckett [sic]; Hail, Jerusalem--but the singing position was decidedly cramping, as the crude methods of recording made it necessary for us to bump our heads close together."

Soon he made his first solo record for Edison, recalling for Walsh that it was "The Chili Widow."

The earliest known discs to feature Dudley as a solo artist are Berliners from 1898, perhaps the first being "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" (157), cut on June 10, 1898

Despite his earlier experience singing opera, Dudley was valued in studios for singing popular tunes of the day, including patriotic, marching, and "coon" songs. The opera background turned invaluable when Dudley later compiled The Victor Book of the Opera

He continued working on The Victor Book of the Opera until around the mid-1930s. Even after he stopped working on editions, many of his summaries continued intact in late editions although his name is nowhere mentioned. Conductor and author Charles O'Connell revised the ninth edition so that photographs of new Victor Red Seal artists replaced old illustrations. Also, additional operas were included and a few new summaries supplanted the old.

He died on June 6, 1947.