Скачать или смотреть Florrie Forde - Looping the Loop (1904 recording)

Here is Florrie Forde singing her popular song "Looping The Loop" on a rare Lambert 'indestructible' cylinder. The date of the recording - which is etched in the blank space before the groove starts - is 5th April 1904, in London. I don't know who the pianist is, but he is very good, with a nice syncopated approach. Any ideas anyone?

Florrie Forde (16 August 1875 – 18 April 1940) was born in Australia but moved to the UK in 1897 and quickly gained popularity on the British musical hall stage, becoming one of its highest paid female stars. She appeared in the very first Royal Variety Performance in 1912. During World War I, her most famous songs were some of the best known of the period, including "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag" and "It's A Long Way To Tipperary". She was retained in the public's affection long after most of her contemporaries had retired or died (there is sound film footage of her on YouTube").

The Lambert company was founded in Chicago in 1900 as a manufacturer of 'indestructible' phonograph cylinders made of an celluloid material (early examples are pink in colour), based on a patented process developed by Thomas B. Lambert. Lambert cylinders are more rugged than the comparatively fragile Edison-type standard cylinder made of artificial wax, and their surfaces are quieter - and unlike wax cylinders they are not prone to damage from mould growth. However, celluloid was a comparatively expensive material at the time and so the company developed a cheaper version featuring a thin celluloid recording surface moulded onto a pressed cardboard core - as is the case with this particular cylinder.

Soon after the Lambert company was established in Chicago, it formed a licensing and manufacturing deal with the Edison Bell company in the UK. Edison Bell advertised their "Indestructible" cylinders in the same fashion as the British arm of the Lambert organisation, Lambert Company Ltd., advertised theirs.

"Looping The Loop" originally (circa 1900) was a reference to roller-coasters at amusement parks rather than aerobatic displays:

"Loop-the-Loop" is the name of a new entertainment which goes further in the way of tempting Providence than anything yet invented. The "Loop" is an immense circle of track in the air. A car on a mimic railway shoots down a very steep incline, and is impelled around the inner side of this loop....The authorities at Coney Island are said to have prohibited "looping-the-loop" because women break their corset strings in their efforts to catch their breath as they sweep down the incline, and moreover, a young man is reported to have ruptured a blood vessel in his liver. ["Philadelphia Medical Journal," 10 August, 1901]