“The Flapper Wife”
The Red Hotters
(Okeh 40382-A mx 73370-B) May 1925
“Love Light Lane”
The Yellow Jackets
(Okeh 40382-B mx 73152-B) February 4, 1925
Here is a record from the Edward Mitchell collection that has on my want list for inclusion in Radio Dismuke ever since I stumbled across a recording of this version of “The Flapper Wife” that had been uploaded to YouTube.
This recording is a jazzy instrumental by Harry Raderman’s Jazz Orchestra issued under the pseudonym of The Red Hotters. But other versions feature lyrics by Beatrice Burton, a popular romance fiction writer whose 1925 novel, The Flapper Wife, The Story Of A Jazz Bride, and subsequent sequels included lots of references to the era’s popular culture and slang.
You can find the upload to YouTube I mentioned at this link. I think the channel owner did an outstanding job of matching period film footage to the music. I recommend the channel as it provides a lot of nice vintage recordings from various decades and genres.
However, when you listen to the YouTube upload of the recording, you will notice that it sounds somewhat different than the copy here. Both are of the exact same recording (though the YouTube version is from a German pressing on the Lindstrom label).
The difference is that the version here was transferred at 80 rpm, which is what the Okeh label published as the correct playback speed for its records during that period. The YouTube version was transferred at a slower speed, around 78 rpm.
I actually prefer how it sounds at the slower playback, perhaps because it is how I was used to hearing the recording.
My policy is to transfer recordings at the speed recommended by the label that first produced the record. But I am not prepared to say that whoever transferred the YouTube upload was incorrect. Perhaps the person wasn’t aware of the correct speed. However, during that period, it wasn’t uncommon for records to have been recorded at speeds somewhat different than their officially published speeds. Some people are able to determine the exact recording speed based on pitch. Given the high quality of the YouTube version, I am open to the possibility that the slower speed might have been intentional. But, since I do not have the skillset needed to match pitch to speed, I transfer at the recommended speed and guess only in cases where information about that speed is unavailable.
I regard either approach as historically accurate in the sense that the official speed is the speed that record buyers who followed the manufacturer’s instructions would have heard them at, even if, on occasion, it varied slightly from what was heard in the recording studio.
The recording on the flip side, performed by an Okeh in-house band led by Justin Ring under the pseudonym of The Yellow Jackets, is not particularly jazzy. But I find the tune and the arrangement to be both charming and haunting.
– Dismuke