“I’ve Got The Girl” (Played at 78 rpm)
Don Clark And His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra; Bing Crosby, Al Rinker, vocal
(Columbia 824-D mx 142785) October 18, 1926
“I’ve Got The Girl” (Played at approximately 75 rpm)
Don Clark And His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra; Bing Crosby, Al Rinker, vocal
(Columbia 824-D mx 142785) October 18, 1926
“Idolizing”
Don Clark And His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra; Betty Patrick, vocal
(Columbia 824-D mx 142785) October 15, 1926
From the Edward Mitchell collection, here is Bing Crosby’s first recording, backing up Don Clark’s Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra in a vocal duet with Al Rinker.
Neither Crosby nor Rinker were credited on the record’s label.
The recording also plays back at the incorrect speed – when played at the standard 78 rpm, the performance is faster than it was in real life. For that reason, I have also included a copy of the recording slowed down to approximately 75 rpm, the speed that, in my opinion, seems to be the most accurate.
The record did not sell well and almost immediately fell into obscurity – as did bandleader Don Clark. It wasn’t until the early 1950s that even the most expert Bing Crosby fans and record collectors became aware that Crosby had made the recording.
Crosby and Rinker began performing together in their hometown of Spokane, Washington, in the early 1920s. In 1925, they traveled to Los Angeles in search of greater opportunities. Through the contacts of Al Rinker’s sister, Mildred Bailey, they obtained work and, eventually, a contract with the vaudeville circuit. Mildred Bailey would go on to become a famous and legendary jazz vocalist in her own right.
In October 1926, Crosby and Rinker were performing at the Metropolitan Theater in Los Angeles when they were brought to the attention of bandleader Paul Whiteman, who was performing nearby at the Million Dollar Theater. Whiteman offered them a contract at $150 a week each – equivalent to approximately $2,662 in today’s currency, an enormous sum for a couple of young, unknown, and relatively inexperienced vocalists. The job with Whiteman was to begin a few weeks later once their contract with the vaudeville circuit expired.
While they were waiting for their current contract to run out, Columbia Records was in Los Angeles on a field trip with its mobile recording equipment. Among the artists scheduled to record was bandleader Don Clark, a former saxophone player with the Paul Whiteman orchestra, whose band had succeded Earl Burtnett’s as the house band of the prestigious Biltmore Hotel. Clark invited Crosby and Rinker to participate in the recording session.
While it would be the first recording session of Bing Crosby’s lengthy recording career, it turned out to be the very last recording session of Don Clark’s brief recording career. Earl Burtnett soon reclaimed his position at the Biltmore, and Clark quickly faded from the music scene.
Crosby recorded another song during the recording session, “Don’t Somebody Need Somebody?” But that recording was never issued.
At the time, it was very common for band vocalists not to receive credit on a record’s label and merely be acknowledged with the phrase “with vocal refrain,” though interestingly enough, Clark’s vocalist Betty Patrick did receive credit for her vocal on “Idolizing” on the record’s flip side.
The recording of “Idolizing” does not seem to have the issue of being recorded at an incorrect speed. But it does have a certain harsh sound quality that I have observed on a number of early electrical recordings that Victor made in 1925 and into 1926. Victor and Columbia both used Western Electric’s system for their electrical recordings. I rarely hear similar harshness on Columbia’s electrical recordings from that period. I am not sure what caused such harshness on Victor, but whatever it was, their engineers were able to correct it as I have never heard it on their recordings after 1926. Had I not seen this record before I heard it, I would have immediately guessed it to be on an early electric Victor.
After joining Whiteman’s band, Crosby and Rinker were teamed up with Harry Barris to form the highly successful Paul Whiteman’s Rhythm Boys. The trio performed on a number of the band’s records and appeared in the 1930 film King of Jazz.
In 1930, the Rhythm Boys left Whiteman and went out on their own before joining the Gus Arnheim Orchestra, which had regular radio broadcasts from the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel. As a result of the radio exposure, Crosby became increasingly popular and left the Rhythm Boys to pursue a radio, film, recording, and, eventually, television career that endured for decades.
An article in the March 25, 1953 issue of Variety announced the discovery of Crosby’s rare first recording. The article explained that, in 1950, Edward J Mello and Tom McBride published a 100-page discography, Crosby On Record, with a complete listing of all of Crosby’s recordings. Mello had a copy sent to Crosby and received a letter of acknowledgment from Bing’s brother, Larry Crosby, which indicated that it had omitted Crosby’s first recording. Bing had recalled making a record for Columbia with Don Clark’s band just before he joined Whiteman, but Larry Crosby did not provide any information about the recording’s title.
It took three years of searching by Mello and several record collectors to finally come across a copy of Don Clark’s recording of “I’ve Got A Girl” and confirm that Crosby was on the vocal. Mello subsequently received a letter from Larry Crosby further confirming that Bing was, indeed, on the recording.
It makes sense that the recording would have fallen into such obscurity. Crosby and Rinker were unknown and were not credited on the label. Nor would they likely have had much interest in drawing attention to a record they made on Columbia after penning a contract with Paul Whiteman, whose recording affiliation, and by extension, that of Crosby and Rinker, was with Victor. Compared with their later recordings, this one comes across as almost amateurish. Furthermore, Don Clark’s band was not well known beyond the West Coast and disappeared soon after this recording session.
My effort to research background information about this record highlights some of the pitfalls of writing about history.
Some sources say these recording sessions occurred in a temporary studio set up in a converted warehouse at Sixth and Bixel in Los Angeles, while others say it took place in the Biltmore Hotel ballroom. Reputable discographies I consulted merely state the location as Los Angeles. I did a few quick Google searches on some of the other artists who also made records during Columbia’s October 1926 Los Angeles field trip to see if there was any mention of the recording sessions, but nothing immediately came up.
Some sources suggest that the incorrect speed on “I’ve Got A Girl” was intentional on the part of Columbia. Others suggest that it was simply a recording session error.
The February 1953 issue of Record Changer announced the discovery of the record but incorrectly stated that it was Harry Barris who accompanied Crosby and that the song they performed was “Idolizing,” which, in fact, was performed by Betty Patrick.
I came across several sources, including some who are recent, that describe the “Idolizing” side of the record as being an instrumental.
Clearly, none of those writers had actually listened to the record itself. In their defense, however, listening to the record in the 1950s was not something a person could do quickly or easily if they or any record collectors they were acquainted with did not personally have a copy.
I came across various playback speeds for the record being offered as correct, ranging from 70 rpm to 75 rpm. Based on my experimentation, I think 75 rpm, plus or minus some fraction, is most likely correct.
However, the incorrect speed required me to decide what speed to use for the copy I will add to Radio Dismuke’s playlist. While I personally think it sounds better played at 75 rpm, I have decided to use the standard 78 rpm. While 78 rpm clearly was not the accurate speed of the actual performance, it is the speed that those who purchased the record and who owned a copy during the next couple of decades would have listened to it at. The average record buyer would not have been skilled in determining a record’s correct speed by pitch and would not have had any particular reason to question the standard playback speed.
What I find interesting about records like this is how, over time, thanks to advances in technology, they have become increasingly less obscure and more accessible than they were even in the years immediately following their release.
The advent of the LP record and, later, the CD made it much more economical for vintage recordings – at least the ones that various gatekeepers thought there might be sufficient demand for – to be reissued. And, of course, the advent of the Internet has made it possible for collectors such as myself and organizations such as Early 1900s Music Preservation to make them available without worrying about whether any gatekeepers are concerned if there is any pre-existing demographic or market for them. It is now possible to make vintage recordings available for no other reason than the belief that a recording deserves to be available.