George
Gaskin
1863-1920
Recording
Artist, Vaudeville
 George
Jefferson Gaskin was born in Belfast, Ireland on February
16, 1863. Not much is known about his early life in Ireland
or his family there. He emigrated to America in his youth
where he started his musical career as a singer in churches
and in early vaudeville. He was one of the first artists to
actually be recorded. The commercial recording industry began
in 1889 and Gaskin's first recordings were made in 1891. Allen
Koenigsberg's Edison Cylinder Records, 1889-1912
states that Theo Wangemann, Edison's recording engineer, believed
that Gaskin was only the second vocalist ever to make a commercial
record. The first was probably George Johnson, a former slave
who recorded only one day earlier on June 1, 1891. Further
testimony to this is that Columbia record catalogs refer to
Gaskin as "The Pioneer Phonograph Singer."
In the April 1928 issue of The Gramophone,
Fred Gaisberg recall's the singer's early career:
George J. Gaskin, who styled himself
"The Silver-Voiced Irish Tenor," posessed a repertoire
that ranged from the sacred and soulful song to the popular
vaudeville ditty…It was a positive> education to observe
the facility with which he could switch over from the religious
emotion he displayed during 10 rounds of a hymn to 20 hilarious
rounds of "Maggie Murphy's Home." Secrets will out,
and we discovered that the success of this transformation
was mainly due to a quiet glass of lager imbibed offstage.
He was considered one of the greatest recordable
singers in the industry. It was a tinny voice but all of his
words were articulated clearly. He seemed to have the ability
to convey depth and dynamics without being too soft or too
loud to cause distortion. He first recorded with Edison but
he also made discs with Columbia, Zon-o-phone, The Universal
Phonograph Company and Berliner. He covered all genres of
song including comic, operatic, Irish, sentimental, patriotic
and sacred. Another nickname Gaskin used was "The Irish
Thrush."
Most music historians place Gaskin as the
most popular artist in the first decade of the industry. According
to Joel Whitburn's book, Pop Memories 1890-1954 The History
of American Popular Music, Gaskin was ranked as the top
artist from 1890-1900. Two other Irish-American artists, Dan
Quinn and Arthur Collins, are also included in this top ten
list. He states that Gaskin had 19 #1 singles and was rated
in the top 100 artists during this period. His Irish-American
hits included, "Slide, Kelly, Slide", "Sweet
Rosie O'Grady", "My Wild Irish Rose" and "Bedalia."
His first number one hit came on December 5, 1891 with "Drill,
Ye Terriers, Drill."
In 1898 Gaskin signed an agreement which
made him an exclusive artist with Columbia Records. The deal
lasted a year and along with his solo recordings he also made
some tenor duets with John Bieling (known as Livingston on
the recordings). By the end of the decade the recording industry
was rapidly changing. New artists were emerging and Gaskin's
popularity was fading. In 1904 he stopped recording altogether.
In 1916 he made what is thought to be his final disc. It was
a double-sided disc with "Come Back to Erin" on
one side and "Killarney" on the other. On December
14, 1920 Gaskin died in New York.
Unlike today, recording artists in the 1890's
were not on the front line of the music industry. Sheet music
and successful songs from Broadway was where the public got
most of their contemporary music. The early recording artists,
such as Gaskin, only recorded these songs after they were
hits. The industry changed through the popularity of these
artists. In 1890 the only way to get your song noticed was
to have it published by a major music publisher. By 1900 the
faster way to a song's success was to have George Gaskin record
your song.
Unfortunately most of these early recording
artists, like George Gaskin, are forgotten today. But they
were the pioneers and first stars of the America's music industry.
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