A Trip To The County Fair - Premier Quartet (1909)

"A Trip To The County Fair"

Premier Quartet

This is the American Quartet

When the American Quartet with Billy Murray was formed in 1909, he must have seemed very young to other members.

Murray was 31. Bieling was almost 40; Porter was 44; and Hooley was 47.

The American Quartet's debut release, "Denver Town," was recorded in February 1909 and was announced in Victor's May 1909 supplement. Composed by George L. Botsford and Harry Breen, this song was part of a cowboy trend that spread because of the popularity of Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne's "Cheyenne" (Murray's recordings of it enjoyed brisk sales).

Botsford arranged most of the material cut by the American Quartet over the next several years. Page 142 of the September 1923 issue of Metronome states that Botsford is "in charge of the harmony and quartet department of the Remick [publishing] company."

The Victor supplement called the American Quartet "a new organization of male voices which makes its bid for popular favor with a 'cowboy' number, now quite in vogue. No praise for this new quartet is needed here, as the record speaks for itself--the voices being well-balanced, the words distinct and the music sung with spirit and precision."

First issued on single-faced Victor 5683, priced at 60 cents, "Denver Town" was reissued months later on double-sided 16521, coupled with "A Night Trip to Buffalo." The latter sketch had first been cut by one of the earlier variants of the American Quartet at the turn of the century and was redone by the Haydn shortly thereafter. Victor literature called the updated American version "much improved and funnier" than its antecedents.

The Edison company also selected "Denver Town" as the first release of the Premier Quartet or Quartette. Announcing its release in June on Standard 10155, the April 1909 issue of Edison Phonograph Monthly as well as the June 1909 installment of the New Phonogram called it "another cowboy song, telling how a cowboy wooed and won his bride. It is sung by a new combination of artists, including Will Oakland, John H. Biehling [sic], Billy Murray and W.F. Hooley. Unaccompanied."

Walsh doubted that Oakland participated, noting that Oakland wasn't involved with the Victor record and that quartets never consisted of a countertenor, two tenors, and a bass. Baritones were so important to male quartets that when Porter could not show up for a session dedicated to new takes of "Casey Jones" by the American approximately one year later, orchestra leader Walter B. Rogers served as a last-minute replacement, taking the baritone role.

Walsh states in the February 1970 issue of Hobbies that in its first few years "the Quartet cut into wax many of the greatest song hits in American musical history, and a large number of its discs and cylinders had sales that were remarkable for that period."