Dur5000-1

DURIUM special series

A series of early DURIUM PRODUCTS CORPORATION advertisement and custom records.

In 1930, now 80 years ago, the first Hit of the weeks were released. Follow its history week after week:

ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY

Very little is known about this series. Very few records are left. The matrices range from (1) 2 up to ca 160, although we don’t know how much records were made.

Matrices	Titel	Band name	Rec. date:	Records
2-Y-S	SONG “ALMA MATER” – GCQ vo4 DURIUM80-a \| -80b	By UNIVERSITY GLEE CLUB QUARTET TALK BY OWEN D. YOUNG: University Glee Club Quartet directed by Prof. Cram. The vocalists are students from New York or its vicinity and one comes from Syracuse.	New York City, 8 Feb 1930 (afternoon)	nn

SONG “ALMA MATER” - UNIVERSITY GLEE CLUB QUARTET TALK BY OWEN D. YOUNG

Invitation for the St. Lawrence University Club dinner, dated 8 Feb. 1930

2-Y-S with a song by the UNIVERSITY GLEE CLUB QUARTET and a speech held by Owen D. Young, one of the trustees of St. Lawrence University:

(song)

(S)( (Sung by Quartet)

"Alma Mater, O St. Lawrence
We are singing now of thee
May thy fair name dwell forever
In our fondest memory
And when college days are over
From this hill we're wending down
We will love thee yet, we'll ne'er forget
The scarlet and the brown
Hail Alma Mater, to thee our heads bow down
We will sing thy praise through endless days
To the scarlet and the brown"

(speech)

(Speech by Owen D. Young) This is Owen Young talking to the Alumni of St. Lawrence. This morning we held our midwinter meeting of the board of trustees, and tonight we shall hold the thirty-eighth annual banquet at the St. Lawrence University Club in the city of New York. Before I speak of the thrilling action taken by the trustees, let me say a word about our everyday affairs. The total assets of the university, for the first time, exceeds the sum of four million dollars. Our expenses for the fiscal year exceed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and our estimated income will be approximately two hundred and forty thousand dollars, of which eighteen thousand came from your generous gifts last year. You see, we shall end the year with a slight (but whan I call a healthy) deficit. It is one which at the end of the year can be easily met. We shall need, however, the continued aid of the alumni of the college in order to increase the splendid work which St. Lawrence is doing. That you will respond with your gifts, I have no doubt. And now for the great announcement! The board of trustees today authorized the construction of a dormitory large enough to house two hundred men at St. Lawrence, at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars. This amount has been provided for, but the names of the donors will not be announced now. The building will be three hundred and seventy feet long and two hundred and twenty five feet wide, with an interior court almost large enough to take in Richardson Hall! Please now, and I ask it from my heart, let us celebrate this forward move of St. Lawrence by the largest Alumni fund we have ever had. Good bye and good luck

This was a normal sized record made for the ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY for the Alumni Fund of 1930. The matrix number doesn’t fit in one of the Durium matriches ranges. As this seems to be an early example of a DURIUM PRODUCTS CORPORATION “custom” record it might be one of the first (2 Y S) “custom” records made by the firm. In the correspondence between the Durium Products Corporation New York and Homer A. Vilas, vice president of F.L. Carlisle & Co., Inc., member of the board of trustees of St. Lawrence University, the first contacts about this record were before Dec. 4^th 1929. In a letter of Dec. 13^th Arthur M. Acheson refers to that letter and consents inasmuch as Mr. Young is very much busier than we are at the present time to accommodate to his time and that they will be ready to make the recording at any time upon one or two days’ notice. He suggests to start the recording at eight o’clock in the evening The quartet should be in our studio about seven p.m. of the same evening in order that we may do what rehearsing is necessary befor Mr. Young arrives. In this way there will be a minimum of delay and we will not be imposing upon his time. Mr. Homer A. Vilas suggest in another letter dates Dec. 13^th, 1929 to Mr. Owen D. Young, to plan the recording somewhere Christmas holidays. It is my plan now to have the Glee Club down from College under the direction of Professor Cram to sing the Alma Mater song and then have a 2 to 2½ minute speech by yourself regarding the fund. Three members of the vocal quartet live in New York or its vicinity and one member is from Syracuse, but he has agreed to come down any time we want him. In his letter Mr. Homes A. Vilas hopes that Mr. Owen D. Young can offer a few minutes of your time during the Christmas recess at St. Lawrence and he is convinced that the campaign is going to be very effective. Unfortunally the letter arrives at Mr. Young’s office when his holidays already have started and his secretary mentions that he will not return to the university before the first of January. As you probably know, mr. Young has been under terrific pressure these past few weeks, with calls to Washington and elsewhere, and it is necessary for him now to be away for several weeks. It seems likely that the recording was made February 8^th, 1930. In his speech Owen D. Young refers to the annual benefit to the University Club held tonight. The big St. Lawrence University Club Dinner was held Feb. 8^th 1930 at the Hotel Commodore, so the recording date might be Febr. 8^th, 1930 in the early afternoon, because, as Owen D. Young refers to the . Another fact that proofs that Owen D. Young refers to this St. Lawrence University club Dinner is that on the second invitation for this dinner sent Feb. 1^st, 1930 is some talk about an important announcement to be made. In his speech Owen D. Young presents this important announcement: the University will build a dormitory for 200 students at a cost of $600,000. On the label < ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY > < ALUMNI FUND OF 1930 > In has a red lettering and a red rim. The first half of the record is the Glee Club singing the song "Alma Mater”. Next Owen D. Young ( one of the University's Trustees ) talks about the past year and the plans for the new one, like building a university dormitory. // The label has red lettering and a red stripe around the outside edge of the disc.

Matrices	Titel	Band name	Rec. date:	Records
70 D	Three Little Words/Moonlight On The Colorado – FL vo	( HIT OF THE WEEK ORCHESTRA Bert Hirsch, Director ) [2tp-tb-2cl as-cl ts-2v-p-banj-tu-dm-vo] Bert Hirsch dir., Andy Sannella haw g, Frank Luther vo.	New York City, ca Oct. 1930	test / ARCH 3003
The first give-away was in "Moonlight on the Colorado" when we hear the unmistakable Hawaiian guitar of Andy Sannella, who never played on any Spitalny sides, but was all over the Bert Hirsch Hit of the Week Orchestra stuff. My feeling is that this is a Bert Hirsch unit, expecially since on "Moonlight" they are using the exact same stock arrangement from 1930. I think it's also significant that "Three Little Words" and "Moonlight" are used as a medley; both are hits from the same time period in 1930. "Three Little Words" sounds like a stock arrangement too, the released Sam Lanin version was pretty unmistakably a Lanin arrangement as well, so it would make sense that this one would be a stock

76 -B	TO WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A NEW YEAR LOADED WITH PROSPERITY	(CHRISTMAS CARD 1930 BY THE DURIUM MANAGEMENT)	Released New York City, ca Nov 1930	76 -B
76-B with a spoken announcement: (S) (Mr. JOE MITCHELL) to our friends. The 1600 distributors of Hit-of-the-week phonograph records DURIUM PRODUCTS CORPORATION extends holiday greetings in this somewhat new and unconventional Christmas card - this phonograph record made of DURIUM. We have marched a long way during our first year of operation, now coming to a close and I am sure that all of us here at DURIUM are grateful indeed for the fine spirit, fine co-operation and fine work that you all have done. This is JOE MITCHELL speaking and I wish to introduce to you our president, Mr. L.A. VAN PETTEN. (Mr. L.A. VAN PETTEN) My best wishes to all for the hope that 1931 will see an ever friendlier relation existing between us. Let us pause a few moments and review our progress. Beginning with our first release on February 13th, an issue of 12.000, our volume gradually increased until we are now distributing over two million records a month. Early in the spring we passed the third largest seller of phonograph records. Late in the spring we passed the second largest. Early in the summer we passed the leader. Today, you are distributing more records than the next three largest sellers combined. May I now introduce Mr. ARTHUR M. ATCHINSON, vice-president in charge of manufacturing. (Mr. ARTHUR M. ACHESON) Greetings and best wishes to you, all of our distributing friends. We have produced since February of this year 11,360,000 Hit-of-the-week records. We have constantly improved our manufacturing technique, eliminated waste and have brought costs down generally. Our manufacturing program has but one objective; namely, to make the best phonograph record that has ever been made, regardless of price. I present Mr. WRIGHT, our treasurer. (Mr. WRIGHT) I take particular pleasure in extending to the gentlemen on the sales firing line my heartiest wishes for a happy holiday. In the course of a year that was none too friendly in which to launch a new enterprise, I wish to say that this business turned the corner and came out of the red early in October and that we are now on a profit-making basis, an achievement made possible largely through the great efforts of you gentlemen, who are distributing our records. I am now turning the microphone back to Mr. MITCHELL (Mr. JOE MITCHELL) If my wishes, we're going to have a great Christmas and a dandy New Year. In signing off, I want to extend the deep appreciation of our entire organization for your help in making Hit-of-the-week records the largest selling phonograph records in America. Many thanks and kindest personal regards
76-B: This was a record send to all distributors December 1930. The catalogue and/or matrix number doesn’t fit in one of the Durium matriches ranges. As this seems to be an early example of a DURIUM PRODUCTS CORPORATION “custom” record it might be one of the “custom” records made by the firm during its first year. According to the label and the subject of the record it might be released December 1930 as a season's greeting to the 1600 distributors of Hit of the week records (source: Howard Waters 1960)

nn ........... #160	nn ........... St. Louis Blues	( Leola Felton )	New York City , ca spring - summer 1931	? private recording ---------------- ? private recording / ARCH 3003
with an announcement: (S) This is a DURIUM record. Again we bring you Leola Felton from Connie’s Inn and this time she’s going to play for you her favorite number the St. Louis Blues.
St. Louis Blues: A ?private recording exists with a blank label. The spoken announcement suggests that there was another recording ( ? during the same session) with miss Leola Felton.

Records from the collections of Frenk van Meeteren (The Netherlands) - Russ Shor (USA) . Thanks to Darlene Leonard, archives & special collections “Owen D. Young Library”, St. Lawrence University, Canton NY (USA))

Source: Durium Advertisement and Custom Records Discography 6+-edition (p.o.d.) (1994-2006) Hans Koert

last update 16 Feb 2010