Anyone Have Okeh 40239?

[FrankM]

I'm reading Nick Tosches book "Where dead voices gather..." about Emmett Miller, a yodelling blackface performer. Anyway I thought this paragraph maybe of interest to collectors.

"These earliest (1924) Miller recordings, "Anytime" and "The Pickaninnies Paradise" were believed for a very long time to be lost and indeed often believed never to have been released at all. However in 1996 a copy of this first Miller record was brought forth by Richard J. Johnson, a collector in Aylesbury, England.

Johnson had acquired the record about twenty years earlier from British jazz bandleader Chris Barber. On a tour of the United States, Barber had found and purchased a vast storehouse of 78RPM records, mostly jukebox stock and also many in mint state and still sealed in their various pressing plant boxes and warehouse crates. The records spanned some forty years from about 1910 to the mid fifties, and every musical variety. Barber had the hoard shipped home to England and stashed in a three storey building in Harpenden, Bedfordshire, where they were sorted into roughly three categories: ground floor, jazz; next floor, blues and rhythm and blues; top floor unknown and unsorted. On his first visit Johnson bought nothing, as he had no money. On his second visit, he bought nothing, "as there was so much shellac I could not take it all in." On his third visit, he spent seven hours going through the boxes on the top floor. He left with two large bags crammed so full with heavy 78's that he could barely lift them. He hauled them nearly a mile or so to the bus stop, and after a two hour ride, there was another half a mile to walk before he arrive home. But the fragile records survived the journey intact. Among them was Okeh 40239. To the best of Johnson's recollection, the purchase price was thirty or forty pence."

"Checking the label info against Brian Rust's 'Jazz records 1897-1942' it was apparent that no one, neither Rust nor his hundreds of correspondents, had ever actually seen this record. Johnson passed the label information along to Rust, and it was incorporated in a later edition."

"Twenty years later, perusing the notes of the 1996 Emmett Miller CD collection, Johnson came upon the statement that Miller's first record 'is so rare that no copies are known to exist.' Johnson sent a cassette of the recording to Lawrence Cohn, the album's executive producer. The tape was broadcast in Los Angeles by Ian Whitcomb on his KPCC-FM radio show on April 10th 1996 when Cohn appeared as a guest to promote the Sony CD."

So an eighty year old record is still attracting interest. Could it be played today? Possibly not in the Modern room but maybe on an R&B night?

[Guest Dan]

that's a great story, frank

i'm amazed someone hasn't done a tv documentary about record collectors, whether us or some other breed of nutjob.

[Headsy]

thats why collecting records ( originals ) is so much fun . just about sums it up,great story.

[Gene-r]

What a brilliant story Frank! Here's one Okeh single that won't be played on the scene!!

However, the collectability doesn't surprise me. When you consider the price of 78s by Robert Johnson on US Vocalion (approx £5,000/$8,500 each), then the Emmett Miller could easily fetch a neat four-figure sum, maybe even five-figures, given its recent surfacing. Already, the original version of "Stack-A-Lee" by Missisippi John Hurt, released on Okeh in 1927, will command around the $4,000 mark. I don't think any copies of this have sold within the UK.

Little did Chris Barber know what he had given away for pennies!!

Gene

Edited December 21, 2005 by Gene-R

[Ted Massey]

Brill story

Got to ask the record collectors standard question whats it worth?

[Cheapsiderecords]

"i'm amazed someone hasn't done a tv documentary about record collectors, whether us or some other breed of nutjob"

They have shown a documentary on Record Collecting here in Canada. I cant tell you what it was called or the guys name but you couldnt have picked a bigger load of nutters to focus on.

They didnt seem to specialise like we do, but they all had rooms full of vinyl and to a man they were all just balancing nicely on the edge of insanity - great viewing.

I have since met on of the guys who collects Country and has a warehouse full of the stuff and sells at all the local fairs.

[Headsy]

he's not called Tim is he ?

[Billy Freemantle]

Great story.

Have a listen to this 1936 recording. To me this noivelty record is very snappy for the year... 1936. Something about it reminds me of Bill Kennedy's 'If was a Kid'.