Mercenary Mary - selection (1925) The ‘1925’ Orchestra, dir Leonard Hornsey, solos Percival Mackey

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MERCENARY MARY – Selection Part 1 [0:00]
MERCENARY MARY – Selection Part 2 [4:13]
The ‘1925’ Orchestra directed by Leonard Hornsey. Piano solos by Percival Mackey
Columbia 9062 (recorded 20 October 1925: issued December 1925)

Part 1: Intro – Dipping In The Moonlight; Honey, I’m In Love With You; I’m A Little Fonder Of You.
Part 2: Intro – Mercenary Mary; Tie A String Around Your Finger; Charleston Mad; I Am Thinking Of You.

MERCENARY MARY was a musical comedy in two acts with: book and lyrics by William B. Friedlander & Isabel Leighton; and music by Con Conrad & William B. Friedlander. It was based on a stage farce, What’s Your Wife Doing, written by Herbert Hall Winslow & Emil Nyatray. It debuted in New York, and opened at the London Hippodrome on 7 October 1925, thirteen days before this record was cut. Leonard Hornsey directs the orchestra on this record. He was the show’s musical director at the Hippodrome. Mackey is on this record as the piano soloist. Rust indicates he arranged the ‘selections’.

In a 1941 article in The Gramophone by H C Ridout of Columbia, he listed the company's first fifty electrical records. He maintained that this was the third electrical record issued and that the first two were also by Mackey (Colmbia 3785 and 3761).

Columbia’s first ever Western Electric recording to be issued was cut on 1 October 1925. They had had the equipment since the summer. Columbia’s engineers couldn’t seem to get sound like HMV. It’s a shame because the laminated surfaces on this ninety-year-old record are still as quiet as when they came out of the record shop. If you’ve got half-an-hour, there’s a fabulous silent film of Columbia records being manufactured in 1928 at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d9sNe2OWyI . The operative assembling the record at a large sandwich-maker-type machine is fascinating. He places: a label face down; then a thin disc of the outer lamination; then a square of the filler material; then the second disc of outer lamination; and then a second label face up. He closes the lid and pushes the machine back into the press. If you watch the whole film you’ll see it’s all an amazingly labour-intensive process. At around 3/6 (depending on 10 or 12 inch) Columbias cost a sizeable fraction of the, then, average weekly wage.

Meanwhile, how come the Columbia engineers got the band’s sound so bad on this record, yet Mackey’s piano is solid and close? On both sides, at the start and end of his piano solo there is a solid thud on the recording. (Side 1: 0:39 and 1:12 – Side 2: 5:30 and 6:01) I have successfully eliminated the 5:30 one; but the others are still noticeable.) Was something being done with the microphone: crudely switching a second one on/off? When I came across it on the first side, I assumed groove damage; but the exact same damage at the solo on side 2 is a strange coincidence. The duration of the event is too long for groove damage/detritus; and there’s nothing to see on the record. To my ears, the band sounds better on side two. What were they up to?

Mackey recorded prolifically for Columbia. A very few of his recordings were labelled as a year-numbered orchestra. There was “The ‘1926’ Orchestra” and “The New 1927 Orchestra”. All seemed to have been 12-inch records of selections from stage shows.