Tue May 08, 2012 9:00 pm
If you’ve seen the 1927 Vitaphone film featuring the Revelers, you will have noticed the energetic, smiling young man at the left side of the screen who seems to be waving an invisible baton as he pounces into each number with joyful abandon. His name was Franklyn Baur, and his clear tenor graced probably hundreds of records in the mid to late 1920s, with a discography that included everything from chorale work as part of the Victor Light Opera Company and Trinity Choir to the elaborate vocal arrangements on Revelers discs that seem to exemplify their era. And in spite of the considerable measure of success he had, Franklyn Baur’s career never quite reached the level of his contemporaries Richard Crooks and James Melton.
Franklyn Baur was born in New York City on 5 April 1903* to William and Matilda Baur, both of whom had German family roots. He had an elder sister, Mary (or Marie) and William worked as a bricklayer. It seems that he began his active vocal career in the early 1920s, like so many of his recording colleagues, as a church singer (at Park Avenue Baptist Church, according to one contemporary interview). Under the name Frank F. Baur, he made a Victor test on 4 January 1923, singing “Within the Garden of My Heart”, and upon joining the Shannon Quartet that fall became a regular in most of the East Coast recording studios.
Sides with the Quartet and other studio ensembles, along with a number of solo records, accounted for most of Franklyn Baur’s output in his first couple years on disc, but he also contributed vocal refrains to dance records by the Troubadours, the International Novelty Orchestra, Paul Whiteman and Charles Dornberger. An important new area of singing opened up for him in the summer of 1925, however, as the members of the Shannon Quartet (Baur, Lewis James, Elliott Shaw and Wilfred Glenn) transitioned into the Revelers and sang popular music with a more comic, lighthearted approach than they had as the Shannon Quartet (a name that would still be used on records through part of 1927). Baur and James’ tenor voices were usually out in front, with Shaw and Glenn’s baritone and bass providing support. Here’s “Collegiate” from 15 Sep. 1925 (notice the sharp breath into the microphone at a couple of points, a vocalism usually associated more with the Rhythm Boys):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xm551CS5KQ
Baur’s dance band sides and solo records continued, with his style occupying a middle place between the formal diction of Charles Harrison and the folksiness of Cliff Edwards and Gene Austin. The latter were emerging as the winners as the 20s progressed, but Baur seemed equally comfortable on both ends of the spectrum, as you’ll hear on “You Forgot to Remember” (Harmony 16-H, 12 Aug. 1925)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgebSTYmX-0
and “Red Lips, Kiss My Blues Away” (Victor 20615, 27 Apr. 1927):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-WFk1wcnA
By about the spring of 1927 Baur had departed the Revelers, with his place taken by Charles Harrison and later James Melton. Later that year he was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies and on 9 Sep. 1927 joined some of the original cast members to record a 12-inch Victor disc of highlights from the revue (the first photo identified as Baur is actually Jimmy Dorsey):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o9ib4NLHSI
His recording and performing activities continued and late in 1928 Baur joined the “Voice of Firestone” radio program, remaining through May 1930. In December 1929 he had what turned out to be his final recording session, although it’s unlikely that either Franklyn or anyone close to him would have guessed that it would work out that way. One of his last sides was the strangely apropos “With a Song in My Heart”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hm7H3pf0kQ
In the early 1930s Baur studied opera in Europe, hoping to find a place in the world of serious music—as it was called then. While current articles sometimes mention his lack of success in this field, it is probably unfair to assume that his concert career was a complete flop, as he earned some good reviews and performed on radio regularly through early 1935. A booking ad from the time shows that he was managed by NBC Artists Service; the photo on the ad reveals that his hairline had receded quite a bit. For whatever reason, practically all of his professional activities seem to have ceased after 1935 and he lived out his days quietly at his home in Brooklyn (which by 1940 included his mother Matilda, his sister and brother-in-law Marie and Harry Kuhlman and his niece Marilyn). He died on 24 February 1950 at the young age of 46.
Franklyn Baur’s singing has sometimes not found favor with those who collect records for their jazz content, and in many ways the particular niche he occupied gradually disappeared as the lines between formal and informal vocalizing became more rigorously drawn. But a sympathetic ear can find much to enjoy in Baur’s records, including his unaffected sincerity, occasional poignancy as well as his lighthearted silliness on the Revelers sides. He is the kind of artist that should be a part of anyone’s well-rounded education on popular music in the 1920s, yet he rarely receives such treatment.
More information on Franklyn Baur—FB to discographers!—can be found here:
http://www.gracyk.com/baur.shtml
*according to a 1926 ship’s manifest.
-HA
Franklyn Baur was born in New York City on 5 April 1903* to William and Matilda Baur, both of whom had German family roots. He had an elder sister, Mary (or Marie) and William worked as a bricklayer. It seems that he began his active vocal career in the early 1920s, like so many of his recording colleagues, as a church singer (at Park Avenue Baptist Church, according to one contemporary interview). Under the name Frank F. Baur, he made a Victor test on 4 January 1923, singing “Within the Garden of My Heart”, and upon joining the Shannon Quartet that fall became a regular in most of the East Coast recording studios.
Sides with the Quartet and other studio ensembles, along with a number of solo records, accounted for most of Franklyn Baur’s output in his first couple years on disc, but he also contributed vocal refrains to dance records by the Troubadours, the International Novelty Orchestra, Paul Whiteman and Charles Dornberger. An important new area of singing opened up for him in the summer of 1925, however, as the members of the Shannon Quartet (Baur, Lewis James, Elliott Shaw and Wilfred Glenn) transitioned into the Revelers and sang popular music with a more comic, lighthearted approach than they had as the Shannon Quartet (a name that would still be used on records through part of 1927). Baur and James’ tenor voices were usually out in front, with Shaw and Glenn’s baritone and bass providing support. Here’s “Collegiate” from 15 Sep. 1925 (notice the sharp breath into the microphone at a couple of points, a vocalism usually associated more with the Rhythm Boys):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xm551CS5KQ
Baur’s dance band sides and solo records continued, with his style occupying a middle place between the formal diction of Charles Harrison and the folksiness of Cliff Edwards and Gene Austin. The latter were emerging as the winners as the 20s progressed, but Baur seemed equally comfortable on both ends of the spectrum, as you’ll hear on “You Forgot to Remember” (Harmony 16-H, 12 Aug. 1925)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgebSTYmX-0
and “Red Lips, Kiss My Blues Away” (Victor 20615, 27 Apr. 1927):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-WFk1wcnA
By about the spring of 1927 Baur had departed the Revelers, with his place taken by Charles Harrison and later James Melton. Later that year he was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies and on 9 Sep. 1927 joined some of the original cast members to record a 12-inch Victor disc of highlights from the revue (the first photo identified as Baur is actually Jimmy Dorsey):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o9ib4NLHSI
His recording and performing activities continued and late in 1928 Baur joined the “Voice of Firestone” radio program, remaining through May 1930. In December 1929 he had what turned out to be his final recording session, although it’s unlikely that either Franklyn or anyone close to him would have guessed that it would work out that way. One of his last sides was the strangely apropos “With a Song in My Heart”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hm7H3pf0kQ
In the early 1930s Baur studied opera in Europe, hoping to find a place in the world of serious music—as it was called then. While current articles sometimes mention his lack of success in this field, it is probably unfair to assume that his concert career was a complete flop, as he earned some good reviews and performed on radio regularly through early 1935. A booking ad from the time shows that he was managed by NBC Artists Service; the photo on the ad reveals that his hairline had receded quite a bit. For whatever reason, practically all of his professional activities seem to have ceased after 1935 and he lived out his days quietly at his home in Brooklyn (which by 1940 included his mother Matilda, his sister and brother-in-law Marie and Harry Kuhlman and his niece Marilyn). He died on 24 February 1950 at the young age of 46.
Franklyn Baur’s singing has sometimes not found favor with those who collect records for their jazz content, and in many ways the particular niche he occupied gradually disappeared as the lines between formal and informal vocalizing became more rigorously drawn. But a sympathetic ear can find much to enjoy in Baur’s records, including his unaffected sincerity, occasional poignancy as well as his lighthearted silliness on the Revelers sides. He is the kind of artist that should be a part of anyone’s well-rounded education on popular music in the 1920s, yet he rarely receives such treatment.
More information on Franklyn Baur—FB to discographers!—can be found here:
http://www.gracyk.com/baur.shtml
*according to a 1926 ship’s manifest.
-HA
