A "New" Vess Ossman recording.. Well, new to me anyway!

[thereallyniceman]

Anyone know what L.A.W is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUlzwTwFKeg

There is a very interesting Biography of Ossman, I assume by Tim Gracyk, attached to this Youtube video:

"The L. A. W. March" Vess L. Ossman.  Victor 3041   dated 1901

For two decades, beginning in the 1890s, Vess L. Ossman was the most popular banjoist to make records.

It was a propitious time for being a master banjoist since no instrument recorded better than banjo during the industry's early decades.

He was nicknamed "the Banjo King" as well as "Plunks."

Sylvester ("Vess") Louis Ossman was born on August 21, 1868 in Hudson, New York, son of Frederick and Anna Ossman. His father owned a bakery. According to an obituary cited by Jim Walsh in the February 1949 issue of Hobbies, the young Ossman took his first music lesson from Fidell Wise of Hudson.

Only a few banjoists had preceded him in making commercial records. Allen Koenigsberg's Edison Cylinder Records, 1889-1912 (Brooklyn, NY: APM Press, 1987) reprints "The First Book of Phonograph Records," compiled by Edison employee A. Theo E. Wangemann (1855-1906), and it shows Will Lyle making "50 Banjo Records...on invitation" on September 4, 1889. Lyle made additional recordings later that year. Banjo players who recorded as solo instrumentalists in the 1890s include the Bohee Brothers, William Stanley Grinsted (he would later cultivate a singing career, using the nom de disque Frank C. Stanley), Clark H. Jones, Parke Hunter, Rudi Heller, Stephen B. Clements, Ruben ("Ruby") Brooks, the team of Diamond and Curry, the team of Joseph Cullen and William P. Collins, and, in 1898, a young Fred Van Eps, who at that time spelled his name "Van Epps."

Ossman's first known cylinder was of Sousa's "Washington Post March," listed in a North American Phonograph Company supplement of 1893. Around this time he also cut "Love's Sweet Honor." He recorded several additional titles for the company in 1894 and within a couple of years became an important Columbia artist, from 1896 to 1899 cutting dozens of titles, sometimes accompanying Len Spencer.

From about 1896 to 1910, his services as a recording artist were in great demand, and he continued to record into the World War I era.

He made cylinders for Bettini in June 1898 and again around 1900. He made a dozen seven-inch Zon-o-phone discs at the turn of the century.

On July 19, 1900, he began his long association with the company that would soon be famous as the Victor Talking Machine Company. On that day he cut several numbers for Eldridge R. Johnson's Consolidated Talking Machine Company. Only one performance from that first session was issued: "An Ethiopian Mardi Gras" (seven-inch A-150). An RCA Victor advertisement in Life for October 26, 1946 commemorates the pressing of the company's one billionth record and announces, "The oldest master record in RCA-Victor's huge library was made on January 21, 1901. It is a banjo solo, played by Vess Ossman, 'Tell Me, Pretty Maiden.'"

By the early 1900s Ossman's fame was international. He made two concert tours of England--in 1900 and 1903, making records in London during both visits--and diversified his recording activities beyond solo and accompaniment work to include duets, trios, and a banjo orchestra. He led the Ossman-Dudley Trio, with Audley Dudley on mandolin and his brother George Dudley on harp-guitar (later, the Plantation Trio--with Fred Van Eps, John Van Eps, and Roy Butin--cut again numbers originally recorded by the Ossman-Dudley Trio).

He worked for Columbia as late as 1917.

He wed Eunice Smith, who was born in Hyde Park, New York (she died around 1930), and the marriage produced three children aside from a few that died in infancy: Vess L. Ossman, Jr. (he also became a skilled banjoist); Raymond; and daughter Annadele, who was born around 1908 (she wrote to Walsh, "...I was his youngest daughter and he died when I was fifteen").

Towards the end of his life he worked most often in Midwestern hotels as a leader of his own dance orchestra and lived with his family in the Riverside apartment complex in Dayton, Ohio.

In 1923 he began a tour of B.F. Keith's vaudeville houses, his banjo-playing son, Vess Ossman, Jr., part of the act. The famous musician suffered a heart attack while playing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He recovered in a hospital from the first attack and returned to stage work. He suffered another attack hours after performing in a vaudeville house in Fairmount, Minnesota. He is buried in Valhalla Cemetery in St. Louis.

Some sources state that he died on December 8, 1923, but others state that he died on December 7.

[Joel Hooks]

League of American Wheelman 

Wheelman means bicyclist.

[Jody Stecher]

How does one march whilst sitting astride a bicycle?

[Joel Hooks]

Many LAW or bicycle clubs were also banjo clubs.  I think I have more than a few pieces that were dedicated to bicycle clubs.

[Jody Stecher]

The images are getting better and better. Now I'm visualizing 30 or so people "marching" in formation as they play the banjo as they pedal their bicycles.   In the snow. 

[Richard William Ineson]

I've got the 'Wheelmen's March' and 'The Scorcher', there might be others in the archives/pile of mouldy paper.

Joel Hooks said:

Many LAW or bicycle clubs were also banjo clubs.  I think I have more than a few pieces that were dedicated to bicycle clubs.

[Joel Hooks]

Wheelman’s is the same as LAW.

[Joel Hooks]

[Joel Hooks]

[thereallyniceman]

Thank you Joel, for the music and the education ;-)

[Richard William Ineson]

I've found another, 'The Cyclists' by Harry Turner, published by JAT at their Bishopsgate and 39 Oxford Street addresses.

Joel Hooks said:

Wheelman’s is the same as LAW.

[Jody Stecher]

I found two more in the library here:  Grimshaw's Tired Tim and The Harmonious Blacksmith (it's Handel bars).

[Joel Hooks]

Any chance you could share a scan?

Richard William Ineson said:

I've found another, 'The Cyclists' by Harry Turner, published by JAT at their Bishopsgate and 39 Oxford Street addresses.

Joel Hooks said:

Wheelman’s is the same as LAW.