Burt Shepard - The Plumber (1904)

Burt Shepard's name is given in different ways.

On some labels it is Burt Shephard (notice the 2nd "h"). I have even seen "Bert" Shepard.

He used the name "Charles Foster" on some British releases as early as 1899.

Other pseudonyms were used for the singer on various Gramophone Company subsidiary labels, such as Zonophone, Twin, and Cinch. The names include "George Atkinson" and "Arthur Lloyd."

This American-born comic and singer was far more active in recording studios in England than in his own country. He was the first American to enjoy more success as a recording artist in England than in his own country.

In studios overseas, he covered many of the comic and "coon" songs that Arthur Collins cut in the United States.

He was especially successful in covering for overseas markets two songs associated with George W. Johnson in the United States--"Laughing Song" and "Whistling Coon." He cut "Laughing Song" for a few British companies and even Pathé.

In England, he was arguably the first successful recording artist featured on discs.

Shepard gained experience early in life with various American minstrel companies. Edward Le Roy Rice writes in Monarchs of Minstrelsy (Kenny Publishing Company, 1911), "Burt Shepard, recognized as a clever female impersonator in his early career, commenced professionally with Haverly's New Orleans Minstrels about 1874, and continued with them three years."

After naming several companies featuring Shepard from 1878 through 1893. Rice continues, "In 1895 Mr. Shepard was with Cleveland's Minstrels, where he officiated in the middle, in addition to doing a black-face specialty; season of 1896-97 was devoted to vaudeville. In 1897 he went to England, and subsequently to Paris; South Africa and Australia, all the time meeting with unqualified success with his monologue and parodies at the piano."

Shepard began his recording career in London under the supervision of producer Fred W. Gaisberg, perhaps beginning in November 1898 with "Parody on 'Home Sweet Home'" (Berliner 2151). Gaisberg began making disc recordings in England only a few months earlier, around August 9, 1898.

In his interesting but unreliable The Music Goes Round (New York: Macmillan, 1943), Gaisberg recalled that he met Shepard while traveling to England. Gaisberg, who sailed for Europe on July 23, 1898, states on page 39, "Bert Sheppard [sic] was an old minstrel I had met on the S. S. Umbria when crossing the Atlantic." Gaisberg had been sent by Emile Berliner to manage a new recording studio set up by William Barry Owen and Trevor Williams. Using Berliner's British patents, they were establishing the company that would become the influential Gramophone Company.

On December 16, 1898, Shepard cut "Little Alabama Coon" (Berliner 2195) and similar fare. On January 4, 1899, he cut "All Coons Look Alike to Me" (Berliner 2252).