George Alexander (July 9, 1867 – March 2, 1913) was a baritone and pioneer recording artist who made several best-selling records for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

in the first decade of the 20th century.

Biography

George Alexander was born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

on July 9, 1867, his birth name was Clifford Alexander Wiley. His initial recording activity was for

Zonophone Records Zonophone (early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone) was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman's Universal Talki ...

in 1902, and he subsequently recorded for Columbia Talking Machine Co. in 1903, where he produced the majority of his output. He also recorded a few sides for

Victor Records The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...

in 1903. The same year, he made cylinder records for

Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...

under the pseudonym Arthur Clifford. He died on March 2, 1913, in New York at the age of 45. He died of

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, hea ...

and

Bright's disease Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied b ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on 2 March 1913 and is buried in New Jersey Cemetery in

North Bergen North Bergen is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a total population of 63,361. The township was founded in 1843. It was much diminished in territory by a ...

New Jersey.

Style and popularity as recording artist

He has been noted for his "robust sonority and precise diction."

Joel Whitburn Joel Carver Whitburn (November 29, 1939 – June 14, 2022) was an American author and music historian, responsible for setting up the Record Research, Inc. series of books on record chart placings. Early life Joel Carver Whitburn was born in Wau ...

, in his chart reconstructions, estimates that Alexander had three records that would have made the Billboard charts had they existed:

Mighty Lak' a Rose "Mighty Lak' a Rose" is a 1901 song with lyrics by Frank Lebby Stanton and music by Ethelbert Nevin. The lyrics are written in an approximation of an African American accent as a "dialect song", and the title thus means "mighty like a rose". It i ...

(Columbia disc 1585,

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

32295) at #3 in December 1903;

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

(Columbia disc 3099, cylinder 32637) at #7 in May 1905, and ''Dearie'' (Columbia disc 3378, cylinder 32928) at #10 in July 1906.

References

External links

George Alexander recordings
at the

Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...

.
George Alexander singing "Afterwards"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, George 1913 deaths Columbia Records artists Pioneer recording artists Zonophone Records artists Victor Records artists Edison Records artists 1867 births American baritones Musicians from Baltimore 19th-century American male singers 19th-century American singers Singers from Maryland 20th-century American male singers 20th-century American singers