The Vocalstyle Music Company of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

was one of the foremost manufacturers of piano rolls. Founded around 1906, they were the first company to conceive of the idea of printing song lyrics on the piano roll so they could be viewed and sung as the music played. They patented this idea and collected royalties from all other music roll companies that printed lyrics. They had a huge stable of artists, and jazz legends

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...

, Clarence Jones, and

Luckey Roberts Charles Luckyth Roberts (August 7, 1887 – February 5, 1968), better known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer and stride pianist who worked in the jazz, ragtime, and blues styles. Biography Luckey Roberts was born in Philadelphia, ...

were probably the most prominent of their visiting recording artists. Other prominent musicians who recorded for Vocalstyle include

Amanda Randolph Amanda E. Randolph (September 2, 1896 – August 24, 1967) was an American actress, singer and musician. She was the first African-American performer to star in a regularly scheduled network television show, appearing in DuMont's ''The Laytons' ...

, (Mandy Randolph-''The Yellow Dog Blues'', by W. C. Handy in 1919, Vocalstyle roll # 11562) who in later life became a well-known television actress,

Art Gillham Art Gillham (January 1, 1895, St. Louis, Missouri – June 6, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia) was an American songwriter, who was among the first crooners as a pioneer radio artist and a recording artist for Columbia Records. With Billy Smythe and Scott ...

, and

Ernest Ball Ernest Roland Ball (July 22, 1878 – May 3, 1927) was an American singer and songwriter, most famous for composing the music for the song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" in 1912. He was not himself Irish. Early life and education Born in Cl ...

. They were purchased by the

QRS The QRS complex is the combination of three of the graphical deflections seen on a typical electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG). It is usually the central and most visually obvious part of the tracing. It corresponds to the depolarization of the ri ...

company in 1926, and ceased operations in 1928.

References

External links

Piano Roll Artists' Database-information on artists and songs with downloadable MIDI files
Defunct companies based in Cincinnati Manufacturing companies based in Cincinnati Music of Cincinnati {{Ohio-stub