Sylvester Louis "Vess" Ossman (August 21, 1868 – December 7, 1923) was a leading five-string
banjoist and popular recording artist of the early 20th century.
Biography
Sylvester Louis Ossman was born in
Hudson, New York, and made his first recordings in 1893.
He became one of the most recorded musicians of his day, recording
marches
In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diff ...
,
cakewalk
The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern Uni ...
s, and
rags
Rag, rags, RAG or The Rag may refer to:
Common uses
* Rag, a piece of old cloth
* Rags, tattered clothes
* Rag (newspaper), a publication engaging in tabloid journalism
* Rag paper, or cotton paper
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Rags'' (1915 ...
. He also accompanied popular singers, such as
Arthur Collins and
Len Spencer.
Ossman married Eunice Smith and they had three children, Vess Jr., Raymond, and Annadele.
[Gracyk, Hoffmann 2000, p. 266.]
In 1900 and 1903, when Ossman's reputation and fame had spread internationally, he toured England and recorded. With the brothers Audley and George Dudley he performed in the Ossman-Dudley Trio.
He led his own dance band, the Ossman's Singing and Playing Orchestra, in
Dayton
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
, Ohio, and
Indianapolis, Indiana. The increasing popularity of his rival
Fred Van Eps
Fred Van Eps (December 30, 1878 – November 22, 1960) was an American banjoist and banjo maker. The "Van Eps Recording Banjo" was a well-known model until 1930. He was the father of jazz guitarist George Van Eps.
Biography
Van Eps was born in ...
, after 1910, made Ossman's name appear less frequently in record company supplements. He temporarily ceased recording in 1913 but resumed in late 1915. In April 1917, he became a member of the Popular Talking Machine Artists, a group of unrelated musicians who toured as an act. By the early 1920s, he had left the touring act.
[Gracyk, Hoffmann 2000, p. 265.]
On December 14, 1917 he made his final recordings for
Columbia Records. He continued to travel with his dance orchestra, working in hotels throughout Midwest while living in Dayton with his family. In 1923, he joined B. F. Keith's Vaudeville houses on tour with his son, Vess Jr. At a theater show in Minneapolis, Ossman suffered a heart attack. He was brought to the hospital but soon returned to the show. Later, in
Fairmont, Minnesota, he suffered another heart attack, this time fatal, after his last performance on stage. He was buried in Valhalla Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
[
Ossman played in what is now known as the classic banjo style. He fingerpicked gut strings using a technique similar to classical guitarists.
His recordings include "St. Louis Tickle", "Yankee Doodle", "Rusty Rags", "Maple Leaf Rag", "The Stars and Stripes Forever", "A Bit of Blarney", "My Irish Molly O", "A Gay Gosson", "Yankee Girl", "Bill Simmons", "Karama". His recordings also include ragtime-era ]coon songs
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they we ...
, such as "A Coon Band Contest", "The Darkies' Awakening", and Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan (born Ernest Reuben Crowdus; 1865 – May 20, 1909) was the first African-American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show (''The Oyster Man'' in 1907) and helped to popularize the musical genre of ragtime.
A native of ...
's "All Coons Look Alike to Me
All or ALL may refer to:
Language
* All, an indefinite pronoun in English
* All, one of the English determiners
* Allar language (ISO 639-3 code)
* Allative case (abbreviated ALL)
Music
* All (band), an American punk rock band
* ''All'' (All al ...
", which were popular at the time.
See also
* Vim Records
Notes
References
* Gracyk, Tim - Hoffmann, Frank W. (2000), ''Popular American Recording Pioneers, 1895-1925'', Routledge
* Heier, Uli; Lotz, Rainer E. (Eds.) (1993) ''The Banjo on Record - A Bio-Discography'', Greenwood Press,
External links
Collected Works of Vess L. Ossman
Downloadable recordings from archive.org
Vess Ossman cylinder recordings
from the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive The Cylinder Audio Archive is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Library with streaming and downloadable versions of over 10,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1893 and the mid-1920s. The ...
at the University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...
Library.
Vess Ossman recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
Audio recording of "Rusty Rags" at the Library of Congress jukebox
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ossman, Vess
1868 births
1923 deaths
American banjoists
Musicians from Dayton, Ohio
Pioneer recording artists
Edison Records artists