Let’s Have A Song Upon The Gramophone   [Homophone, Graphophone, Pathéphone,
  Phonograph]

Fred Godfrey & Billy Williams, 1911; Harry Carlton also co-author, according to letter assigning rights to Billy Williams dated Jan. 31, 1911.

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An early example of an advertising or promotional record, the lyrics include the titles of some of Billy Williams’s recent hits, with the equipment on which we’re to have a song of Billy’s changing according to the patented playback format for which the recording was made. Columbia and its budget reissue label Phoenix used “Graphophone,” while Homophon and Pathé had their own eponymous terms. His Master’s Voice, which started life as the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, used “Gramophone” for its budget Zonophone and Cinch labels, and that term eventually became standard usage in Britain for all disc recordings. In contrast, the standard North American term “Phonograph” for essentially all types of disc recordings began its life as the patented Edison cylinder format.

Recordings

Billy Williams recorded five versions of this song, one for each of the different playback formats noted above: ca. January 1911 for Columbia, 3 February 1911 for Zonophone, Ca. February 1911 for Pathé, ca. March 1911 for Homophon, and ca. April 1911 for Edison Amberol. Reissues appeared on several other labels.¹

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Note

1  For comprehensive discographies of recordings by Billy Williams, see Brian Rust,
     British Music Hall on Record (Harrow, UK: Gramophone, 1979); and Frank
     Andrews and Ernie Bayly, Billy Williams’ Records: A Study in Discography
     (Bournemouth, UK: Talking Machine Review, 1982). For a collection of recordings of
     all the Billy Williams songs, see J.P. Myerscough, Billy Williams: All the Songs
     [8-CD set and accompanying notes] (Lowestoft, UK: Music Hall Masters, 2001).