Put A Bit Of Powder On It, Father

 

 

Harry Castling & Fred Godfrey — London: Francis, Day & Hunter; Melbourne: Stanley Mullen, 1908.

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Apex 406-B Famous 259
A Canadian reissue
from the mid-1920s, with incorrect
composing credits.
  

Recordings

Billy Williams recorded six versions of this song: 16 April 1908 for Homophon, April 1908 for Zonophone, ca. August 1908 for Edison Standard Cylinder, ca. January 1909 for Jumbo, ca. August 1909 for Edison Bell, ca. September 1909 for Pathé. Reissues appeared on several other labels.1

Albert Marsh (Clarion 211, 1908) [cylinder]

Pathé 8098-A In the days before recording formats were standardized, many different patents competed. This is an example of a “vertical cut, center-start” pressing, whereby the needle tracked the groove up and down (rather than side to side as became normal later on), and the groove spiraled from the center to the outside edge (rather than from the edge inward).

 

 

 

 

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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).