kevin toner

Thanks so much Dimble, very kind of you to say all of that. Glad to hear your views and also pleased you enjoyed some of that particular music. I'll keep my ears open for any more closely resembling concertina sound in the mix of such wide ranging past performers, on such music. Hopefully something else will be discovered without deliberately looking and searching for ones instrument among the songs! Cheers, and many thanks for replying.

Actually I think this is possibly an accordion sounding like a concertina - using a non-piano voicing. It sounds to glissando like to be concertina. However, it has the same kind of voicing and maybe it is a concertina - I wouldn't like to put my money on it! If I hear any more sound-alikes I'll let you know, here. Cheers, how embarrassing - from someone expected to have a good as well as keen ear. Not to worry!

https://archive.org/details/78_six-hit-medley-no10-pt-1_mel-rose-and-his-band_sam-costa or click same at:- LINK - a 78, rarely with concertina player in an accordionist-led dance band A rare find for the record! Hope you enjoy this - there's an accompanying 78 this weekend as with every one (two 78s a week at Kevin Toner - My 78s : Free Audio : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive). Note the other is purely accordion orientated or led by comparison, but offers a comparison nonetheless if interested (it is even as button-boxy at times - clearly there's a little romance for the instrument perhaps because of stars playing sailors with them in Hollywood, ha it's true for the time - Serenade in the Night / Red Sails in the Sunset / Harbour Lights / etc. says so from the Thirties songbook I use/study). Also maybe check out the flipside as I think the concertinist may be still around in the background. I'm after my study songbook songs of 40 or so popular song standards, so I rarely ever hear concertina in the line-up (since it's mainly post 30s popular band material with the instrument losing popularity by then - although there's plenty solo to be found though up to that point, but I'm not there yet - stuck documenting the study songs on 78s and learning from these song standards in the form of the fairly different - and fab for chromatic 4+ octave English Concertina - piano scores). I mustn't go off on a tangent. Enjoy this quirky airing from what sounds like a good player involved. The discography I use or offer sources from is Rust & Forbes 1970s who provide personnel &/or instrument lineups: here though there are question marks and no mention of the instrument - clearly it's a very rare item in the mainstream of popular band 78s. If anyone wants a list of the musicians listed by the dance band discography for this band/outfit let me know - they appear in the 1920s and then again active, like here in the late 30s, towards WWII (i.e. the leader accordionist Ronnie Munro not pseudonym Mel Rose). I think they do sound quite accomplished from former novelty orchestra backgrounds perhaps. I wouldn't know as I'm not studying personnel at the moment - simply documenting 78s for preservation. Thanks for reading/listening. Kevin PS I think I will be using archive.org to put more of my granddad's/relatives EC playing up. I'll keep you posted!

Sorry for not replying until now; I hadn't been checking my posts. Please find these attached as requested. Thanks for your interest Kevin [ps: for the avoidance of doubt the matrix no. for 'A Sunday Parade 'is CAR 1033, which is clearly etched on the shellac surface runout-end (despite reading a blotchy 1088 or 83 on the actual label itself)]

I've had a listen to the wav file and it's definitely much more concertina (and English Concertina sounding too) than any other kind of reed/bellows instrument. Apologies it's so much in the background and of mp3 quality for the time being! [edit: Forget it being my granddad, it seems too rehearsed for the set, but that said there was quite a population of musicians at this time in tune with each other...]

I've had another listen to this and think there is slim likelihood of concertina, unless it's separately background vamping at times. I think I'm imagining this and wonder if I should delete this post - It's probable that it is a rehearsed accordionist or even other button box player in the background if not the main accordionist switching voicing and volume controls etc. If I delete in due course soon - it's because of uncertainty and so on. I believe this particular forum topic should always have concertina at the very least (and I don't think there's enough info to verify here! so sorry for posting and needing probably to delete). ps It's funny that in my a recent previous post, the concertina sound similarities (in pre-war bands/orchestras) was the very least also being discussed. No worries anyway!

Services Calling: Tea for Two; etc. (WWII transcription discs) Starting at around 21:29 The harp is leading here, but do I detect a bit of English Concertina in the background, which is neither the billed star accordionist nor harmonicists? The latter does double for drums, but hmm, I wonder who’d be playing the tini in there (?) It adds a real nice sweet touch to augment an already marvellous wee concert I don’t think it’s a different kind of button-box; tho it doesn’t matter – it’s an absolutely lovely piece at a difficult time (on my actual wav/raw file you can actually hear geese in the background at a point I think enjoying the music too). It has some great musicians from around the world with Dutch roots I was thoroughly enjoying this 3-disc treat anyway, and then even more so when it seems like my Granddad and dropped by to do a little vamping in the background for the next few numbers. It’s a long shot, but it does sound like him, and he was stationed not greatly far away from this base; entertaining troops and locals in nearby counties or vicinity. Apparently he was a real hit - and him and acquaintances made some easy money too doing requests and so forth (he played and others went round with the bonnet/cap collecting handsomely, I think), but narrowly escaping a court marshal if it weren’t for the superior’s approval of music, I can’t quite remember the exactitudes of all the wee stories... There is a memoirs book about the base that could shed more clues about life there. It was a British base that the Royal Netherlands Brigade took over. - As I listen again, I think the accordionist has possibly retreated to the background away from mikes and harmonising with the non-piano side of the accordion, albeit there’s single notes too (but whicjh might have been a voicing switch change on the instrument so that it changes the sound/voicing of the singular notes), hence me thinking it sounds a bit like a concertina. I’m not even a novice on the Acoordion, so cannot say! Anyone else will know better – it would be great to hear some verification or thoughts on that background reed instrument not taking such a lead for the last couple of so songs as the concert draws to a finish. ps If anyone can identify the preceding and lovely French ballad that'd be brill!

I think I've identified the 8 songs now. I rocketed forward with gaining knowledge from a recent find, '50 Years of Song' arranged by Aubrey Kennett (for 6 of the possibly 8 songs). The remaining 2 songs being from Will Godwin, Leo Dryden; and Leslie Sarony. Tho still a little mystified because of renditions of titles sounding like each other.

Good question, and I'm not educated enough to give an informed answer, but I think 1 take is highly likely and that's in general to the length of a 78 rpm shellac disc on 1 side (up to 3+ mins for 10" records) especially for a such a skilled salon outfit who could I guess run for much longer (12" & transcription 33 1/3s etc. or even live, for long classical compositions). It wasn't until LPs I think that gave bands a chance to roll out a full 20+ mins side, for example the uninterrupted LP sides during when the ballroom dancing movement took off in parallel with the evolution of LPs etc. The particular band in your repliy, worked in a great many other guises and band names, aka the Orpheus Dance Orch/Band(?), worked also as a quartet to many listeners' surprise or disbelief due to the sheer wealth of instruments being heard on a side. I think this managing instruments and combined arrangements and so forth was maybe as much 2nd nature as it was an art in what was undoubtedly a professional skill set as evidenced in the above genre...... [ps I've had another listen to it - There seems to be an almost reeds quality that comes from the strings too in an intimate chamber orch context. So that coupled with actual reed related instruments other than concertina could make one imagine they're hearing like qualities. I think the English concertina was of course about the opposite to this theory........: the concertina to replicate the tones of the violin!

That was my first impressions too. I don't know much about it myself, yet, as I've not listened to it much at a decent volume to help me figure out the instruments. I hope to be back in touch again with this or similar incidental concertina lurking in old recordings. There's quite a lot of concertina on record sleeve graphics all the same, even for early LPs despite the great shortage of it in actual popular recodings of the past - another topic! I think it would be good to have the concertina identified much more from old recordings where it's heard filling in but not being credited. There's some quite nice sounds in old light music or novelty bands that is sometimes I think because it has a rich background of instrumentation, perhaps even with concertina or the likes subtly enriching it (if not from other well mixed in reed instruments) serving the background. I look forward as a novice to hearing more gradually or eventually. Maybe have a listen to as an example from a 1932 light music orch.- I wonder if there's concertina in this at times! Oh and another YouTuber so kindly provided all the titles in the selection that I couldn't identify or got wrong.

I wonder what kind of concertina it is at points (especially for the last song of side A where it leads).

Please feel free to help identify any of the songs included in the medley Thanks Kevin

https://soundcloud.com/user-525630858-405274758 Enjoy, courtesy of Stuart Eydmann, the author! CD-1 has my grandad Danny with wife Jeanie. CD-2 ditto; plus my uncle Freddie on Banjo, an in-law of my Gran's; and Billy Boyd, my stepdad, on Harmonica.

Yes, I guessed that as per my post, but didn't know the terminology used to explain the difference between extended-mode and otherwise. Great to know that there is the option to have each. I'd presume that it's model 20/20a that has the 'unrelated-to-treble' keyboard My TT has the low F3 one 5th below the middle C on the left side. Fortunately the TT range goes down to C3 on the right. I would need these extra lower notes if I were to play with either swapped keyboard sides and/or row positions. I'm still a bit unclear on how all the models compare, button/layout-position wise, until I can actually have a feel and/or compare Audio/Visual clips. So, I'll dream on for the moment. I'm communicating with Buttonbox on it and it happens to be the case that their two baritone Aeolas are of the extended variety so that it maps with my TT, but the other (non-extended) mode would be equally fine as I've said, if not better for me. ps I'm glad you've found/understand your preferred ranges too.