The Revelers 1920s Radio Pioneers

The Revelers’ recordings of “Dinah”, “Old Man River”, “Valencia”, “Baby Face”, “Blue Room”, “The Birth of the Blues”, “When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba”, and many more, were popular in the United States and then Europe in the late 1920s.

In August 1929, they appeared in the Netherlands with Richard Tauber at the Kurhaus, Scheveningen and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

All of the members had recorded individually or in various combinations.

The quartet, organized in 1917, performed under the name The Shannon Four or The Shannon Quartet before changing their name to The Revelers in 1925.

The original Revelers were tenors Franklyn Baur and Lewis James (and occasionally Charles W. Harrison substituting when Baur or James was unavailable), baritone Elliot Shaw, bass Wilfred Glenn (who had popularized “Asleep in the Deep” on records), and pianist Ed Smalle. Smalle was replaced by Frank Black in 1926.

The Revelers (with Black at the piano) appeared in a pioneer movie musical, The Revelers (1927), filmed in Warner Bros.’ sound-on-disc Vitaphone process which you can watch below.

The group performed the entire nine-minute set in one continuous, uninterrupted take, with the camera in a fixed position. A second short, filmed the same day with another three songs, awaits restoration.

Franklyn Baur was replaced by Frank Luther and then James Melton (later a Metropolitan Opera tenor).

The Revelers were stars on radio and in vaudeville, as well as in the recording studio. On radio they were regulars on The Palmolive Hour (1927–31).

They had recording contracts with Columbia Records and Victor (later RCA Victor) but made extra money by moonlighting under pseudonyms.

Columbia promoted them as The Singing Sophomores and Brunswick Records called them The Merrymakers.

The group also adopted the names of their radio sponsors: The Eveready Revelers, The Palmolive Revelers, The Seiberling Singers, The General Motors Brigadiers, and The Raleigh Rovers.

Although The Revelers stayed current, making a point of including the latest popular songs and show tunes in their repertoire, their sound seemed increasingly old-fashioned. Their listening audience gravitated toward the top soloists of the early 1930s, like Bing Crosby, Arthur Tracy, and Russ Columbo.

James Melton left the group in 1933 to embark on a concert career.

The last Revelers record for Victor was released in January 1934, after which Lewis James and Elliot Shaw left.

Senior member Wilfred Glenn continued to make live appearances with a male chorus billed as The Revelers. The group returned to the recording studio only once, to record a program of 10 traditional religious songs for Decca in 1938.

Frank Black became prominent as Dr. Frank Black, music director at NBC and recording-company executive.

James Melton’s CBS network radio program, Harvest of Stars, brought back Lewis James, Elliot Shaw, Wilfred Glenn, and Frank Black for a Revelers reunion on April 11, 1948.

The German group The Comedian Harmonists formed in 1927 after hearing some records of The Revelers. According to Douglas Friedman’s book The Comedian Harmonists (2010), both groups appeared on the same bill at the Scala in Berlin in August 1929 and became good friends.

3 October PLAY LIST