Del Delbridge

Regarding Del Delbridge:

Here's an entry, apparently for the correct guy, in Ancestry.com, showing he was born in Michigan in 1898. His death date is apparently unknown, however he was married to a lady named (ironically), Marrie, who was born in 1906 in Illinois.

http://records.ancestry.com/Del%20Delbridge_records.ashx?pid=81804181

More information, on a Delbridge family geneaology forum, shows that his actual name was Delbert Delbridge, and that they had a son named (confusingly!) Del in 1928, and possibly also a daughter named Hope:

http://genforum.genealogy.com/delbridge/messages/138.html

With his orchestra, Del Delbridge was the piano player and leader of the band.

He originally recorded in 1923 as a piano player with Albert E. Short's Tivoli Syncopators, before striking out on his own. You can hear some of their recordings here:

http://www.redhotjazz.com/tivoli.html

There is a nice photo of the band showing Delbridge, Short, and Wayne King, as well as the other (unidentified) personnel.

The Tivoli Syncopators were a Chicago-based band, and while he was in Chicago, Del took the time to make some rolls for the Columbia Music Roll Company (renamed Capitol in late 1924), some of which were also released on the Supertone label for Sears Roebuck. Here is an (incomplete) list of his piano rolls:

DEL DELBRIDGE ROLLOGRAPHY

Columbia:

162 - Old Pal - Ballad & FT '20 Del Delbridge
[reissued as Supertone 5103 and also Supertone 5537]

204 - Ma - Del Delbridge
[reissued as Supertone 5145]

266 - They Call It Dancing - '21 Del Delbridge

# unknown - I Ain't Nobody's Darling - ft '21 Del Delbridge
[reissued as Supertone 5167]

Capitol:

1477 - Down By The Old Mill Stream - ballad 26-Jun Del Delbridge

1506 - Bye Bye Blackbird - 26-Jul Del Delbridge
[reissued as Supertone 5775]

I compiled this list from Mike Montgomery's excellent (although incomplete) rollographies of Columbia/Capitol and Supertone 88-note word rolls, available here:

http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/MMMedia/CoCap/cocap.html

http://www.mmdigest.com/MMMedia/CoCap/supertone.html

[incidentally, if anyone has an 88-note Columbia, Capitol, or Supertone roll not listed here, I strongly urge them to contact MMD here:

http://www.mmdigest.com/Contact

so that together we can make these rollographies as complete as possible]

Before I leave the subject of his piano rolls entirely, I would like to point out that at least one of them can be heard online via a MIDI file of the scanned roll. If your computer has a normal sound card, just click and enjoy!

Delbridge was also a composer who co-wrote the hit song, "By the Shalimar" (1922) with Frank Magine and arranger/ragtime composer Carleton L. Colby.

Other Del Delbridge songs include:

"Love's Golden Lane" (1920), written with Tell Taylor

"I'm Smilin' Through My Tears" (1924), co-written with Wayne King, and with lyrics by the Duncan Sisters;

and also

"Beside a Garden Wall" (1926), co-written with Albert E. Short, and with lyrics by Gus Kahn.

According to this website:

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt5j49r1vz&chunk.id=c01-1.2.6.3&brand=oac

, the cover of "Beside a Garden Wall" features a photograph of Albert Short.

Also, WorldCat shows both Mr. Delbridge and Mr. Short connected in some way with the song "Midnight Rose" by ragtime composer Lew Pollack (best known for his one-step, "That's-A-Plenty").

http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/ow/4925294

Another additional tidbit shows Mr. Delbridge's band played (along with his old friend Wayne King and others) in a dance hall on Sand Lake, Michigan, sometime in the 1920's and/or '30's:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~keller/museum/work/histsand.html

According to this website:

http://www.detroitmoviepalaces.com/looking_back_200611.html

, Del Delbridge appeared with his band at the still-standing Redford Theatre in Detroit, on November 15th, 1931.

I currently know nothing else about Mr. Delbridge except that he was apparently able to keep some kind of band together at least as late as 1947. According to the January 11, 1947 issue of "Box Office" Magazine (page 84), his band was still playing gigs in Detroit. Here's the link followed by the paragraph in question.

http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_011147/84

"Detroit Film Exchanges
To Hold Dance Jan. 24

DETROIT - The Variety Club of Michigan
has donated its clubrooms for the first get-
together dance for the staff of the film ex-
changes. The dance, first in the history of
the local industry, is scheduled for January
24. Del Delbridge and his orchestra will play.
Tickets are $3 per couple. The affair will be
semiformal. Yvonne Dilling and Alice
Gholeian of Universal are in charge of the
informal organization handling the arrange-
ments."

---

While I suppose this post may seem overkill to some, I don't think so, given the high quality of Mr. Delbridge's band. If you don't believe me, just listen to their two sides, either as posted by Mr. Haim or as posted on Youtube by jazzgirl1920s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR06q4z_Bfw

Apparently, this record is now public-domain, since it is available as such on the Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/DelDelbridgeHisCapitolTheaterOrchestra-DoSomething1929

as part of their excellent collection of 78 and cylinder recordings:

http://www.archive.org/details/78rpm

Anyway, this post has given me the opportunity to have some fun on Google and get together a decent amount of information on Mr. Delbridge, which was previously just scattered around. I think I'll even send this to Robert Perry, so he can adapt it for the artist bios section of his website of piano roll MIDI scans.

http://www.pianola.co.nz/

RAGards,
Andrew Barrett

Posted on Apr 30, 2009, 9:58 PM

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