The Sound of the Hound is a podcast series about the people and the technology that brought recorded music to the masses in Victorian London and beyond. In it, journalist and author James Hall and music industry executive Dave Holley chronicle the adventures of the early sound pioneers as they risked life and limb to capture sound and launch the music business as we know it today. In particular, the series focuses on a genius called Fred Gaisberg. The world’s first A&R man, Fred was a nineteenth century amalgam of Steve Jobs, Simon Cowell and Indiana Jones. He travelled by cart, cargo ship and camel – from London to Italy and from Japan to India – in search of intriguing music. His – and others’ – stories have to be heard to be believed. The Sound of the Hound is brought to you by EMI Archive Trust.
James Hall is a music journalist and author. As well as being one of The Daily Telegraph’s rock and pop critics, he has written for The Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The FT and The Observer. James’s novel about the birth of the recorded music industry in 1890s London — The Industry of Human Happiness— was published in 2018. James’s prize possession is a very battered, very loud gramophone-in-a-suitcase from the 1920s. His neighbours are equally enamoured of it.
Dave Holley is a music business suit. He ran EMI's recording studios, including Abbey Road and Capitol Studios, and remains a trustee of The EMI Archive Trust. He is currently CEO of Wise Music Group one of the world's leading independent music publishers. If you hear a dog in the background of the podcast that is Dave's labrador Leo who joins us for the recordings, dozing as we speak. He occassionally talks in his sleep.
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The Sound of the Hound is a podcast series about the people and the technology that brought recorded music to the masses in Victorian London and beyond. In it, journalist and author James Hall and music industry executive Dave Holley chronicle the adventures of the early sound pioneers as they risked life and limb to capture sound and launch the music business as we know it today. In particular, the series focuses on a genius called Fred Gaisberg. The world’s first A&R man, Fred was a nineteenth century amalgam of Steve Jobs, Simon Cowell and Indiana Jones. He travelled by cart, cargo ship and camel – from London to Italy and from Japan to India – in search of intriguing music. His – and others’ – stories have to be heard to be believed. The Sound of the Hound is brought to you by EMI Archive Trust.
James Hall is a music journalist and author. As well as being one of The Daily Telegraph’s rock and pop critics, he has written for The Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The FT and The Observer. James’s novel about the birth of the recorded music industry in 1890s London — The Industry of Human Happiness— was published in 2018. James’s prize possession is a very battered, very loud gramophone-in-a-suitcase from the 1920s. His neighbours are equally enamoured of it.
Dave Holley is a music business suit. He ran EMI's recording studios, including Abbey Road and Capitol Studios, and remains a trustee of The EMI Archive Trust. He is currently CEO of Wise Music Group one of the world's leading independent music publishers. If you hear a dog in the background of the podcast that is Dave's labrador Leo who joins us for the recordings, dozing as we speak. He occassionally talks in his sleep.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
With these episodes focusing on the life and work of the mighty Fred Gaisberg, we may have given the impression that he was his own boss. That would be wrong. Working for The Gramophone Company in London, Fred was answerable to a man called William Barry Owen. In this episode we tell Owen’s story. It was his business acumen and vision that saw The Gramophone Company go from a pipe dream to a reality. We look at the Company through the prism of this fascinating man’s stewardship.
Despite his Welsh-sounding name, William Barry was actually from Massachusetts. A lawyer, an opportunist and a gambler, he sailed for London in 1897 to raise investment funds for the European arm of The Gramophone Company on behalf of Emile Berliner. He was, in effect, rolling the pitch for the music industry’s arrival on this side of the world. When he arrived in London, William Barry hired one of the most opulent rooms at the Hotel Cecil on the Strand for business meetings, giving the impression that he meant business. It worked. Within a matter of weeks he had assembled a small syndicate of likely investors, chief among them being a London solicitor called Trevor Williams.
The group acquired the European rights to Berliner’s gramophone but, in a move that would prove decisive for the future of recorded music, the investors forced William Barry to commit to a strategy of recording European musicians rather than simply import records from America, which was what he was proposing. It was this change in tack that led to the arrival in London from the States of a certain Mr Fred Gaisberg.
As Fred was weaving his sonic magic in Maiden Lane, William Barry (Managing Director) and Trevor Williams (Chairman) took care of business. William Barry didn’t always get things right. When the gramophone initially failed to take off, he diversified the company into typewriters, a move that didn’t work. And by the time that the company had moved into larger premises on City Road in 1902, it had already grown too big for the building. But in William Barry, we have one of the original and most often overlooked recording pioneers. So who was this man? What made him tick? And what did he do after he left the company in 1906? Dave and James find out, and play some cracking tunes along the way.
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