Ranking Edison’s 40 Best-Selling Artists of 1906 – 1908

Compiled by Allan Sutton
from the Edison Dealers’ Order Sheets

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(From the Raymond R. Wile Research Library)

The following artists were the top sellers on new releases made during the height of the Edison Gold Moulded cylinder’s popularity, based upon the initial dealer-order reports of 1906 through mid-1908. The most popular, by far, were Ada Jones (who captured the top three spots, as a soloist and in duets with two different partners), Len Spencer, and Billy Murray. It’s interesting to note that as soloists, Murray ranked only #12, followed by Spencer at #13; but paired with Jones, both landed in the top two spots.

Some caveats:

(1) The figures are only for initial dealer orders. Some of these records remained in the catalog for long periods, and the final total sales figures have not survived, nor have statistics for returned or scrapped copies that would have lowered these totals somewhat. However, most sales to dealers occurred in advance of and immediately following the initial release date, so these figures serve as a good indicator of a records’ relative popularity.

(2) The list covers only artists on new releases of the period. Some top-selling artists, like Cal Stewart, don’t appear here because Edison didn’t issue any new records by them during this period (although many of their earlier releases were still in the catalog and, in Stewart’s case, apparently selling quite well). Several other very popular artists, including Billy Golden and Murry K. Hill, are not represented here because they made so few Edison Gold Moulded recordings that the sample size is insufficient to establish a reliable ranking. Both made the top-seller list (as did Stewart) with their new releases during the Amberol and early Blue Amberol periods, which will be covered in a future post.

(3) There is strong evidence to suggest that many record buyers of the period were more interested in a given song than in the artist who recorded it. Artists who made a weak showing might have done so, at least to some degree, because they weren’t assigned the current popular material. It’s interesting to note, however, that two performers in the top ten — Charles D’Alamine and John J. Kimmel — specialized in the tired old traditional fare personally favored by Thomas Edison and a significant portion of his customer base.

The poorest-selling artists? Those on the Gold Moulded Grand Opera cylinders, with initial orders averaging only 1,100–1,250 copies.

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© 2024 by Allan R. Sutton. All rights are reserved.