Phonoland

I know this is a longshot, but, if anyone has or knows where I can find a copy of THE KASHMIRI SONG by Rudolph Valentino I would appreciate your help. THANKS

That one might be a little hard to come by, to say the least. The record number appears on this page -- http://settlet.fateback.com/BRN3000.htm As noted, it was not issued at the time it was recorded; but a copy did make its way to the public about four years after Valentino's death.

Have you spotted the MP3 version of the record on the Internet Archive? If not, the direct link is: http://www.archive.org/details/RudolphValentino

I'd have to say not much of his voice comes through. He probably would have sounded better if this had been recorded after the introduction of electrical recording, which would have added fullness to his baritone voice. (Then again, it might also have accentuated what sounds like a tendency to sing slightly off-key.)

Joe,
Appreciate the info you have provided. I knew it was a long shot. I thought I would try anyway.
Somewhere out there is a disc in someone's attic waiting to be discovered!
Many thanks!
Bob

Robert561 wrote:Joe,
Appreciate the info you have provided. I knew it was a long shot. I thought I would try anyway.
Somewhere out there is a disc in someone's attic waiting to be discovered!
Many thanks!
Bob

Hi Bob:

Keep checkin' back here. You never know what might turn up. In the meantime...
there's an interesting article that appeared in Time Magazine in the September 22, 1930 issue--at the time the record was released for sale.

FROM: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 41,00.html

Sheik Scoop

"That the late, woman-worshiped Cinemactor Valentino may have died at just the right time—before talking & singing pictures came in—for his memory to remain inviolate in countless lovelorn breasts, was indicated last week when Wanamaker's department store in Manhattan made this unexpected announcement:

"First and exclusive release of the only recording of the voice of Rudolph Valentino singing his favorite ballad

"Kashmiri Song, in English

"Also El Relicario, in Spanish."

A natural question was: If such a recording existed, why was it not released until four years after Valentino's death?

The story: In 1923, Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. asked Valentino, then, the rage in The Sheik and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to try making records. They rehearsed him on operatic arias but were not pleased. He slurred, mumbled, muffed, his diction was atrocious. Finally the Kashmiri Song (because he sang it mutely in The Sheik) and El Relicario (because of his Latin cast) were chosen. To Conductor Ralph Mazziotta who coached him, Valentino inscribed a photograph "In remembrance of my first record. (Hope it is a good one!)"

Conductor Mazziotta carefully kept the photograph but when he listened to Valentino's record he looked sad. It just would not do. The record was shelved.

At Valentino's fantastically elaborate funeral someone regretted that the voice of the dead sheik was stilled forever. "But no," declared another mourner, "he made a record! I heard. . . ." But memory failed as to where or when, and alert Walter King, president of Celebrity Recording Co. (Hollywood) who had overheard the remark, could learn no more.

Then began a search that took President King from Atlantic to Pacific. But no Valentino record did he find. By pure, accident the master record was unearthed in a dusty corner of a storeroom at Brunswick's factory in Muskegon, Mich. President King bought the rights for his company—but last week the Valentino "scoop" awaited a public that seemed not to care. What Brunswick had rejected and forgotten as unworthy of its standard, Wanamaker's vended--not very successfully. In the first three days less than 1,000 records were sold. Valentino singing as with a mouthful of spaghetti seemed not to have the appeal of the sleek silent Sheik of the oldtime cinema."

Joe,
Thank you very much for the scoop on the Valentino record. It was very interesting indeed.
I have a DVD of 2 Valentino silent films. It has a biography of the film star and it has a feature of a victrola playing the song by Valentino. It doesn't sound too bad. I'll keep checking back to see if one of these gems turn up somewhere.
Many thanks!
Bob

One thing that happened to a lot of silent film stars was that, when sound pictures became available, they hated the sounds of their voices. A lot of them refused to make talking pictures.

It might be that Valentino refused to allow the release of the record, not knowing that bone conduction made his voice sound different to his own ears than as everyone else heard him.

The result of these refusals was the dreaded Motion Picture Academy Curve, which changed the recording EQ so the actors sounded like they heard themselves through bone conduction. Of course, the fact that they sounded wrong to everyone else didn't seem to matter.

I have a record of Rudolph Valentino singing the Kashmiri Song. It is the size of a an old 45 and says long playing speed 33 1/3 R P M can anyone give me an idea what a fair asking price would be or where I could find that out?

I have one I am listing on ebay today.