a good interpreter of popular songs. In this department she cannot be compared with Bert Williams, Blanche Ring, Stella Mayhew, Al Jolson, May Irwin, Ethel Levey, Nora Bayes, Cecil Cunningham, Fannie Brice, or Marie Cahill. I have named nearly all of the good ones.[1] The spirit, the conscious liberties taken with the scores, for the vaudeville singer must elaborate his own syncopations, as the singer of early opera embroidered on the score of the composer, are not accidents that just happen. To acquire them demands any amount of work and experience with audiences. None of the singers I have named is a novice. Nor will you find novices who are able to sing Schumann and Franz lieder, although they may be blessed with well-nigh perfect vocal organs.
Still the music critics, with a curious persistence, continue to adjudge a singer by the old formulz and standards: Has she an equalized scale? Has she taste in ornament? Does she overdo the use of portamento, messa di voce, and such devices? How is her shake? Etc., Etc. But how false, how ridiculous, this is! Fancy the result if new writers and composers were criticized for failing to conform to the old
- ↑ Written in 1918. I have made no attempt to bring this list down to date, although, of course, other names might now be added.
