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The Victor Red Seal Discography, Volume 1: Single-Sided Series (1903-1925).

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The Victor Red Seal Discography, Volume 1: Single-Sided Series (1903-1925). By John R. Bolig. Highlands Ranch, CO: Mainspring Press, 2002. [xxiv, 417 p. ISBN 0-9671819-8-4. $69.] Bibliography, indexes.

The Victor Talking Machine Company, and its descendent RCA Victor, was the most important American recording company during the 78 rpm era. Ted Fagan and the late William R. Moran began a comprehensive discography of Victor recordings in the early 1980s, a project which ended after publication of the second volume (Ted Fagan and William. R. Moran, The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings: Pre-Matrix Series--12 January 1900 to 23 April 1903 [Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983], and The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings: Matrix Series--1 Through 4999, 23 April 1903 to 7 January 1908 [Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986]). Fagan and Moran set out to document all recordings made by Victor in all genres, including the ubiquitous black label popular recordings, Red Seal classical discs, along with the purple- and blue label records that straddled the fence between the classical and popular fields (the single-faced purple and double-faced blue labels began as a vaudeville-oriented series, soon expanding to include classical performers who had not attained "Red Seal" status).

Fagan and Moran organized their work chronologically by matrix number, sometimes called the serial number, beginning when Victor founder Eldridge Johnson began his recording log on 28 June 1900. During the time period covered by their first installment Victor, and its predecessor The Consolidated Talking Machine Company, made no...

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