Tim Gracyk's video: Tambourines And Oranges Path 10036 Fred Van Eps on banjo and Frank Banta on piano

"Tambourines & Oranges" is by Frank Henri Klickmann (frequently misspelled as Klickman). Fred Van Eps lived from December 30, 1878, to November 22, 1960. This remarkable banjoist was born in Somerville, New Jersey. On his father's side, he was a descendant of early Dutch settlers in New York's Mohawk Valley. His mother's lineage began in America with the emigration in the 1600s of a man named Hansen from Bergen, Norway. His name was erroneously given as "Van Epps" at the turn of the century by Edison's company. Van Eps first studied the violin at seven after being encouraged by his father, John Perry Van Eps, who worked as a watchmaker. When twelve, he became fascinated by the banjo upon hearing it played by a conductor for the Jersey Central Railroad, George W. Jenkins. The father initially rebuffed his son's entreaties for a banjo but his mother finally purchased one for him and engaged Jenkins to teach Fred how to play. Because the conductor did not read music, his instructional technique consisted of playing his repertoire of songs over and over while showing the boy where to position fingers. Van Eps moved with his family to nearby Plainfield in 1892 and in 1893, as he reported later in life, heard his first Vess L. Ossman cylinder, "The White Star Line March." Uli Heier and Rainer E. Lotz's The Banjo on Record: A Bio-Discography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993) shows that Ossman recorded that song around 1896 for Edison and Columbia. To improve his playing by ear, Van Eps listened closely to cylinders, which he avidly collected. He told Jim Walsh that he learned to play the banjo as a boy by buying and studying Ossman's brown wax cylinders. Van Eps recalled during an interview with Walsh in September 1955: "...I bought a Type M Edison two-minute cylinder phonograph. It cost me $100--a lot of money then--but I paid for it the next week by attaching 14 ear tubes, taking it to the Fireman's Fair and letting people listen at five cents a play. I've got those tubes yet that fit in your ears. Lots of people came up who had never heard a phonograph before. Mine was the first in Plainfield, which even then was quite a decent sized city. To tell the truth, the machine was something of a nuisance because it was so much of a curiosity. People would come to my home and ask to be allowed to listen to it..." The machine enabled Van Eps to make records for himself. He noted, "I got my blanks from the [Edison] people--20 cents each. All the machines in those days had a shaving attachment. If you didn't like the results you simply shaved them off and tried again." After experimentation with home recording, Van Eps approached Edison's National Phonograph Company in West Orange in 1897. He was hired for regular Wednesday afternoon engagements at the studio and paid the standard fee for the period--$1 for each round, which was a sizable increase over the $16 a week he had been earning repairing watches at his father's business. His first studio accompanist was pianist Frank P. Banta, a longtime Edison staff musician. Despite competition from such accomplished banjoists as Ossman, Ruby Brooks (a member of the vaudeville team of Brooks and Denton), and the banjo duo of Cullen and Collins, Van Eps cylinders sold well. He supplemented his income by teaching and playing with local orchestras. Edison company literature often gives his name as Van Epps. In 1900 a New York City musical instruments dealer, John A. Haley, reprinted a letter by the banjoist which endorsed Haley's products, and he signed the letter "Fred F. Van Epps, Banjoist. Studio, 60 Westervelt Avenue." The banjo team of Van Eps and William D. Bowen play "Jack Tar March" on single-sided Columbia 1613, released in January 1904. It was the first Columbia disc to include a Van Eps performance. "Jack Tar March" was also available as cylinder 32324. Vess L. Ossman cut the same title for the company around this time. It was the only title cut by Bowen in the acoustic era. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Van Eps again worked with Bowen at banjo concerts, with some performances taped by Stan Higgins and issued on the Americana label. Van Eps died in Burbank, California, at age 81. Sound file was done by Jeremy Passarelli‎