In the earliest days of the phonograph, many recording artists were forced to work extra jobs to make a living. None of the workers in the recording industry were protected by unions at this time, so they worked as much as was needed. While most acoustic record collectors would associate Frank C. Stanley with his wonderful skill as a bass singer, he actually started recording much earlier than 1900 and doing something very different. Stanley has the distinction of being one of the first banjoists to be commercially recorded. In addition to having perfect pitch in his voice, he was also an unusually talented banjoist.
He made his first recordings in December of 1891, under his actual name, William Stanley Grinsted. He was only 23 at the time that he made this first batch of cylinders. He was born and raised in Orange, New Jersey, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he was discovered by Edison so early on, who was at the time based solely in Orange. He started playing banjo as more of a pastime, as many youths of the late Victorian era did. Unlike many of the other folks his age who took up the banjo, he became quite proficient with the instrument. It is said that when he was in school, he would often bring his banjo with him and entertain his fellow students on their break times. He truly enjoyed playing it, and was quite good at it, so good in fact that someone at the North Ame
