- Vess Ossman
Vess Ossman (
August 21 ,1868 –December 7 ,1923 ) was a leading 5-stringbanjo ist and popular recording artist.Sylvester Louis Ossman was born in
Hudson, New York , and made his first recordings in 1893. He became one of the most recorded musicians of his day, recording marches,cakewalk s, rags, and other instrumentals. He also accompanied popular singers includingArthur Collins andLen Spencer .He performed in the USA and England. Late in his career he led his own dance bands in
Dayton, Ohio andIndianapolis ,Indiana . He died inFairmont, Minnesota , in 1923.Ossman played in what is now known as the classical banjo style. He fingerpicked gut strings using a technique similar to
classical guitar ists.Some of his recordings include "St. Louis Tickle", "Yankee Doodle", "Rusty Rags", "Maple Leaf Rag", "The Stars and Stripes Forever", "A Bit of Blarney", "My Irish Molly O", "A Gay Gosson", "Yankee Girl", "Bill Simmons", "Karama". His recordings also include songs with less politically correct titles such as "A Coon Band Contest", "The Darkies' Awakening" and "All Coons Look Alike To Me."
External links
* [http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php?collection=78rpm&collectionid=VessLOssman Collected Works of Vess L. Ossman] Downloadable recordings from archive.org
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=ossman&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1016 Downloadable recordings] of Ossman from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbaraources
Heier, Uli; Lotz, Rainer E. (Eds.) (1993) "The Banjo on Record - A Bio-Discography", Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-28492-X
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