Harry Macdonough & Haydn Quartet "Neath The Old Acorn Tree, Sweet Estelle" Victor 5319, recorded on November 4, 1907. <br /><br />Lyrics are by C. M. Denison. <br /><br />Music is by J. Fred Helf.<br /><br />'Tis twilight and the toil of day is over,<br />The cattle from the fields are coming home,<br />The moon will soon be shining on the clover,<br />As down a quiet lane alone I roam,<br /><br />The old mill wheel is silent all seems lonely,<br />A dear girl's waiting in the twilights glow,<br />I whisper that I love her, love her only,<br />We parted where the water lillies grow.<br /><br />'Neath the old acorn tree, sweet Estelle<br />I'll return, love's old story to tell,<br />When the gold of day turns to gray,<br />And you list to the old village bell,<br />Let my love in your heart ever dwell,<br /><br />You may know little girl all is well,<br />With a heart ever true,<br />I'll return dear to you,<br />'Neath the old acorn tree sweet Estelle.<br /><br />Out in the golden West tonight I'm dreaming, <br />The moon shines o'er the mountains still and cold,<br />I'm going East where candle lights are gleaming,<br />Again to wander through the scenes of old,<br /><br />The moonlight on the old mill wheel is falling,<br />No loving face is waiting there for me,<br />In fancy I can hear a sweet voice calling,<br />"Dear heart I'm waiting 'neath the acorn tree."<br /><br />Harry Macdonough was born on March 30, 1871, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, as John Scantlebury Macdonald. During the two decades he was active as a recording artist, the tenor was perhaps the most popular ballad singer to make records aside from Henry Burr, also a tenor from Canada. <br /><br />Determining who made more records before 1920 would be a challenge since both Macdonough and Burr worked regularly as solo artists and also within duos, trios, quartets, and larger ensembles.<br /><br />He first made cylinders for the Michigan Electric Company in Detroit. In a letter written to Jim Walsh dated February 9, 1931, he states that these cylinders "were not sold but merely used in their `Phonograph Parlor' on the slot machines in use at that time." The June 1920 issue of Talking Machine World states he "spent his early business life in Detroit."<br /><br />John Kaiser, who recorded "Casey" monologues and later served as a U.S. Phonograph Company executive, helped Macdonald enter the record business on the East Coast. After Macdonald made a test record in October 1898 at the New York studio of Harms, Kaiser & Hagen, Kaiser himself played the test record for Walter H. Miller, then Edison's recording manager. As a result, Macdonald began making commercial recordings at the Edison laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, on October 17, 1898. <br /><br />He wrote to Walsh, "At my first session I made twelve selections, for which I received $9.00. The regular rate was at that time $1.00 per song but being a beginner I was supposed to be satisfied with anything they chose to pay me and, as a matter of fact, I was. That $9.00 seemed pretty big pay for the afternoon and I had no complaint...shortly after that they paid me the regular rate of $1.00 per 'round' as it was described in those days.
