The Silver-Masked Tenor & B. F. Goodrich Silvertown Cord Orch. - So Will I, 1927

B.F. Goodrich Silvertown Cord Orchestra dir. by Joseph Knecht – So Will I, Fox-Trot (Brown-Friend) with Vocal Refrain by The Silver-Masked Tenor, Victor 1927 (USA) NOTE: Joseph KNECHT (b. 1864 in Bukovina, part of Romania - d. 1930 in New York) played the violin from an early age in his home village before moving to Vienna, Austria, to study civil engineering at the Vienna University of Technology. He earned a living playing the violin at Vienna’s Hofburg Theater. He soon left civil engineering to study violin at the Vienna Conservatory, after which he played in the Vienna Opera orchestra under Hans Richter. He was so good that Austrian conductor Wilhelm Gericke, who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the US, offered him a position in his orchestra. In 1887 Knecht came to play in Boston and later in the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, where he was promoted to assistant concertmaster and then to assistant conductor. In 1908, George C. Bold, president of the Waldorf-Astoria, invited Knecht to form the Waldorf-Astoria Symphony Orchestra to perform at the hotel during the summer when the Metropolitan was closed. The innovation was so successful that it became Knecht’s full-time, year-round occupation in 1912, and continued until May 1926, when he gave it up to focus on radio work. In his sixties, from 1925 he was also the conductor of the popular B. F. Goodrich Silvertown Cord Band on a sponsored radio program. They toured vaudeville with singer Joseph M. White (who performed as The Silver-Masked Tenor). The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra and the Silvertown Cord Band were one and the same band, which played two genres of music: they were on air for WEAF when they were Silvertown’s studio band, and also playing dinner music as the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. “B.F. Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra“ was a musical radio program sponsored by B. F. Goodrich (Goodrich tire manufacturer) and heard in various formats from 1925 to 1935. Performers were Henry Burr (tenor), Carl Mathieu (tenor), James Stanley (baritone), Stanley Baughman (bass), Monroe Silver (comedian), also Frank Banta (piano) and Sam Herman (xylophone). The hour-long program of orchestra, songs, character skits began at WEAF New York on February 12, 1925, At various times the program was titled The Goodrich Zippers, The Silvertown Cord Orchestra, Silvertown Orchestra, Silvertown Quartet and The Silvertown Zippers. The show was notable for introducing listeners to Joseph M. White, aka Silver-Masked Tenor, who was first heard at WEAF back in 1923. With a mask hiding his secret identity, White gained such fame on the radio that police had to escort him during the orchestra’s vaudeville tours.