Ben Davies (tenor) - Recordings

Recordings

The earliest recordings by Davies are Pathé brown wax cylinders from the mid-1890s . Davies had an early start among British singers in making gramophone records, beginning in 1901. Joe Batten noted:

Sir Landon Ronald persuaded to make his first records. He had laughed at the idea of singing into a tin trumpet, but when the test record of Henry Bishop's My Pretty Jane was played back to him, he was inexpressibly delighted.

The 1901 session (Gramophone and Typewriter Company 2-2500/2-2504 Black 'Concert' label) resulted in five titles, including also Schubert's Serenade (Leise flehen), Frederic Clay's I'll sing thee songs of Araby, Michael Balfe's When other lips and Charles Dibdin's Tom Bowling.

In June 1903 he headed-up the first 12" male solo catalogue list (Black Label 'Monarch') with record 02000 (Charles Dibdin's Tom Bowling), with 02003 (I'll sing thee songs of Araby) and 02004 (Gounod, Salve dimora) closely following. At the same time he made five more 10" records (2-2778/2-2783), Maude Valerie White's To Mary, Blumenthal's An Evening Song, Yes! Let me like a soldier fall from Maritana, So fare thee well from Cellier's Doris and Sullivan's The sailor's grave. He returned to the Gramophone Company (then HMV) in 1913-1914 to make 12" records of I'll sing thee songs of Araby (02477), Come into the garden, Maud (02482), To Mary (02514), Tosti's My Dreams and Adams's The Star of Bethlehem (02498). (The last two titles were later coupled on HMV D100). The earlier duplications were to make longer versions on 12" discs and the later ones to replace the earlier as the recording quality improved: by November 1914 all but the final four discs had been deleted from the catalogue.

On three two-sided 10" acoustic HMV records he later recorded Purcell's 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly, and Schumann's 'Frühlingsnacht' (in English) (E313); Brahms's Die Mainacht and Feldeinsamkeit (also in English) (E349); and two of the 'Elizabethan love songs' arranged by Keel, Go to bed, sweet muse, and When Laura smiles (E364).

For Pathé Records ('hill-and-dale' recordings, like Edison Disc Records) he sang duets with Louise Kirkby Lunn, including Verdi's 'Ai nostri monti' (Il trovatore) and The sailor sighs by Dibdin. Among his acoustic Columbia Records are Tom Bowling, Come into the garden, Maud, I know of two bright eyes, and I'll sing thee songs of Araby. In 1932 he was persuaded by Joe Batten (a Brother Savage) to re-make a small group of his best-known earlier recordings (six) by the electric process, including To Mary, I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby, I Know of Two Bright Eyes and Come Into The Garden, Maud.

In later years he took singing pupils, and played golf a good deal. He was a member of the Savage Club in London.