Henry Burr - Early Radio

Early Radio

Burr performed live on the radio while broadcasting technology was still in its infancy. He made his first appearance in 1920 in Denver, Colorado using a microphone improvised from a wooden bowl with an inverted telephone transmitter. The broadcast was heard as far west as San Francisco. Burr is also credited with making the first transcontinental 'broadcast' by singing into the telephone in New York and being heard by diners wearing headphones at a Rotary dinner in California. Also in 1920, he signed an exclusive contract with Victor that lasted seven years. A lucrative contract, it made him (for a time) a wealthy man.

By the late 1920s, his recording career was over – electrical recording technologies had led to the crooner style of tenor first exemplified in the singing of Gene Austin and Al Bowlly – but the commercial potential of radio continued to interest Burr. As a result, he became involved in early radio programming, forming Henry Burr, Inc. in 1928 as a producer of radio programming. He produced numerous programs for commercial radio networks into the 1930s. He originated the Cities Service broadcast, which he produced for two years.

In October 1929, he reportedly lost a substantial portion of his wealth in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Within a month, however, he was appointed Director of the Artist's Bureau at CBS which had just been organized under the ownership of William S. Paley.

Around 1935, he returned to performing on the radio as a member of the WLS Chicago National Barn Dance troupe, which was broadcast over NBC on Saturday evenings. He soon became a featured performer on the show, which he stayed with for five years until shortly before his death. He suffered from throat cancer and died in Chicago on April 6, 1941. Buried near his stepdaughter Marguarite in Mount Vernon, New York, where he had lived, he was survived by his wife, Cecilia.