Claude Reese Isaacs

treble boy soprano

Claude Reese Isaacs (Claude Isaacs), boy soprano, tenor, composer & teacher, was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA and studied music as a child in Scranton, Pa. As a boy soprano he made concert tours of the eastern US and cut two cylinders for Edison in February 1917 and made a two-sided 78rpm disc for Victor the following month of the same items, at the age of 15 3/4. It is said that the tenor Enrico Caruso praised him as the finest boy soprano he had ever heard.

Claude studied law at Syracuse University and went to New York to live in 1922. With the Greenwich Village Follies he toured from New York to Florida. He was on the staff of CBS for 18 years as a tenor soloist and a member of Lynn Murray's Clubmen Quartet. He also composed at least 15 popular songs, including All Dressed Up With a Broken Heart and Give My Heart a Pat on the Back, written under his professional name of Claude Reese.

Later he taught voice and was an adviser to many singers. He died in New York on 11 Sept. 1953, aged 52, after three years of illness.

The Edison Blue Amberol recordings listed below were approx. 2-inch diameter phonograph cylinders, cut at 200 groves per inch and played at 160 rpm, with a duration of about 4 minutes. (Details are based in part on A. Sutton's Edison Blue Amberol Records. A Discography (1912-1929). [2005])
BJP

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Discography

Comin' Thro' the Rye / Sing! Sing! Birds on the Wing (June 1917)
US Victor 18274 (10-inch), 78 RPM
Boy soprano, Claude (Reese) Isaacs
Side A: Comin' Thro' the Rye (trad. Scotch ballad) (matrix 19506-2)
Side B: Sing! Sing! Birds on the Wing (song, 1911: wds Leslie Cooke - music Godfrey Nutting) (19507-1)
Both rec. 23 March 1917.

Sing! Sing! Birds on the Wing (November 1917)

Edison Blue Amberol 3312, 78 RPM
Boy soprano, Claude (Reese) Isaacs
Sing! Sing! Birds on the Wing (song, 1911: wds Leslie Cooke - music Godfrey Nutting)
Rec. in New York, Feb. 1917 on disc matrix 5371 (no Edison disc issue) and transferred to cylinder.
With orchestral accompaniment.
Side A - Sing! Sing! Birds on the Wing (Nutting)

Comin' Thro' the Rye (January 1918)
Edison Blue Amberol 3384, 78 RPM
Boy soprano, Claude (Reese) Isaacs
Rec. in New York, Feb. 1917 on disc matrix 5370 (no Edison disc issue) and transferred to cylinder.
With orchestral accompaniment.
Side A - Comin' Thro' the Rye (trad. Scotch ballad)

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