Oscar Lewis' history of San Francisco's Palace Hotel, titled Bonanza Inn, tells of an Examiner reporter late for an interview with the famous conductor Walter Damrosch because the reporter had been detained elsewhere by the beauty of Jose singing to the accompaniment of Dresser himself. Historian Charles Hamm states in Yesterdays that Jose's instinct for a hit was not perfect. Jose was with the Primrose and West Minstrels at that time. He was born in England in the Cornish village Lanner. His birth certificate, according to British researcher David Ivall, shows Jose as being born on June 5, 1862.
Various sources give later dates.
Jose's wife cites 1869 in her account of the singer's life in a 1968 edition of The Pony Express though a 1978 edition of the same corrects the year to 1862. The singer's 1941 death certificate cites 1872, off by ten years. This is a phonetic spelling and indicates how Jose is pronounced in Cornwall, where it is an ordinary name. His father, Richard Jose senior, was a copper miner who died in late 1876. Jose emigrated to Nevada in search of an uncle after the father's death.