East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-11-21
HE SINGS TO BEAT THE BAND.

land today for a whole long year, says |
the Telegram. He leaves for Phoenix. |
Ariz., and not until next summer will |
he return to Portland, which he de-
clares is the greatest spot in the world |
outside of old Ireland itself.
OF course you know Bert Morphy. |
There is but one Morphy-not Muir |
phy-and he is the Man who sings
to beat the band" All Portland
knows him, and he is as we'll known
from one part of the country to the
other.
Morphy has what is believed to be
the strongest voice in the world. yet
there have been times years ago when
it looked very much as though he
would have to forget that he was a
singer and get in and do hard work to
Keep body and soul together. He has
been in the business 16 years. but now
1t is common thing for him to enter
into $500 per week contracts. and
sometimes even more.
The greatest trouble he has had in
his business has been to make people
who have not heard him believe that
he can sing to a brass band accom-
paniment. While he was at The oaks
this summer the Portland newspapers
were full of articles of the great hits
he made. But despite this people
could not believe what they read until
they heard him with their own ears.
Boise City, Idaho, planned a big fair
and wanted star attraction. The
committee heard of Morphy, but sent
several men to hear him sing with a
brass band before they would engage
him, and he went there with a fat
contract after the close of The Oaks.
Phoenix sent a man to Boise to hear
him. and he obtained another big
contract 1t is exceedingly hard for
him to get an engagement at a place
where he has not appeared, and it is
common thing for committees to be
dispatched long distances to hear
him sing.
Il can write bushels of letters and
send press notices galore to managers
and if they have never heard me war;
Bile, or rather yell, they will not be-
lieve that | can sing with a band"
laughed Morphy yesterday at the Ho-
tel Portland. "Once they hear me
tear off a few, notes when a band is
playing its loudest the contract is as
good as signed.
when | made a tour of England
l came near starving to death before
| could secure an engagement
made quite name for myself I'm the
United States, and then thought
could invade our European cousins.
landed in London with a trunkfull of
press notices, and Immediately sought
out the music hall managers. l told
them what l could do and they laugh
ed at me. They thought | was either
a fool joker or a candidate for the
daffy-house. For weeks l hung around
| those managers, and they began to
look upon me as a village pest. The
claim that l could sing and be plainly
| heard with the largest band in Eng
land they regarded as absolutely alb
surd.
"In sheer desperation l decided to
hire a band of my own and show
them. I engaged a band of about 60
pieces, hired hall and then made a
| hustle for the managers. Many Of
them attended because they thought
If they saw me make a fool of myself
that the village pest would bother
them no more. Well, l made good,
and at the conclusion of the concert
| had more offers than l could ham
die"
Morphy Is virtually ostracized from
| the theaters or vaudeville houses.
| Several times he tried to appear in
vaudeville, but got fired. In nearly
all vaudeville programs from three to
| four of the acts are singers. Morphy
sang so loud that when he was fol-
| lowed by some average vocalist the
voice of the latter sounded like the
buzz of a mosquito. The other musi-
cal acts dwindled into insignificance
and the complaint raised by the other
performers was Of sufficient volume
to cause the managers to fire Morphy
Once Morphy tried to break into
grand opera. His powerful voice
with it's wonderfully penetrating quail
tiles, drove the other members of the
troupe into distraction and they wen
on strike. As result Morphy wal
turned out. So he took to singing
with brass bands, and now he makes
a small-siZed fortune every year. HI
makes more than many of the famous
grand opera singers and has no as
pirations now for grand opera O
vaudeville.
Morphy does not claim to be d.
Rezke or a musical prodigy, but h
says he Is musical freak, and wha
!. is more that he is proud Of it. HI
voice Is natural and has never beei
cultivated He admits that It ha
s many rough spots in 1t which could b
detected by critics were he to appea
in opera, but that when singing will
! band they cannot be detected. II
has a wonderful articulation, and n
s matter how big the band when singin
!, every word he utters can be hear
very distinctly. He hurls out the syl
lables like a shot from cannon, an
it is said no band has ever been abb
1 to drown his voice.
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A negro restaurant at Dresden