Into the Groove by Jonathan Scott

Author:Jonathan Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472979803
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

Nipper was a dog from Bristol. Born in 1884, he was probably a mix between a Smooth Fox Terrier or Jack Russell Terrier. His owner was a scenery designer named Mark Henry Barraud. After Mark died, the pet ended up with Mark’s widow in Kingston upon Thames. In 1898, three years after the dog too had shuffled off, Mark’s brother Francis painted a picture of Nipper with a slightly cocked head, listening intently to a cylinder. The popular myth was that the painting was inspired by an actual event, with Nipper listening to the recorded voice of his departed master. While this part of the story is untrue, it’s perfectly possible that the image was inspired by the creature’s genuine interest in and confusion caused by noises emanating from a phonograph.

In late May 1899, Barraud took what would become known as ‘His Master’s Voice’ to the offices of the Gramophone Company in London. In the original painting, the horn was black. The artist wished to borrow a brass horn, so he could repaint and brighten up. It seems likely that he was also there in the hope that what was about to happen would happen. William Barry Owen loved the painting so much that he offered to buy it, on condition the artist replace the Edison cylinder machine used in the original with a disc gramophone.

Gramophone discs from this period were pressed with what is known to collectors as the ‘Recording Angel’ logo. Owen had no thought of turning ‘His Master’s Voice’ into a logo or emblem; it was just an arresting image that he liked. Nevertheless, it was used on a company catalogue in December 1899, and while it’s not entirely clear if it was Berliner or Johnson who first brought the image across to use in America, it was certainly Johnson who was instrumental in adopting it as a trademark for Victor. Barraud was suddenly busy with commissions for new copies for various corporate uses. Thousands of prints were produced in the UK, sold to dealers for 2s 6d, and soon Nipper and the slogan were fronting American-made discs and players.

In the earliest known version of the painting, Nipper is sitting on a highly polished piano-black surface, with clearly defined edges. Over the years, the painting and logo would be adapted, cropped and stylised, losing the reflected image of the dog and record player, and any hint of a defined surface; one urban myth has it that in the original, this polished surface was intended to depict a coffin – and in fact the coffin of the dog’s master. As HMV became one of the most widely recognised and popular brands, it only fuelled a fascination with the macabre story, which was then endlessly repeated, refuted and unpicked. Whether it was originally intended to be a coffin is a moot point. It’s certainly true that a dog sat on a coffin listening to its dead master’s voice is perfectly in line with lots of other gloomy Victoriana of the day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.