Temps in the mid-50s in January coupled with the news that 2012 was the hottest ever in the US has put us in the mood for a little summertime music. “In Summertime Down by the Sea” was sung by the successful early recording artist Dan W. Quinn in 1904, when Dreamland was brand-new and Luna Park was just one year old. “The splendid new summer song. Don’t fail to get it for your act,” said an ad in The New York Dramatic Mirror.
In summertime down by the sea
The only real place boys for me
Take a ride on a trolley get there before dark
Take your sweetheart to Dreamland or to Luna Park
In summertime down by the sea
The place where we all like to be…
The Columbia black wax cylinder record is played on a 1901 Columbia Model AB Graphophone. Both are from the collection of Victrolaman, whose 1920s recording of the Mills Brothers “Coney Island Washboard Roundelay” was previously featured on ATZ. Victrolaman’s YouTube channel features recorded sound from the 1890s up to the mid-1930s played on the original gramophones & phonographs of that era.
In Summertime Down by the Sea. The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University
Related posts on ATZ...
December 8, 2012: Sunday Matinee: Princess Rajah’s Chair Dance (1904)
February 7, 2011: Music Video: Coney Island Washboard Roundelay on Ukelele
April 17, 2010: Our Fave Coney Island Song: Joe McGinty’s Million Dollar Mermaid
December 15, 2009: Victrola Vault: Mills Brothers “Coney Island Washboard Roundelay”
Amusing the Zillion 