One of the more coveted phonograph records made in the comparative earlier days of recording was the "Graham-Paige Legion March." ¹ Almost immediately, the song was added by the Graham-Paige Motors Corp., for the promotion of their automobiles, which would sell more than 70,000 units that first year of production. ² The significance of this widely sought after record cannot be underestimated surrounding contemporary advertising promotion of the time.

But at this point, perhaps a bit of backtracking is in order.

At the turn of the century, recording had come into its own both by disc and cylinder. Anybody who was anybody enjoyed an evening of listening to records played on Victor, Columbia, and Edison machines in their front rooms, frequently termed as "parlors." And one of the popular songs of the time—"In My Merry Oldsmobile"—was recorded by several record companies irrespective of a brand name in those dear dead days of impunity. ³ The tune was appealing, its words attractive and, in those days, suggestive with such lines as "you may go as far as you like with me in my merry Oldsmobile." Among courting swains, that was a real knee-slapper. The Olds Motor Works was swift to see the advertising potential and had the Columbia Gramaphone Company run off several thousand records of the song for distribution to their dealers. Oldsmobile recognized that every one of the commercially-sold versions of the song were tantamount to having a salesman in the parlor! The recordings made to order for factory consumption carried Columbia's "personal" label.

But it was to the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, N.J., to which the Graham-Paige promotion boys headed for their record. It was Victor's "Special Record" series that would record the "Graham-Paige Legion March" on which, curiously, the word "Legion" was omitted on its label. ⁴

The libretto of the march was by an Earl C. Donegan and the music by Arthor Pryor, a composer and, according to one source, "the most acclaimed trombonist of all time." ⁵ Pryor, in addition to his own orchestra and as an arranger for Sousa's band, is possibly most renowned for his novelty orchestral piece "The Whistler and His Dog."

The "Graham-Paige March" featured a male quartet accompanied by the "Victor" orchestra. The conductor doesn't appear on the label itself, but was most assuredly Nathaniel Shilkret, a musical director for the Camden company as well as its house conductor and a superb musician in his own right.

The march record would be used at all gatherings of the Graham-Paige Legion and probably at the company's board meetings now and then. Early on, supplies of the records were went to Graham-Paige dealers for distribution to potential customers.

Surprisingly, there are two thoughts I've heard over the years. First of which concerns the great rarity, as survivors appear to be few to any record collectors of my acquaintance, and I've been studying the subject and collecting records for well over 60 years.

Second, I wonder why more automobile makers didn't use this method for promotion. I once had a 6-inch record advertising the 1952 Chevrolet and the Olds Motor Division of GM issued a two-record set—also on Victor's "Special Record" series—promoting the Viking car, which was debuted in 1929 to fit between the largest Buicks and the LaSalle (thanks to the stock market crash, Viking threw in the towel with fewer than 7,500 cars in 1930). It was addressed by E.J. McMullen of the Olds Division, but the record laid an egg. It was bereft of any appeal whatsoever, something the "Graham-Paige March" afforded any listener.

From a historical approach, this promotional appeal by record isn't, perhaps, of any importance. On the other hand, because of that very fact, it has (to this writer's knowledge) never been accurately chronicled. To paraphrase the late George and Ira Gershwin, "the Graham was small but Oh, My!..." ⁶