James McCool - The Face in the Firelight (1904)

"The Face in the Firelight" is sung by James J. McCool.

Victor 2732

1904

Charles Shackford song

James Joseph McCool was born in 1875, probably in Ireland. During his adult years he lived in Philadelphia.

The death of the tenor was reported in a Philadelphia newspaper on June 12, 1936.

This tenor made brown wax cylinders around 1900; one black wax Edison cylinder in 1902 ("Just Next Door," 8079); discs for Victor, beginning on March 30, 1904, with "The Face in the Firelight" (2732); a Columbia disc in 1905 (Weaver's "Farewell, Soldier Boy" on 3191); and two U.S. Everlasting cylinders (1181 and 1182).

His Victor discs sold moderately well and are easier to find today than his cylinders.

Irish songs that he had recorded for Victor in 1904-05 were reissued on double-sided Victor discs, including his versions of Moore's "The Minstrel Boy" (16139) and "The Low Back'd Car" (16100).

After more than a dozen years of having no sessions, he returned to the Victor studio on March 10, 1919, for new takes of old numbers that had remained in the catalog.

Jim Walsh reports in the September 1973 issue of Hobbies that McCool got his start in Philadelphia with a minstrel company led by Frank Dumont, composer of "Bake Dat Chicken Pie."

McCool was in a vaudeville show titled The Yellow Kid. It was produced by Dumont's company.