Byron Harlan

Along with Madiera, Harlan became one of the brief-existing Big Four with Arthur Collins and Joseph Natus in 1901. The Big Four Quartet issued 'Good-Bye Dolly Gray' (Edison 7728), 'My Charcoal Charmer' (Edison 7765), 'There's Where My Heart Is To-night' (Edison 7766) and 'Old Sailor's Return' (Edison 7767) before Collins and Harlan began to release titles as a super duo with nearly ninety titles reaching the Top Ten on the charts from 'The Wedding of Reuben and the Maid' at #2 in 8/1902 to 'When Uncle Joe Steps into France' at #9 in 11/1918. Eight of those were chart-topping songs at #1:

   Down Where the Wurzburger Flows
      12/1902
   Hurrah for Baffin's Bay
      9/1903
   Camp Meetin' Time
      12/1906
   The Right Church But the Wrong Pew
      2/1909
   Under the Yum Yum Tree
      2/1911
   Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey
      3/1911
   Alexander's Ragtime Band
      9/1911
   When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'
      1/1913

Harlan had also recorded numerous duets with Joseph Belmont from 1902 to as late as 1917 [DAHR]. Belmont was a baritone who came to be known as the Human Bird for his whistling. Belmont didn't light the charts on fire as a bird impressionist, but his collaboration with Harlan on 'The Birds' had reached #4 in November of 1902 per Columbia 927 [Music VF]:

Others with whom Harlan recorded include Steve Porter and Aileen Stanley, both, for instance, for Edison in 1913, the year before the 'The Big Four 1914' got engraved on rings made by a square of Chicago debutantes which called itself the Big Four. The fame of this group of wealthy girls would largely have ceased with the Society pages in the newspapers of the time but for association with F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the Great Gatsby' in 1926. Harlan had nothing to do with the Big Four debutantes, their name merely coincidental to the earlier Big Four Quartet. But it leads to the curious aside that are debutantes and the Debutante Ball. The practice of formally presenting a daughter to society was probably begun in 17th century France to encourage success in marriage and noble circles. It was practiced by the aristocracies of France and England until wealthy families assumed the custom in the 19th century, the United States beginning to challenge the notion of landed wealth through invention, industry and capitalism. Society pages in newspapers had begun to appear about 1835 ('New York Herald'). Excepting Australia, debutante balls have become rare occasions. Queen Elizabeth II had them dumped in 1958. Closely related to debutantes and their balls is the cotillion, a French country dance of the nobility beginning in the early 18th century, occasioned toward the practice of proper etiquette by up and coming youth of both sexes.

Discogs has Harlan issuing a couple of comedy monologues as late as 1923 on Gennett ‎5204 called 'Uncle Josh in the Cafeteria' b/w 'Uncle Josh at a Circus'. The Uncle Josh character had been created by Cal Stewart for performing at circuses and on vaudeville prior to beginning to record the adventures of Josh for Edison Records in 1897. Sears & Roebuck had been founded twenty-five years earlier in 1872, becoming a huge mail order operation by the turn of the century and the golden years of ragtime. Since Sears didn't open its first retail store until 1925 it sold its Silvertone products by mail order, including its Silvertone phonograph in 1915 and Silvertone Records the next year. Its Supertone label of 1924 was pressed by Fletcher, then Bridgeport Die & Machine. Supertones thereafter were pressed by various companies, not for Sears, but Straus & Schram, until Sears reclaimed the name in 1928 for pressing by Gennett until 1930.

The 'Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound' edited by Frank Hoffmann (Routledge 2005) has Harlan recording unidentified titles to as late as 1924. From there he disappears from view until his death on 11 Sep 1936.

Wikipedia (the cotillion succeeded by the quadrille and square dance)

Wikipedia (the debutante)