All posts by ImagesMusicales

History, Illustrators, Science, Industry & Transport, Sheet Music Covers

Say Cheese !

3 Comments
lawachkyrie
‘La Wachkyrie‘, a fox trot composed and published by Clapson in 1919, illustration: Benjamin Rabier

Benjamin Rabier’s drawing of a jovial cow on this cover inspired French cheesemaker Léon Bel for trademarking his cheese La vache qui rit shortly after the First World War. In Europe La vache qui rit (the laughing cow) was and still is a popular brand of industrial soft, molten cheese.

leon bel
Léon Bel’s shop in Lons-le-Saunier in the French Jura

Benjamin Rabier (1864-1939) is an illustrator and comic book artist, famous for his animal caricatures. He originally drew the head of the laughing cow as an insignia for the Service Automobile of the French army (see our previous post WWI insignia decorating sheet music for other examples). The laughing cow, nicknamed La Wachkyrie, was painted on the sides of trucks and converted buses of the  RVF B.70 section. That section was part of the massive Ravitaillement en Viande Fraîche, in order to supply fresh meat to the troops near the war front at Verdun. It was later, when Clapson published his song in 1919, that Rabier’s drawing appeared on it’s cover.

original.48086
Insignia La Wachkyrie for the RVF section of the French Automobile Service during WWI

The nickname La Wachkyrie, which reads in French as la vache qui rit, intended to poke fun at the Germans’ mythical Valkyries of Norse legend who were supposed to lead the German warriors to victory.

fe_00110 bright
Parisian bus from section RVF B70 with the Wachkyrie painted on the canvas.

Léon Bel himself had served in the RVF B.70 section. And just like every other soldier of this section he had received a free copy of the song La Wachkyrie from the publisher Clapson. Maybe having the sheet music at home triggered Léon Bel’s idea to use the same name and illustration to launch his new brand of molten cheese. Léon Bel’s first attempt at drawing a laughing cow himself was not very successful. It shows an uninspired, rather bored-looking cow behind a fence. Luckily Léon Bel contacted Benjamin Rabier to fine-tune the logo. He succeeded in creating a more cheerful, very feminine red cow wearing cheese box earrings.

On the left, the cheese box as originally illustrated by Léon Bel. Right, the complete design makeover by Benjamin Rabier.
On the left, the cheese box as originally illustrated by Léon Bel. Right, the complete design makeover by Benjamin Rabier.

Some time later Bel wrapped the round cheese in 8 individual small triangle portions and a success story was born.

ancienne-boiteAnd now here is the true reason for this post: 77 seconds of the French spoken 1950 commercial for La Vache qui rit and the cook’s astonishing imitation of a laughing cow!

Ironically and by accident, the drawing of La Vache qui rit was used in the Second World War as the insignia for a German U-boat. The story goes like this. The German submarine ace Günther Prien was killed in action in 1941. To commemorate him Jost Metzler, another captain, instructed his crew to use the same insignia as that of the late captain Prien’s U-boat. Unfortunately he forgot to add a sketch of that insignia, that is to say a snorting bull.

bf58549c-da46-11e3-8f20-519b40659d2d_3310505--646x800
Captain Günther Prien’s personal insignia, a snorting bull

At the submarine base in Lorient in Brittany, a crew member copied the first drawing of a cow he could lay his hands on: a package of popular French cheese. Our occasional artist copied it with such a German gründlichkeit that he even transcribed the words La vache qui rit on the submarine’s hull.

A crew member painting La Vache qui rit on the U-69.

This artistic faux pas led to great amusement and ridicule. While captain Prien was nicknamed The Bull of Scapa Flow, Captain Metzler became known as The Laughing Cow of Lorient. But Captain Metzler, clearly not a narrow-minded man, saw the fun of it all. And when he wrote his memoirs in 1954 he titled his book Die Lachende Kuh, or The Laughing Cow.

boek metzler 2

History, Publishers, Sheet Music Covers

WWI Insignia Decorating Sheet Music

1 Comment
lecafard
Cover with the emblem of section TM 499 responsible for transporting material during WW1 in France. ‘Le Cafard‘, a tango by Paul Fauchey, published by Clapson in 1919 – Illustration attributed to Benjamin Rabier.

We recently found the historical explanation for an unusual series of sheet music covers that we have been collecting for years.

At the outbreak of the First World War the French army requisitioned private cars, commercial vans and trucks, taxis and all Parisian buses and their drivers. The military Service Automobile started with only a few dozen cars in 1914, and counted almost one hundred thousand (!) vehicles at the time of the armistice. It transported soldiers and provided the army with food and munitions. The Service Automobile was divided in sections, each with a specific task. The more than thousand Parisian buses of the RVF (Ravitaillement en Viande Fraiche) carried fresh meat to the war zone. The seats were taken out of the buses and meat racks were installed. The windows were replaced by canvasses. There was no refrigeration. A single bus could contain the meat for a whole regiment of about three thousand men.

rvfbus
Parisian De Dion Bouton bus transformed for the RVF section responsible for the transportation of fresh meat.
00319
Bus transporting meat to the front during WWI

Other sections were charged with the transport of the wounded (the Sanitary Sections or SS), ammunition for the artillery (SMA), material (TM), or staff (TP). Every section was identified by it’s initials and a number, for example TM 670. Because this wasn’t easy to communicate, one soon began to use nicknames to indicate certain sections. For example ‘the lady bug’ or ‘the polar bear’. And in 1916, although against regulations, the sections began to paint their symbol in vivid colours on their trucks in order to be easily recognised. The inspiration for these nicknames and insignia was limitless: animals, soldiers, nurses, playing cards, geometric shapes, daily life, …

section-auto
Examples of insignia from the Automobile Section (from l’Album de la Guerre 1914-1919 – L’Illustration 1927)
1zcffjk
Insignia of a dragon on the canvas of a truck of the TM section.

Shortly after the war, 155 of these insignia were exhibited in Paris in honour of the Service Automobile and sold for charity. At the same time the Parisian composer and publisher Clapson edited a series of musical compositions (at least 35) on cheap post-war paper in remembrance of the Service Automobile. Each cover was illustrated with the emblem of one of the famous sections. The music was performed in the renowned Parisian venues such as the Casino de Paris, l’Olympia or Les Folies Bergère.

Singe_photos
Left, press photos of 4 insignia of the exposition in 1919 (source: Bibliothèque nationale de France). Right, the 1919 ‘Le Singe à l’huile‘ sheet music cover published by Clapson, and illustrated by Benjamin Rabier.

Two symbols in the press photo above, the ape and the cow, were drawn by Benjamin Rabier and were later used by Clapson to illustrate his sheet music. The head of the ape (the insignia of the section RVF B20) adorned the cover for the music of Le Singe à l’huile or Bully Beef. Tinned corned beef or bully beef was – and still sometimes is – translated in French as singe (singe being the French word for ape). This must have been a joke as the RVF only transported fresh meat. In a following post we will discuss the insignia of the laughing cow’s head, nicknamed la Wachkyrie.

Souris_photos
Left, the press photos of 4 insignia of the exposition in 1919 (source: Bibliothèque nationale de France). Right, the sheet music cover for ‘La Souris Blanche‘ illustrated by M. Carvallo.

The red cross on the cover of La Souris Blanche leaves no doubt that this white mouse was the insignia for one of the sanitary sections.

Clapson-insignes-tableau2
Covers illustrated by P. Garnier, de Scevola, Fetaz, Benjamin Rabier, Circa, Roubille and E.S. 1919-1920

On the left side of the second row in the above collage of Clapson’s songs is The Pelican. The cover was drawn by the Fench painter Guirand de Scévola. He is considered one of the inventors of military camouflage during World War I. The Pelican, a foxtrot composed by Clapson, was the biggest hit of the series. You can listen to this popular tune now, as if you were celebrating the end of The Great War at a thé dansant in the Savoy Dancing Club yourself.

Entertainment, Performers

Arabella Fields – The Black Nightingale

3 Comments
Sheet Music, photo of Arabella Fields (Partions musicales, www.imagesmusicales.be)
‘Nach Zigeuner Art!‘ music by Th. Wottitz, published by Josef Blaha in Vienna, 1910 – Photo of Arabella Fields.

Arabella (or Belle) Fields was an early Afro-American performer in Europe. From the 1890s to the 1920s she toured as The Black Nightingale. She was born in Philadelphia but added to her mystique by presenting herself alternately as an African, Red Indian, Indian, American, South American, German-African or an Australian. On this Austrian sheet music cover she presents herself as The Australian Nightingale. The song ‘Nach Zigeuner Art’ (In Gypsy Style) was her greatest success.

arabella

Arabella Fields, an exotic sight to her German audience, was also known to perform as the South-American Caruso. She had a beautiful contralto singing voice and was recorded prior to the First World War in Berlin. Max Chop, a contemporary music critic, described her voice like this: ‘On top of this month’s record list is a vocal phenomenon which remains a mystery to me. I would have classified her straight away as a regular tenor with baritonal colouring, had not the label informed me that it is actually the contralto of Miss Belle Fields, a coloured lady from Philadelphia. I listened to the songs again and again. Indeed at certain times, during the piano of the falsetto towards the upper notes, I thought I heard something like a female resemblance. But then again there were the deep tones of the small octave, and then my natural response was again and again: “But it ought to be a male, after all’!’
You can decide for yourself on Arabella’s voice quality by listening to this 1907 recording of Because I love you

Arabella Fields lived in Germany. She always opened her concerts with a few English songs, soon switching to her German repertoire. This amazed and revelled her audience. Contemporary reviews make it clear that she was much admired. Perhaps this success was due to the fact that Belle Fields adapted Tyrolean folklore. She even yodelled and she dressed accordingly in a dirndl, a historical dress of Alpine peasants.

Arabella Fields
Arabella Fields in Tirolean attire.

She was not the only Afro-American artist to adapt the Tyrolean style: the Four Black Diamonds dressed up in Lederhosen or leather shorts.

The Four Black Diamonds, 1906
The Four Black Diamonds, 1906

Next to singing, Arabella Fields acted in a few silent movies and at least in one sound film, Baroud (1933). This was the first and last talkie by the renowned director Rex Ingram. Arabella Fields plays the role of Mabrouka, the heroine’s servant. As was the custom then, she was stereotyped as an overweight, sharp-tongued, black mammy (a racist stereotype featured in a previous post).