Sold Date: April 23, 2024
Start Date: April 13, 2024
Final Price: $480.00 (USD)
Bid Count: 2
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   Piano – Cosmé McMoon
    Vocals – Florence Foster Jenkins

A  Adele's Laughing Song Composed By – Strauss
BBiassy Lyrics By [Words By] – Pushkin
 
Side A: From "Fledermaus"
Side B: Based on Prelude XVI by Johann Sebastian Bach
Florence Jenkins was a society matron during the 1920s who had always
wanted an opera career, but her husband emphatically forbade it (He probably
knew she hadn't a hope in Hell). 
 After he died, she was a rich widow and rented Carnegie Hall to give a few concerts - she was well into her
sixties at this point. If she ever could sing, she certainly couldn't at this
point in her life, and New Yorkers flocked to her performances just to get in on the
laughs. 
   Nobody is quite certain whether she was actually serious or just
playing a huge joke on the audiences. The real hero of these things was her
accompanist, piano player Cosme McMoon, who would seamlessly slip into whatever key Mme.
Jenkins found herself in.
 There are many, many anecdotes about this lady. Here
is just one: One of her encores used to be the Habanera from Carmen, during
which she would fling flowers into the audience from a basket held over her
arm. When the audience insisted on a repeat, she would walk through the aisles
collecting the flowers she had thrown so that she could do the whole thing all over again. 
 An absolute national treasure!

As far as we know, Jenkins made only 6 records and all were accompanied by Cosme McMoon. These were privately produced by the Melotone Recording Studio ("Your portrait in sound"). The number of copies pressed is unknown but was certainly very limited since these were primarily made for Mme. Jenkins to give as Christmas gifts to members of her club (The Verdi Club). 
They became so popular that Mme. Jenkins sold some of them to the general public. They were not generally available in stores, aside perhaps from the Gramophone Store in NYC, which described one of the recordings as “a most unusual record which must be heard to be believed”. 
A very succinct description.