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William Thomas “Billy“ Murray (1877 - 1954) was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of immigrants from Ireland. He became fascinated with the theater and joined a traveling vaudeville troupe in 1893. He also performed in minstrel shows early in his career. He made his first recordings for a local phonograph cylinder company in San Francisco, California in 1897. He started recording regularly in the New York City and New Jersey area in 1903, when the nation's major record companies as well as the Tin Pan Alley music industry were concentrated there. He was probably the best selling recording artist of the first quarter of the 20th century. In 1906 he started performing in duets with Ada Jones. He had a strong tenor voice with excellent enunciation and a more conversational delivery than bel canto singers of the era. On comic songs he, therefore, often sang slightly flat, which he felt helped the comic effect. As a devoted baseball fan, he is said to have played with the New York Highlanders (Yankees) in exhibition games. He was also said to have sometimes called in sick to recording sessions in order to go to the ballpark. Ironically, he never recorded baseball's “anthem“ “Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Murray's popularity faded with changes in public taste and recording technology; the rise of the electric microphone in the mid 1920s coincided with the rise of the crooners. His “hammering“ style, as he called it, essentially yelling the song into the recording horn, did not work in the electronic era, and it took him some time to learn how to soften his voice. While he continued to work, his singing style was considered old fashioned and less in demand. Murray made his last recordings in 1943 and retired to Freeport, Long Island, New York in 1944. He died in nearby Jones Beach.
