Stephen Carl Porter

Stephen Carl Porter (May 1863 – January 13, 1936) was an American pioneer recording artist, who recorded prolifically for numerous recording companies in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was also an entrepreneur who helped establish the recording industry in India in the early years of the twentieth century, and successfully marketed a new form of hearing aid.

Biography Steve Porter was born in Buffalo in May 1863. In the 1890s he performed as a baritone singer in vaudeville, as a member of the Diamond Comedy Four with Albert Campbell, Jim Reynard, and Billy Jones, who worked as song pluggers in "Tin Pan Alley" for the music publishers Joe Stern and Edward B. Marks. Porter first recorded with the Diamond Comedy Four and Diamond Quartet for Stern and Marks' Universal Phonograph Company in early 1897. In later 1897 he began recording for Berliner Gramophone with the Diamond Comedy Four and Diamond Four, and solo, and for the Columbia Phonograph Company with the Greater New York Quartet (with Harding, Spencer and Depew) and solo. His solo recordings of "On the Banks of the Wabash", "She Was More to Be Pitied Than Censured" (1898), "A Picture No Artist Can Paint" (1899), "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" (1900), and "The Little Brown Jug" (1900) sold well.

After his return, he recorded as one member of the Columbia Male Quartet, known after 1906 as the Peerless Quartet, who originally also included tenors Henry Burr and Albert Campbell, and bass Tom Daniels. Porter remained with the quartet until 1909.

After 1909, Porter recorded mainly as a member of the American Quartet, with Billy Murray, John Bieling, and William F. Hooley. Their most successful recordings included "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (1911), "Moonlight Bay" (1912), "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" (1914), and "Over There" (1917).

Porter left the American Quartet in 1919, The Port-O-Phone Corporation suffered a near-collapse in the Wall Street crash of 1929, and was wound up a few years later as its models were superseded by new technology.