- I have decided to try and start each new week off on a positive high note. But being a glass half empty kind of guy I suspect things will turn into crap soon enough.
Richard J. Jose (June 5, 1862 – October 20, 1941) was an American countertenor, popular during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Richard Jose was born in Lanner, Cornwall in 1862. Following the death of his father in 1876, he immigrated to Nevada in search of his uncle.
He sang in saloons for charity, and in 1881 with Thatcher's Minstrels. In 1884, he joined a minstrel troupe in California, and later appeared in New York City. In 1896, Jose married Therese Shreve.
In 1887, he won a gold medal from the Academy of Music (New York City). He made phonograph cylinders as early as 1892 for the New England branch of the North American Phonograph Company.
Between October 27, 1903 and 1906, he recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company, and his version of "Silver Threads Among the Gold" was a hit. In 1905 and 1906, he toured with his own minstrel show, and in 1906, was injured when a stage curtain fell on him.
Around 1915, the K & R Film Company, named after owners Pierce Kingsley and R.R. Roberts, made a six reel film with Jose titled "Silver Threads Among the Gold." In an unusual gimmick during the age of silent pictures, the singer stood in the wings of theaters that showed the film and sang along to match the motion of lips on the screen.
Along with the title song, Jose sang "Every Night a Prayer is Said" and "Where Is My Wandering Boy?" This was the company's first film and, on June 5, 1915, it was the first to be shown at Madison Square Gardens as a motion picture theater. The singer's voice must have been powerful to fill this hall.
No copy of the movie is known to exist.
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