Peerless Quartet

Originally assembled in the closing years of the nineteenth century to cut cylinders for what would become Columbia Records, the ensemble debuted under the name Columbia Quartet, a designation that sometimes appeared as Columbia Quartette or Columbia Male Quartet. Its first roster listed first tenor Albert Campbell, second tenor James Kent Reynard, baritone Joe Belmont, and bass Joe Majors. Lineup shifts soon followed as George J. Gaskin briefly took Reynard’s place before Henry Burr assumed the second-tenor role, while Tom Daniels filled the bass chair until Frank C. Stanley succeeded him; Arthur Collins and Bob Roberts also contributed to early Columbia and Peerless sessions. By the middle of the 1900s the personnel had stabilized around Campbell on first tenor, Burr on second tenor, Steve Porter as baritone, and Stanley on bass. The quartet produced numerous popular discs for Columbia and subsequently recorded for Edison and Victor as well. Because the singers operated as freelancers, they adopted the name Peerless for those outside engagements, a designation Columbia itself later applied; the same company further identified the group as the Climax Quartette on a subsidiary imprint. The Climax Quartette appellation was simultaneously employed by a separate ensemble—the Haydn Quartet, whose members were John H. Bieling, Harry Macdonough, S.H. Dudley, and William F. Hooley—when it recorded for Victor, while that same foursome appeared on Edison releases as the Edison Male Quartet. Beyond its own discs, the Columbia/Peerless aggregation supplied backing vocals for artists including George H. O’Connor on “Down Where The Sweet Potatoes Grow” and Irving Kaufman on “Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here.” Its own catalog encompassed such titles as “That Raggedy Rag,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “My Creole Sue.”