George Edward Olsen, Sr. (March 18, 1893 - March 18, 1971) was an American band-leader. Born in Portland, Oregon, he played the drums and attended the University of Michigan, where he was drum major. Here he formed his band, George Olsen and his Music, which continued in the Portland area. He then made the cross-county transition to Broadway, appearing in Kid Boots, the Ziegfeld Follies of 1924, and Good News.

George Olsen and his Music were prolific Victor recording artists and their records are among the most numerous found by record collectors today, testifying to their original popularity. He and his orchestra were in Eddie Cantor's 1928 Broadway hit Whoopee!, and in the 1930 movie version. In the Follies George met a singer, Ethel Shutta, who sings and dances memorably in Whoopee!, and they married, appearing together in nightclubs and on radio. They had two children, George, Jr. and Charles; following a divorce, Olsen opened a restaurant in Paramus, New Jersey.^{[citation needed]}

Olsen signed with Victor in 1924 and remained as one of Victor's most popular bands through 1933 when he signed with Columbia. He stayed with Columbia through January, 1934. He recorded a single session in 1938 for Decca, and one final date for the rare Varsity label in 1940.

Gene Austin (June 24, 1900 – January 24, 1972) was an American singer and songwriter, one of the first "crooners". His 1920s compositions "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street" and "The Lonesome Road" became pop and jazz standards.

Austin was born as Lemeul Eugene Lucas in Gainesville, Texas (north of Dallas), to Nova Lucas (died 1943) and the former Serena Belle Harrell (died 1956). He took the name "Gene Austin" from his stepfather, Jim Austin, a blacksmith. Austin grew up in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, located east of Shreveport. There he learned to play piano and guitar. He ran away from home at 15 and attended a vaudeville act in Houston, Texas, where the audience was allowed to come to the stage and sing. On a dare from his friends, Austin took the stage and sang for the first time since singing as a Southern Baptist choir boy. The audience response was overwhelming, and the vaudeville company immediately offered him a billed spot on their ticket.

Austin joined the U.S. Army at the age of 17 in hopes of being dispatched to Europe to fight in World War I. He was first stationed in New Orleans, where he played the piano at night in the city's notorious vice district. His familiarity with horses from helping his stepfather in his blacksmithing business also prompted the Army to assign Austin to the cavalry and send him to Mexico with General John Pershing's Pancho Villa expedition, for which he was awarded the Mexican Service Medal. Thereafter, he served in France in the Great War.

Carson Jay Robison ((1890-08-04)August 4, 1890 - March 24, 1957(1957-03-24)) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Although his impact is generally forgotten today, he played a major role in promoting country music in its early years through numerous recordings and radio appearances. He was also known as Charles Robison and sometimes composed under the pseudonym Carlos B. McAfee.

Carson Jay Robison was born in Oswego, Kansas. The son of a champion fiddler, he became a professional musician in the American Midwest at the age of 15, primarily as a whistler working with Wendell Hall, "The Red-Headed Music Maker", on the early 1920s music hall circuit. He worked as a singer and whistler at radio station WDAF (Kansas City, Missouri).

In 1924 he moved to New York City and was signed to his first recording contract with Victor Records. Also that year, Robison started a professional collaboration with Vernon Dalhart, one of the era's most notable singers. Through this relationship, Robison realized huge success, mainly as a songwriter but also as a musician, accompanying Dalhart on guitar, harmonica, whistling, and harmony vocals. In one of their first collaborations, Robison accompanied Dalhart on the landmark recording of "Wreck of the Old '97" b/w "The Prisoner's Song" (1924), widely regarded as country music's first million-seller. During this period, Robison also became a successful composer of "event" songs, which recounted current events or tragedies in a predictable fashion, usually concluding in a moral lesson. Some popular examples of his topical compositions include "The Wreck of the Number 9" and "The John T. Scopes Trial", about the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.

Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈpaw kəˈzaɫs]; December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. His father, Carlos Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, song, violin, and organ. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. When Casals was young his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Arturo, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local traveling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.^{[citation needed]}