George J. Gaskin (1863–1920) was an Irish Tenor based in the United States.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, he became one of the most popular singers the United States in the 1890s and was nicknamed the "Silver Voiced Irish Tenor". His earliest known recordings were done for the Edison North American Phonograph Company on June 2, 1891. Some sources report that Gaskin may have been only the second vocalist to make commercial records for Edison (the first may have been African American whistler and singer George W. Johnson, recorded just one day earlier, on June 1). Some of his songs included "Drill ye Tarriers Drill" (1891)"After the Ball" (1893), "Sweet Rosie O'Grady" (1897), "On the Banks of the Wabash" (1897), "My Old New Hampshire Home" (1898), and "When You Were Sweet Sixteen" (1900).

Some of his recordings that are known to still exist are:

Emile Berliner or Emil Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for developing the disc record gramophone (phonograph in American English). He founded The Berliner Gramophone Company in 1895, The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897, Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898 and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899 (chartered in 1904).

Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. He completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition. While his real hobby was invention, he worked as an accountant to make ends meet. To avoid being drafted for the Franco-Prussian War, Berliner migrated to the United States of America in 1870 with a friend of his father's, in whose shop he worked in Washington, D.C.. He moved to New York and, living off temporary work, such as doing the paper route and cleaning bottles, he studied physics at night at the Cooper Union Institute. After some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter (one of the first type of microphones). The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, see The Telephone Cases. But on February 27, 1901 the United States Court of Appeal declared the patent void. Berliner subsequently moved to Boston in 1877 and worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher. Emile Berliner became a United States citizen in 1881.

John Scantlebury Macdonald (May 30, 1871–September 26, 1931) was a Canadian singer and recording executive. Under the pseudonym Harry Macdonough, he was one of the most prolific and popular tenors during the formative years of recorded music.

Macdonald was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. His earliest recorded performances were for the Michigan Electric Company in Detroit, which made phonograph cylinders for penny arcades. He caught the attention of Edison Records with a demo recording he made in October 1898, and began recording for Edison in The Haydn Quartet. From 1899 until his retirement in 1920, he recorded hundreds of songs both as a soloist and in ensembles.

During the 1900s Macdonald took a job with the Victor Talking Machine Company, becoming assistant manager and later manager of its New York studio. As studio manager he oversaw the studio schedule, as well as negotiating contracts with artists and music publishers. Macdonald rose rapidly at Victor, becoming its national sales manager in 1920 and manager of artists and repertoire in 1923. He moved to Columbia Records in 1925 and oversaw the technical development of its studios until his death.