Bell Records

This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re taking a lighthearted look at the Bell record label — a 1920s New Jersey budget label that rarely recorded anything itself. It bought recordings from other companies and printed whatever name it liked on them. So we’re playing detective with three Bell records, newest to oldest, asking one question: who’s really playing? First, “Doodle Doo Doo,” the 1924 nonsense-song hit, credited to the “Orpheum Melody Masters” — a band that, a century later, nobody can identify. Then “Dancing Fool,” by the “Moulin Rouge Orchestra,” which turns out to be Ben Selvin in disguise — the man credited with recording more 78s than anyone in history. And finally, “Profiteering Blues,” Billy Murray’s 1920 lament about landlords who take your raise before you can spend it, with no disguise at all. A mystery band, a superstar in a fake mustache, and the real thing, all on the same cheap label.