Honest, that was it!
"'I always study these manuscripts of the masters conscientiously before
I play them,' says he.
"Such is Wilbur. Such he will ever be. So I introduced him to Nettie and
asked if he had this here song on a phonograph record. He had. He had it
on two records. 'One by a barytone gentleman, and one by a
mezzo-soprano,' says Wilbur. I set myself back for both. He also had it
with variations on one of these punched rolls. He played that for us. It
took him three minutes to get set right at the piano and to dust his
fingers with a white silk handkerchief which he wore up his sleeve. And
he played with great expression and agony and bending exercises, ever
and anon tossing back his rebellious locks and fixing us with a look of
pained ecstasy. Of course it sounded better than the banjo, but you got
to have the voice with that song if you're meaning to do any crooked
work. Nettie was much taken with it even so, and Wilbur played it
another way. What he said was that it was another school of
interpretation. It seemed to have its points with him, though he
favoured the first school, he said, because of a certain almost rugged
fidelity.
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