The Great Depression was at its worst in 1933 when Jesse Crawford was performing at the New York Paramount Theatre. Paramount employees were asked to take a cut in salary, but Crawford bridled at this suggestion. He knew he was an attraction and that part of the audience at every performance was there to hear him play the organ. He therefore refused to take a cut in pay, resigned in a huff, and departed on a hastily arranged tour of theatres in England, including the London Empire and the Paramount Theatres in Manchester, Newcastle, and Leeds. Helen Crawford, meanwhile, signed a separate contract with the New York Paramount and continued to play there alone.

Jesse arrived in England aboard the ocean liner Olympic on April 8,1933. He went immediately to London via train and was met at Waterloo Station by Major Wright, manager of the Wurlitzer Company in Great Britain, along with Reginald Foort and some of the best-known theatre organists in England at the time.

Jesse Crawford at the Emire Theatre Wurlitzer in London, 1933

Jesse Crawford appeared in London at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square on Friday, April 14, 1933, and remained there for a full month. The beautiful Empire theatre was the flagship of MGM in England. Designed by architect Thomas Lamb, it seated 3500 and cost over three million, pre-Depression American dollars. The organ was the first 4/20 Wurlitzer to be installed outside of the United States. It was on a lift that included a turntable. Crawford liked this organ and, in addition to his personal appearance there, he made several recordings of the instrument on the HMV label and did one broadcast for the BBC.

Crawford's broadcast was the first occasion on which the Empire Wurlitzer was ever heard on radio. It was a 15-minute show, aired at 10:20 p.m. on Monday, April 24, in the midst of prime broadcast time. Selections heard on this show included Trees, Lullaby of the Leaves, Try a Little Tenderness, Her Name is Mary, and a segment of Crawford's own transcription of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. The broadcast was well received, and Reginald Foort was quoted in the local press as saying that Crawford used "exquisite phrasing which was such that one could almost hear him making the organ speak the actual words." Oddly enough, as far as it is known, the Empire organ was never broadcast thereafter during the 1930s.

Just a few days after his BBC broadcast, Crawford recorded the first of what are his rarest and probably his best recordings. April 30, 1933 found him again at the console of the Empire Wurlitzer when HMV engineers arrived to record the organ. Crawford, who was accustomed to doing all of his recording and broadcasting in the New York Paramount Studios in Times Square, was uncomfortable when the HMV engineers hooked up one small microphone to record the Empire organ. In fact, he protested. Victor Record engineers in the United States had told him that large theatres simply swallowed up the sound. All of his Victor recordings had been made in the studio and never in a theatre. The HMV engineers assured him that one microphone would be adequate. The results bore them out. Sound recording in England was clearly more advanced than in America. The first of these records revealed this, and Crawford was extremely pleased.

Crawford recorded eight sides of 10-inch, 78-rpm discs for HMV. On six sides, Jack Plant, a popular British singer of the day, was featured on the vocal choruses. Only one of these discs reached the American market, A Broken Rosary and My Love Song.

Crawford considered these to be his finest Victor records since they were made in an actual theatre. The sound was rich, full and lush, just as he liked it. He resolved that when he got home he would insist on recording in the Paramount Theatre.

It was not to be. Crawford recorded no more material for Victor, and although he did sign a contract with the new Decca firm, all of those discs were cut in the Paramount Studios. He passed through the Paramount Building on his way to the studio for broadcasting and recording on many occasions, but he never once set foot in the Paramount Theatre again -- the theatre where he had reached the apex of his career.

Copyright © 1986 The American Theatre Organ Society, Inc. All rights reserved.