A popular vaudeville comic-pun song from 1901, The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid, sung by Arthur Collins and Joseph Natus.
The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid
Company
Edison's National Phonograph Company
Cylinder #
7969 (5-inch "Concert" cylinder)
Category
Duet
Title
The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid
Performed by
Arthur Collins & Joseph Natus
Circa
November 1901
Announcement
"Duet, The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid, from Rogers Brothers in Washington, sung by Collins and Natus. Edison record."
Contemporaries and competitors of the team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields
in the vaudeville niche of comic punning duets, were the team of brothers Max and Gus Rogers.
Their annual productions included stock routines set in different locales:
The Rogers Brothers in Wall Street in 1899,
The Rogers Brothers in Central Park in 1900, then in Washington in 1901.
Subsequent years saw shows set in Harvard, London, Paris, Ireland, and Panama.
The team ended upon the death of Gus Rogers in 1908.
Here, Arthur Collins and Joseph Natus perform - on a 5-inch diameter Edison "concert" wax cylinder - a popular number from the Rogers brothers' 1901 production.
The sheet music to The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid
is available courtesy of the New York Public Library.
NB: If anyone can make out
the punchline to the ending joke,
I'd be very glad to know it!
"... Why has the bank cashier always got bars in front of him?"
