Stars of Vaudeville #45 Van and Schenck
Van and Schenck were a popular vaudeville music and comedy team in the late teens and twenties. (Gus Van’s birthday is today). If you want to know more, stick around! I’m doing the liner notes for Archeophone Records compilation of some of their best recordings! In the meantime, though, check this out:
To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
May 3, 2010 at 4:21 pm
[...] While his early style was patterned on such old school singers as Al Jolson, and Joe Schenck of Van and Schenck, he was to become the principle pioneer of the intimate new, microphone-based style of singing [...]
August 3, 2010 at 5:17 pm
[...] the poor chap has to crank his babies up every three minutes or so.His repertoire? Jolson, Cantor, Van and Schenk. He now has two new fans, and you ought to hire him for your next event–whatever it [...]
September 1, 2010 at 7:13 am
[...] graduated to Ziegfeld shows. In his autobiography, Eddie Cantor writes movingly how he and his pals Van and Schenck (her co-stars in the Follies of 1919) cheered her up when she learned that her husband Frank Carter [...]
December 15, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Does anyone know if Peggy Schenck is alive? I own Van and Schenck’s old vaudeville piano and would like someone in either of their families to have it…Piano is in ok shape, not worth to much, but really cool since middle C is to your left on the keyboard – so they had another higher octive for their high notes.
December 16, 2011 at 9:56 am
Hi Laura, My name is Julie Marker-Horton. My Father is Joseph Schenck Marker and his Mother was Carrie Schenck Marker, Sister to Joseph Schenck of Van and Schenck. Trav messaged me and let me know about your post. Would love to talk to you about this family heirloom, as a matter of fact I called my Father right away after reading this (he is 84) and he was very excited. Please email me @ julie-horton@sbcglobal.net so that I can send you contact info and we can talk. Thanks, Julie
July 19, 2012 at 10:57 pm
my name is howard dickerson. I knew a joe marker in Indianapolis. I think we were cousins. We used to fight to see who was toughest and after we shared a coke. See if this rings any bells with your father. his parents were Tom and carrie marker. Tom had a very serious accident while working on the railroad during the war.