Today is the birthday of Gus Van.
Van and Schenck were BIG, man — they were right on top in the nineteen teens and twenties (their best pal was Eddie Cantor). Schenck died in 1930, and that was that. But their zany, catchy music had such a hold on the public, their fan club was operating as late as the 1960s. I labored long and hard* (and happily) on the liner notes for Van and Schenck: Pennant-Winning Battery of Songland, my second project for Archeophone Records (the first was Nat M. Wills).
To order your copy today (and read some excerpts from my liner notes), please go here.
And if ya just can’t wait, here they are feeding you “Pastafazoola” before they go on to feed “Hungry Women”:
* Special thanks to pal Gyda Arber, who helped with research!
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.
(Travalanche) 
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.
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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
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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.
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[…] 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 […]
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[…] 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 […]
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[…] 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 […]
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