The Singing Dogs

The Singing Dogs are the result of a technical gimmick from the 1950s, was edited together with the dogs barking to a tune. The most famous is a recording of the Christmas song Jingle Bells.

Background

The Danish Hobbyornithologe Carl Weismann was since 1934 an expert on animal sounds recordings and had specialized in the recording of birdsong. End of the 40s, the Danish school radio to take pictures of dog barking for a teaching program about dogs asked him. He noted that the dogs were barking at certain pitches and borrowed five dogs to get them to bark a tune. Finally he took the bell sounds on tape and cut them together so that doing the song Oh! Susanna, a 1848 book written by Stephen Foster Traditional arose. The result was broadcast on Danish radio in 1948.

Four years later Weismann came up with the idea to beat out the old recordings capital to fund his research. From the tapes he built more songs and created a record that sold in Denmark to 10 000 cycles. Due to the success he forgave the rights also abroad.

In the UK ( Pye Nixa Records) and the U.S. ( RCA Victor ) was released in late 1955 a single with Stephen Foster's Oh! Susanna as an A- side and a medley of Jingle Bells, Three Blind Mice and Pat-a - Cake as a B-side. As a performer was given: Don Charles presents the Singing Dogs directed by Carl Weismann. The single reached number 13 in the UK charts and number 22 in the U.S. Best Sellers charts. There were other publications with the Singing Dogs, who were not more successful though.

In Germany appeared Oh! Susanna, and Jingle Bells along with small old dog and bake cakes! When Metronome Records.

15 years later joined the New York radio DJ Howard Smith on one of the old singles and played Jingle Bells at Christmas time in its program. He got very positive listener responses, one of which also experienced the record company RCA. This then decided to re-release the single. But this time they took the one-minute part of Jingle Bells from the medley and set him again to an almost two-minute version together. This was then combined with Oh! Susanna on the second side 1971 released as a Christmas single. This longer Jingle Bells version reached cult status and is played to this day over again.

The mid-2000s studied two opinion research company in the U.S., the preferences of radio listeners in the Christmas carols. It was calculated as the least favorite famous Christmas song Jingle Bells by the Singing Dogs.

Carl Weismann died 1999. Though he had not been a doctorate birders, his research in the art will be appreciated. His recordings of bird songs can be found today in the British Library National Sound Archives.

Discography

Swell

• The singing dogs, Der Spiegel, January 11, 1956
• How ' Jingle Bells' by the Singing Dogs Changed Music Forever, The Atlantic, December 20, 2010 (English )