Songwriters Hall of Fame

One of the leading pioneer recording artists, George J. Gaskin, “The Silver Voice Irish Tenor” was born in Belfast Ireland in the mid 1850’s.

In the 1890s George J. Gaskin's voice could be duplicated better than most voices. Edward B. Marks recollected that "Few voices reproduced well, and these, for some reason, were not always voices one should have wished to reproduce...George had one of the best reproducing voices in the old phonograph days--one of the tinniest voices in the world."

From 1890-1899, Gaskin was the #1 recording artists. Of his 31 top ten recordings, over 20 were #1 hits including ‘Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill’ (1891), ‘Slide, Kelly Slide’ (a song about the 1880’s baseball star Michael “King” Kelly, 1892), ‘O Promise Me’ (1893), ‘After the Ball’ (1893), ‘The Fatal Wedding’ (1894), ‘Sweet Marie’ (1894), ‘We Were Sweethearts, Nell and I’ (1894), ‘The Sunshine of Paradise Alley’ (1896), ‘She May Have Seen Better Days’ (1896), ‘Down in Poverty Days’ (1896), ‘On the Benches in the Park’ (1896), ‘Sweet Rosie O’Grady’ (1897), ‘On the Banks of the Wabash’ (1897), ‘Break the News to Mother’ (1898), ‘She Was Bred in Old Kentucky’ (1898), ‘My Old New Hampshire Home’ (1898), ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ (1899), ‘When Cloe Sings a Song’ (1900) and ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ (1900).

George J. Gaskin died in 1920.