Practically nothing seems to be known about him as a person, and the dates of his birth and death have long remained unknown to jazz historians. However, recent information in the "Bixography Discussion group" suggests that Samuels might have died in July 1953. An article published in May 1919 indicates he was born in Tennessee, studied under Campanari at the College of Music of Cincinnati, and was concert master for Henry W. Savage. He was mainly a reed player (playing clarinet, alto saxophone, and bass saxophone), but also played violin and made records as a soloist on the latter instrument accompanied by pianist Frank Banta. What is known beyond doubts about Samuels is that he was an extremely prolific musician during the years 1919 to 1925, at least on records (around 400 sides). Samuels' recording debut seems to have been with Pathé in January 1919. After this he went on to record for Emerson, Grey Gull and Arto in 1920, for Edison in 1921 and for Gennett, Federal, and Banner in 1922. From 1923 onwards, the mainly recorded for the latter labels and its associated labels such as Regal, Oriole and Domino. As usually on these low-budget labels, the recordings were issued under an array of bewildering pseudonyms such as "Majestic Dance Orchestra", "Hollywood Dance Orchestra" and "Missouri Jazz Band". Apart from these hundreds of peppy dance music recordings, Samuels also lead smaller recording groups playing in a more outright jazz idiom. Most of these latter sides were made under the names of Synco Jazz Band (49 recordings during 1919-1922, mainly for Pathé but also for Columbia and Grey Gull), Joseph Samuels' Jazz Band (40 recordings during 1920-23, mainly for Okeh but also for Paramount) and Tampa Blue Jazz Band (31 recordings for Okeh during 1921-1923). To these might be added some further seven sides waxed for Columbia in 1924 as Columbia Novelty Orchestra.The band's recording for Okeh of The Fives in March 1923 is considered the first orchestral recording of boogie-woogie. In particular for Okeh, these small jazz-oriented Samuels groups also accompanied several black singers, male as well as female ones including names such as Lucille Hegamin, Mamie Smith and Clarence Williams. These accompainments are among the earliest examples of racially mixed jazz recordings in the United States. For his dance band as well as his jazz group recordings, Samuels seems to have relied mainly on the same nucleus of fellow musicians, many of them nearly as little known as their leader. On trumpet Samuels generally had Jules Levy Jr. On trombone was Ephraim Hannaford; on piano Samuels had Larry Briers, of whom extremely little is known. He is however credited as co-composer on at least one of the tunes recorded by Samuels. As for the present, catchy tune, it was recorded in 1922.
