Now the two-step's come to town. It'll turn things upside down.
When the band begins to play, I start dancing right away.
Many things are out of date. Taj Mahal has lost its gate, but the
two-step rage 'round the place can't make my feet behave, oh.
I get dizzy when I do that two-step dance.
Just go into a trance and take most any chance.
Round and round and round I go.
I'm on the job all right, you know.
I'm dizzy when I do that two-step dance. Ha ha ha...
Arthur Collins was among the half dozen most prolific recording artists during the acoustic era.
Nearly every American record company employed him as a solo artist, as a member of the duo Collins and Harlan, and as a member of quartets and minstrel companies.
He was closely associated with the comic song "The Preacher and the Bear," which he recorded for many companies. One trademark was a short laugh, often interjected between lines in songs.
In the December 1942 issue of Hobbies, Jim Walsh attributed Collins' popularity to these qualities: "There probably has never been a sweeter, more naturally musical baritone voice than his....Then, too, Arthur Collins managed invariably to get into the wax the impression of a warm, lovable personality. The unctuous sound of his chuckles in dialect work is unfailingly charming. His negro [sic] heroes usually were in hard luck, but they bore up bravely and saw the funny side of their own misfortunes."
Arthur Francis Collins was born on February 7, 1864, in the home of his grandfather, Reverend Joseph Perry (a chaplain in the U.S. Navy), on Gerard Avenue in Philadelphia.
The oldest of ten children, he was about 14 when his father--Captain Arthur Collins, a devout Quaker--retired from seafaring occupations and bought a home in Barnegat, New Jersey, where he opened a country store. Collins' wife supplied this information to Walsh, who reported it in the November 1942 issue of Hobbies.
Collins joined the lifesaving station on the New Jersey coast. By 17 he was singing at church festivals and concerts, and his parents sent him to Philadelphia to take voice lessons. He joined the Old King Company, an unsuccessful touring company.
He then joined a company starring Fay Templeton, but this company also failed. He next sang in summer operas in St. Louis and eventually toured with Francis Wilson in Merry Monarch and The Lion Tamer, remaining with Wilson for ten years, according to the October 1916 issue of Edison Phonograph Monthly.
In 1895 in New York City's St. Timothy's Episcopal Church he married an Irish-born singer named Anna Leah Connolly (18 May 1867 - 14 May 1949), leaving show business to study shorthand, typewriting, and bookkeeping.
Around 1898 the marriage produced a son. Page 65 of the September 15, 1918 issue of Talking Machine World features a photograph of a proud Collins "saying good-bye to son," with 20-year old Sergeant Arthur Perry Collins taking leave in uniform, headed for France.
