Graham Alexander spoke at our recent Annual Meeting, April 7th at the Community House
Graham Alexander, a local singer-songwriter with experience on Broadway, was the featured speaker before dozens of people at the Annual Meeting of the
Historical Society of Moorestown held on April 7 at the Moorestown Community House. Though only 26, Alexander, through a combination of financial savings, luck, and pluck, has managed to acquire the Victor Talking Machine Company and its associated record labels, all of which had lain dormant for decades until just a few years ago, and which were operated in the City of Camden by Victor founder and Moorestown resident Eldridge Johnson. Those labels include some very familiar names: Victor, Victrola, Camden, His Master’s Voice, Little Nipper, and Electrola. Alexander is in the process of reviving the labels and, in doing so, not only releasing his music and the music of other promising acts, but releasing or re-releasing as many as he is able to of the 10,000 master recordings he has managed to track down. Among the legendary singers and musicians who at one time or another recorded for one or more of the Victor labels were Enrico Caruso, Nat King Cole, Billie Holliday, Perry Como, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Dinah Shore, Jimmie Rodgers, Rachmaninoff, Leonard Bernstein, and Duke Ellington. Victor founder Johnson was an involved member of the Moorestown community, providing major funding for the Community House, and supporting Moorestown’s activities in other ways. Moorestown residents have probably seen the numerous statues of the iconic Little Nipper dog situated about the town which serve to commemorate Johnson’s impact.
-Elizabeth J. Rosenthal
Graham Alexander at the Moorestown Community House
