INTRODUCTION

Each entry derived from the table of contents of a book published by the J.A. Parks Music Company has a link to the collection containing that specific arrangement.   Entries with copyright dates and expanded information about the lyricist, composer and arranger are based on the information given at the top of the song as printed.   We are gradually going back through the J.A. Parks Music Company song books in the library’s collection and adding that information.   Many titles in the list were obtained from various sources where we have not seen a copy of the music.

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SONG BOOK PUBLICATION DATES AND OCTAVO NUMBER SEQUENCE

The early books appear to have been published before the individual songs were issued as numbered octavos. Some songs appear in two or more books. Some books were obviously compiled “after” the individual songs were published, as the individual songs show a range of copyright dates. Other sets of octavos and corresponding books appear to have been issued simultaneously. As time allows and the lists fill in, we are updating the books contents listings and the corresponding songs listings to include cross references from individual songs to the corresponding “octavo numbers,” and vise-versa.

Parks apparently updated printing and publishing arrangements for the music over time. Seemingly anomalous dates such as a 1931 copyright on octavo no. 61 reflect a re-setting that condensed the song from three pages to two. Musically the 1931 arrangement is identical to the 1896 original. Similarly, Octavo No. 79 was reset from 6 pages to four and re-copyrighted in 1914.   We think this “downsizing” process began in 1913 or so, based on the contents of Old Home Songs, which has several one-page arrangements of pieces that are musically identical to earlier multi-page versions.   The re-setting may be related to Parks’ printing arrangements as well. At one point the music was printed in York. Some pieces show printers’ marks from Chicago and Cincinnati.

Some groupings of similar music types in the Octavo number listing probably “predict” the content of music books we have not seen, and vice-versa.   For example, octavos No. 292 through 314 are labeled Commencement. When we examined Commencement Quartets in the spring of 2007, the contents matched those octavo numbers.   It is likely that all the “missing” octavo numbers in the range 1430 - 1470 correspond to the contents of Fifty Negro Spirituals, ©1930.

OCT - DEC., 2006: A cache of 90 numbers of J.A. Parks octavos at the Baptist - Congregational Church in York, a half dozen Octavos purchased through online auctions, and several books located through the abebooks   database provided a substantial expansion of the numeric and alphabetical sequences of these song lists.

JAN - APR, 2007: We reviewed York County Historical Association’s holdings. We noted the contents of music books, and made copies of numerous octavos not otherwise available in the library’s holdings. The content of nearly all the octavo numbers above 1200 were obtained from the York County Historical Association’s collection. The originals remain at the York County Historical Association.

DEC. 2007: Some seeming duplications of song arrangements that came to our attention when adding the contents of the “HIGH SCHOOL SONGS” books to this list led us to the realization that by 1915, Parks’ catalog included otherwise identical arrangements of songs with and without instrumental accompaniment. This realization will force a review of the whole body of Parks’ known works, to distinguish these variations.
DEC. 2008: A few new song titles, some correlations between octavo sheet music numbers and song book listings, and two lists of books with Chicago imprints were obtained with the addition of Girls’ Three-Part Choruses.

JULY 2008: A summer 2006 version of these song pages lives at the “wayback machine” for those who’d like to see the site’s evolution. We redesigned the site in the late summer of 2008.