Compositions Albert Gumble was born in North Vernon, Indiana a few years after his publisher brother Moses. The family of German immigrant Isaac Gumble and his French wife Rachel Baum included Moses (9/14/1876), Lillian (7/1878) and Walter (9/4/1883). 
Isaac owned a retail drug store in North Vernon, and the family was fairly well off as they also list a domestic in the house, Annie Shulpert. Some sources report Albert's birth year as 1883, but the 1900, 1910, and 1920 census records clearly suggest 1881. His 1918 draft record claims 1882 and a birth date of September 20th, while his 1942 draft record gives an even more incorrect 1883 birth year and a date of September 3rd. Even stranger, his death record shows September 10, 1883. Since early records average out as more accurate for most composers, 1881 is in all probability the correct birth year. Given that his brother Walter was born on September 4, close to the 3rd, and that Moses was born September 14th, September 10th would also seem like a relatively likely date for Albert. (Similar variances show for all of the Gumble siblings over time.)
Isaac owned a retail drug store in North Vernon, and the family was fairly well off as they also list a domestic in the house, Annie Shulpert. Some sources report Albert's birth year as 1883, but the 1900, 1910, and 1920 census records clearly suggest 1881. His 1918 draft record claims 1882 and a birth date of September 20th, while his 1942 draft record gives an even more incorrect 1883 birth year and a date of September 3rd. Even stranger, his death record shows September 10, 1883. Since early records average out as more accurate for most composers, 1881 is in all probability the correct birth year. Given that his brother Walter was born on September 4, close to the 3rd, and that Moses was born September 14th, September 10th would also seem like a relatively likely date for Albert. (Similar variances show for all of the Gumble siblings over time.)Not much is known of his early years in Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio, where the family moved in the 1890s. His father died in the mid-1890s leaving Rachel as a widow. Albert and Mose both received some music education at the Auditorium School of Music with Herman Froehlich (nothing definitive found on Mr. Froehlich). Albert was also a student of Clarence Adler of Cincinnati, who also taught famed composers like Aaron Copland and Richard Rodgers. As of the 1900 census, the four siblings were still living in Cincinnati with Rachel. The oldest, Moses, did not list an occupation, even though he was already engaged in music performance in many locales, and Albert and Walter were still listed as in school.
While Mose was making a name for himself in Chicago and New York as a singer and song plugger, even publishing a few songs, Albert was working his way up the chain as a performer as well. Trying out Chicago for a while, his first publications appeared in 1903 and 1904, most of them composed with words by C.P. McDonald, and issued by composer/publisher William C. Polla in Chicago. Genevieve was a good enough seller to generate interest in the young performer, but it would around a year before he came up with anything new. During this period, he worked for Polla as his professional manager through at least the spring of 1906. In The Billboard trade paper of October 28, 1905, an anonymous poem, a sort of brotherly love sonnet, appeared on page four, touting a fondness for the composer who had already received some success, accolades, and obviously admiration:
Albert Gumble, my old friend, my heart is filled with love for you,
Too deep for you to comprehend, and fellowship sincere and true.
Yea, I hall you, friend of mine, with heart grown strong with love divine.
And, with a dancing heart, extend this happy hand to you, my friend...
Light your cigar from mine, my friend, and tilt your chair back here among
The blossoms, and while fragrance blend, With fragrance, let the ever young
And cherished mem'ry we hold dear alight and sing in accents clear.
And steep our souls, Al, in the smoke, as when our friendship first awoke.
And so with trailing pen and voice and prosy thoughts. I weave this rhyme
To you, old top, and do rejoice that on and on through space and time -
Through years to come, I still will hear in fancy's portals, a voice dear
And faithful to me to the end - Albert Gumble, my old friend.
The unattributed but passionate prose appeared to echo what many thought about the quiet but creative composer. In the spring of 1906 Albert left the Polla organization when he was tapped to help run the office of the Pillsbury-Dana Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Their Chicago office not only handled some of their small catalog, but a roster of performers as well. This position only lasted a few months as the company had trouble getting a foothold in the Windy City. It was evident that something had to change.
Their Chicago office not only handled some of their small catalog, but a roster of performers as well. This position only lasted a few months as the company had trouble getting a foothold in the Windy City. It was evident that something had to change.Looking for something better and more stable, Albert moved to Manhattan, where brother Mose had relocated, to seek out opportunities with a variety of publishers as a song demonstrator and perhaps staff composer. After a meager output in 1906, Jerome H. Remick published one of his marches, Double Trouble, which helped establish a relationship between Albert and the growing company. In late 1907 he composed perhaps his best known instrumental, Bolo Rag, and self-published a version of it. The rag was soon picked up by Remick in early 1908 and was a very good seller for an instrumental piece. This also opened a door for Albert as a composer, and as a staff pianist and arranger for Remick as well. The Bolo Rag was recast as a song in 1909, selling even more copies.
One of his songs of this period became notorious for its sweetness factor, singability, and (thanks to Moses) ubiquitous presence throughout the East and Midwest. Gumble penned the syrupy waltz tune Are You Sincere with a young Alfred Bryan in 1908. Through the usual distribution methods of free "professional copies," budget orchestrations to members of Remick's Orchestra Club, and just sheer willpower, this song seemed to permeate the air and both engendered both fondness and nausea among the public, and particularly the critics. One in particular from the Music Trade Review had panned the piece when it came out, but he soon found himself outnumbered by the general public. The unnamed writer (one of the editors) conceded as much in that paper in the October 10, 1908 edition:
The Man on the Street: Are You Sincere? Sure!
Not the least amusing incident of a somewhat broken vacation from which the writer recently returned was an episode in which one of the two reigning song successes of the hour played a prominent part. It may be remembered that when "Are You Sincere?" first made its appearance the writer spoke in no very complimentary terms of its merits, either poetically or musically. This may possibly be one of the reasons that it has since become one of the reigning popular successes of the day, a fact which was demonstrated to the writer in no uncertain manner while visiting one of the most secluded spots on the Rhode Island coast, which he had sought out in an heroic endeavor to forget sheet music, cut rates and, indeed, the entire music publishing world at large.
The writer, to his consternation found that at the hotel where he established his headquarters, "Are You Sincere?" was apparently given as a steady diet, it being played by an excellent little string orchestra for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In sheer desperation, therefore, he accepted the invitation of a friend to spend a few days on a small sloop anchored at Watch Hill, feeling sure that here at least he would be safe from the Remick nightmare. "Turning in," somewhat early, on the first night of his visit, he was awakened by the twang of a very much out-of-tune banjo, accompanying an equally out-of-tune voice, to the dreadful strains of this latest "song hit." Clambering on deck he observed on an adjacent boat a callow youth baying "Are You Sincere?" to a moon which resolutely and with some good reason refused to come out.
No doubt, therefore, Mr. Gumble will have no hard feelings toward the writer when his royalty check falls due, and in any case it becomes a pleasure to congratulate Jerome H. Remick upon securing as great a "popular" success as any in the history of the wonderful house, which, all said and done, is second to none in its own particular sphere.
The 1910 census showed Albert living in Manhattan with his mother Rachel and sister Lillian, listed as a composer and music publisher, indicating he had acquired some level of responsibility in the Remick fold. By now he had assumed some notoriety among his peers as well as he was teamed up with a number of talented lyricists and composers, with himself in either role, to turn out a fair number of songs that started getting noticed by the buying public and performers.
In addition to Bryan this included such notables as the great ballad writer Arthur J. Lamb, the ever-popular A. Seymour Brown, and even the team of Edward Madden and fellow composer Percy Wenrich. Even on his own Gumble fared well, producing The Georgia Rag and Chanticleer Rag in 1910, both of which were also made into songs by year's end.
In addition to Bryan this included such notables as the great ballad writer Arthur J. Lamb, the ever-popular A. Seymour Brown, and even the team of Edward Madden and fellow composer Percy Wenrich. Even on his own Gumble fared well, producing The Georgia Rag and Chanticleer Rag in 1910, both of which were also made into songs by year's end.In 1911 Gumble and Wenrich brought out a tongue-twisting hit that was both a rag and a song in one, the still-popular Red Rose Rag, a somewhat rare three-section song that was also a popular instrumental. There were fewer memorable hits in 1913, but Albert scored again in 1914 with a song based on the book Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. His touch was felt on many other songs in his role as an arranger for other prominent composers, including Gus Kahn, Bud G. De Sylva, Jack Yellen, George Whiting, Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Black and White Rag composer George Botsford. Also in 1914, Albert Gumble became a charter member of ASCAP. The 1915 New York census showed him residing with his mother and brother Walter in Manhattan, listed as a music publisher. Walter, who had gone into advertising, would die in 1922 at age 38.
In the mid-1910s, Gumble did a little bit of work arranging and cutting piano rolls for the Ampico Rythmodik line and the short-lived A.P.C. Company. Most of them were duet performances on the Aeolian and Duo-Art labels, including a series performed with George Botsford. There was a steady stream of fairly good musical entries from the house of Remick over the next several years with Albert as either lyricist or composer, including the occasional solo piano work, such as Red Fox Trot in 1917, and several patriotic numbers that same year. In his role as a pianist and singer, Albert entertained as debarkation centers for the soldiers going off to France, although he did not serve during World War One.
On June 22, 1915, Albert was married to Florence Loraine Simmons. Their first son, Albert Gumble Jr., a real roustabout at nine-and-a-half pounds, was born on August 18, 1917. On his 1918 draft record, Gumble listed his employer as Jerome Remick and his position as composer. The same is true in 1920 when he considered himself more as a composer of music than any other position that he may have held with the publisher. However, by that time he had left the Remick fold. Late in 1919 Albert and his attorney, Abner Greenberg, incorporated a phonograph jobbing business, which was responsible for assembling and distributing phonographs customized for retailers who included them in their stores for extra sales.
Even though Gumble was no longer employed by Remick, he continued to write for them and send them new material.
In 1919 he followed the lead of others who had capitalized on the Alexander character created in 1911 by Irving Berlin, co-composing Alexander's Band is Back in Dixieland with Yellen. Gumble did have a brief relationship with Broadway, first with George White's Scandals of 1919, the opening volley of that series. His song At the Old Drug Store was composed for the show, but ultimately not included. Then there was the tune Peachy used in the Frivolities of 1920. These efforts were followed by a more ambitious musical he co-composed with Howard E. Rogers and Owen Murphy in 1922, Red Pepper. After 1923 very little came from Al, who was doing more arranging than composing. On May 13, 1923, the Gumbles welcomed another son, Marvin Gumble, into the family.
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As was true with his older brother Mose, Albert dissolved all remaining ties with the Jerome H. Remick firm in 1928 when it was purchased from its namesake by the firm's manager Jerome Keit. He was soon a staff composer/arranger and pianist at the firm of Donaldson, Douglas and Gumble, which was started by composer Walter Donaldson, Walter Douglas, and his brother Mose Gumble. The Remick firm was sold to the Warner Brothers in 1929, and therefore ostensibly moved to Hollywood within the year, but the Gumble brothers remained in New York as East Coast representatives contracting to them on a part-time basis. In 1930 Albert was one of the first to write a comic song that not only mentioned television, but combined it with the telephone, On Your Tel-tel-television Phone, somewhat accurately forecasting teleconferencing, and perhaps even iPhones several decades before it was viable. Only a handful of tunes were forthcoming after that as he was working more as a pianist now than as a songwriter or arranger.
Around 1938 after Mose left Donaldson, Douglas and Gumble to reconnect with Warner Brothers as a manager, Albert secured a position as a pianist in the luxurious Hotel Ansonia where he also lived, along with many other notable entertainers. Albert, Florence and Marvin are shown residing there in the 1940 census, listing his occupation as composer of music with studios. They are also shown in the hotel on his 1942 draft record. (The Ansonia was converted to apartments in the 1950s, but in the 21st century many of them have been restored back to the capacious suites of the 1930s and 1940s.) Albert Jr. joined the army, and PFC Gumble was married in the spring of 1944. Albert remained at the Ansonia for the remainder of his life, which ceased near the end of 1946. Much of his legacy remains with us today, as he is remembered as perhaps one of the quieter but still significant contributors to the growth of American popular music in the early 20th century, along with his dynamic brother Mose.