Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1916 — LONG DISTANCE PIANO PLAYER [ARTICLE]

LONG DISTANCE PIANO PLAYER

Perry Horton Enters Polk Music School and Gets Big Write-Up By Valpo Newspaper. Our own Perry Horton, son of Dr. and Mrs. J. W. Horton, long distance piano player and the ragtime king, has entered the Polk Music School in Valparaiso and the Vidette f that place writes Perry up to this tune: It take® patience and endurance to sit at a piano 37% hours of continuous'playing, but that is what P. W. Horton did. Horton is now a student at the Polk school, where he will spend two weeks in player piano adjustment work . He was found in the office of the institution today, swinging one leg over the arm of a rocking chair and comfortably puffing a cigarette. Several years ago Horton held the world’s record for “long distance playing. Since then, he believes, a New York man claims to have taken the honor by playing 72 hours. However, he doubts the truth of the c’aim. Horton comes nearly being a home product. He lives at Rensselaer, the city where he made his record, and does tuning and runs a movie show. He is now only 26 years old. When he sat down to the piano to break the world’s record, the morning had just begun. He played all day, all night, and then afl'l day again, and was ready for a good, long sleep. Oh, no, he didn’t go hungry. While he played, his mother came him nt meal-time and fed him with a spoon as his nimble fingers continued to frolic over the keys. He received $69 and a gold medal for his beat. He admits it was worth it. Now that player pianos have come into the game, he must know a little more of their mechanism and the way to readjust them when trouble comes. A municipal player school in Chicago, under the direction of William Braid White, has closed, and the Polk school gets its equipment; likewise some of the students that had attended there. Norton is one to get some of the benefit.