Sousa Band Raincatcher section pics!

[bisontuba]

Just acquired....original pics of the Sousa Band Sousaphone / Raincatcher section...and a trombone section pic ID’d too...enjoy...
Mark

https://imgur.com/gallery/YQhScBm" target="_blank

[Dave Detwiler]

Great photos!

I've seen the first one, with the Sousaphones on the ground, which is reportedly from 1927. The Sousa Archives, at the Univ. of Illinois, has a copy, but isn't sure of the date (they just say "1920s).

But the second one, with the six men wearing the horns, is one I have never seen a clean copy of until now! Here is the info about it, as well as the names of the players, from the May 1926 edition of C. G. Conn's Musical Truth, vol. 16, no. 41, p, 16:

1926 C. G. Conn's Musical Truth (vol 16, no 41).JPG

[bisontuba]

Thank you Dave for the ID of the 6 Raincatcher. I have added ID also to the first Raincatcher pic in IMGUR...
Mark

[iiipopes]

Yes, thanks. And raincatchers are the original sousaphones, because Sousa envisioned them much like a tuba, although worn instead of held, and the sound going up and wafting over the band. That is how J. W. Pepper made the original for him. It was a few years later that for street marching for the benefit of the rest of the band and field marching for the benefit of the audience (before there were recording bell tubas) that Conn angled the bell forward to the configuration we now call standard sousaphone, and the "real" sousaphones were relegated with the raincatcher nickname.