Jerome’s first complete score was Broadway’s “The Red Petticoat” (1912), one of the first musical comedy Westerns. By World War I, more than a hundred of Kern’s songs had been used in about thirty shows, mostly Broadway adaptations of West End productions. The best known of his songs from this period is “They Didn't Believe Me,” which was a hit in the New York version of the “The Girl from Utah” (1914). This tune, four to the bar, departed from the customary waltzes of European influence and fitted the new American passion for the two-step. He was also able to use elements of American styles, such as ragtime, in his dance tunes.
This 1915 recording is a museum piece, and despite the poor quality of the acoustic recording, you get the sense of what music sounded like a century ago. It’s in the era’s style of a long intro and the song-proper as a chorus. Before the emergence of the crooner and electric recording in 1924, you had to belt the song operatic-style to get the acoustic horn to pick it up. That’s a tuba rather than a string bass providing the bass line. You can already get a feel for the kind of melodic beauty that Kern could produce.