“Of his day”: The artist Eddie Vedder claimed to be one of the first rockstars
Alongside Seattle rockers Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder became one of America’s defining rockstars during the 1990s. From his humble roots in the grunge scene of Washington, the Illinois-born songwriter soon transcended the DIY scene to become a household name nationwide. Nevertheless, Vedder always remained true to his early influences and the various people who had paved the way for modern musicians like himself, even if the masses had long since forgotten those figures.
Vedder occupies a very unique position within the history of American rock. After all, he first established himself as a notable figure within the grunge scene, a movement built on a punk-adjacent DIY ethos and subversion of the musical mainstream. Pretty quickly, however, Vedder and Pearl Jam developed their sound into something with much more commercial appeal than, for instance, the abrasive tones of Mudhoney or Melvins. This diverse sound came mostly as a result of Vedder’s incredibly diverse music taste.
With just as much love for the commercial sounds of classic rock as the sneering defiance of punk, Vedder does not discriminate when it comes to music. Even the earliest figures of blues and rockabilly have their own distinct place within the songwriter’s record collection. However, such is the depth of Vedder’s desire for musical exploration that he does not stop with the advent of rock and roll. In fact, the lyricist has cited the largely forgotten Vaudeville star Billy Murray as an early inspiration.
Vaudeville theatre, which has its origins in France, became incredibly popular in the United States during the early 20th century, producing stars like Will Ahern, Mickey Rooney, and Jack Haley. The movement also gave a stage to Billy Murray, though he became much more renowned for his subsequent recording career between the 1890s and 1940s. For the most part, the Philadelphia-born singer would perform standards, making him one of the most popular musicians of the era.
In the modern day, Murray’s music, and much of Vaudeville culture in general, has been lost to obscurity. Eddie Vedder, on the other hand, is always keen to espouse the brilliance of Murray’s work. While speaking to NY Daily News back in 1999, the Pearl Jam songwriter mentioned Murray’s work, saying, “He was the rock star of his day, and today, we have no idea who he is.”
One of the predominant reasons for Murray’s relative obscurity in the modern age, aside from the fact that it has been well over a century since he made his first recordings, is that the majority of his work was released on 78 rpm shellac discs or even wax cylinders. Both of these archaic formats quickly became obsolete with the advent of 45 rpm PVC singles and 33 ⅓ rpm LPs. Despite selling over 300 million records during his lifetime, Vedder might be one of the only people to still discuss the life and work of Billy Murray.
At the time of that 1999 interview, Vedder used Murray’s obscurity as an allegory for the fickleness of fame. “Stardom, it’s not here for long,” he shared. “As musicians, all we can do is keep trying to put a few things into the atmosphere.” In the two-and-a-half decades since Vedder gave that interview, he has continued to write and record material for Pearl Jam, successfully extending his period of stardom and then some.
Ultimately, we will not know whether Vedder will go the same way as Billy Murray. At present, though, it seems very unlikely that the Pearl Jam songwriter will fade into obscurity anytime soon. After all, he has recorded some of the most iconic and instantly recognisable American rock songs of the past few decades. Then again, you could have said the very same about Billy Murray all those years ago.
