Home > Aileen Stanley

Stanley was born as Maude Elsie Aileen Muggeridge in Chicago, Illinois. In her childhood, with the urging of her widowed mother, she and her older brother Stanley sang and danced in vaudeville as Stanley and Aileen. After her brother left the act she started performing solo, forming her stage name by reversing the name of the old family billing.

Stanley performed on vaudeville and in cabarets. In 1920 she made a hit in New York City in the review show "Silks And Satins". She made the first of her numerous recordings the same year. Throughout the 1920s she would record prolifically. The majority of her records were for the Victor Talking Machine Company, but she also recorded with other record labels with recording studios in the New York City area, including EdisonEdison Records was the first record label, pioneering recorded sound and an important player in the early record industry. Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records Thomas A. Edison invented the phonograph, the first device for recording a, Pathe, OkehOkeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in the 1910s; from the late 1920s on was a subsidiary of Columbia Records. Okeh was founded by Otto Heinemann (1877-1965), a German-American manager for the U. branch, BrunswickBrunswick Records is a United States based record label. Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company (a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing products ranging from pianos to sporti, VocalionVocalion Records was a record label historically active in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which also introduced a line of phonographs at the same time. The label fir, GennettGennett (pronounced with a soft G) was a United States based record label which flourished in the 1920s. Gennett records was founded in Richmond, Indiana by the Starr Piano Company, and released its first records in October of 1917. The early issues were and others. Many of her records sold well at the time.

Stanley even recorded for Black Swan RecordsBlack Swan Records was an American record label in the 1920s; it was the first to be owned and operated by, and marketed to, African Americans. Black Swan was founded in May of 1921 by Harry Pace and W. Handy, based in Harlem, New York City. Originally th, a label supposedly devoted only to African-American artists, under the pseudonym "Mamie Jones". Her handling of blues material was similar to that of some of the "colored" northern vaudeville singers of the time.

Her stage appearances billed her as "The Phonograph Girl" and "The Girl With The Personality".

In the late 1920s Victor Records produced a popular series of records pairing Stanley with singer Billy Murray.

Stanley was said to have invested heavily in the stock market, and was one of the many who lost most of their money in the Market Crash of 1929.

About 1931 she moved to London, where she made more records for HMV from 1934 through 1937.

In her later years she worked as a singing teacher and vocal coach.

Aileen Stanley died in Los Angeles, California.