Carl Fenton

The name "Carl Fenton" is found on hundreds of jazz, dance, and even some swing records made in the period 1919-1937. But "Carl Fenton" was not a real person, nor even a pseudonym for a single person. It was a name to put on records. When Gus Haenschen was engaged as the Popular Music Director for Brunswick Records in mid-1919, he decided that his given name was too Germanic sounding at a time when anti-German sentiment was running high in America. Haenschen decided on "Fenton" after the name of a little town in Missouri that was near his hometown of St. Louis; "Carl" was arr...