Ida Adams sings ’Oh! How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo,’ London, 11 January 1917

Ida Adams (1888?-1960), the American musical comedy actress who made several Broadway appearances, including in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1912, arrived in London during 1915. The following year she featured in Charles B. Cochran’s Houp La! (St. Martin’s Theatre, London, 23 November 1916), a comedy with music with Nat D. Ayer, Hugh E. Wright, George Graves, J.R. Tozer, Rube Welch, Gertie Millar, Daisy Burrell,Vera Neville, Valerie May, Binnie Hale, Ivy Tresmand and Madeleine Choiseuille. One of the hits of the show was Miss Adams’s rendition of the novelty song, ’Oh! How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo,’ which she recorded, accompanied by a female chorus and the St. Martin’s Theatre Orchestra conducted by James Sale, at the studios of The Gramophone Co Ltd at Hayes, near London, on 11 January 1917 (HMV 03542, mx HO 2439 af). This song, an interpolated number written by Albert von Tilzer, with words by Stanley Murphy and Charles R. McCarron, was first recorded by Arthur Colli