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Posted by: Bryan Cornell
At some point time around the year 2008 the last physical audio format, the cd, seems to have nearly winked out of existence. Its replacement? An army of wispy, intangible files including mp3, .aiff, wave, ogg vorbis, flac and many others. Of course, many of these formats produce very high-quality audio, and I can now pack a collection of …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Recorded Sound
Posted by: Karen Fishman
This blog post was co-written with Jan McKee, Reference Librarian, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress. This year, after Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, why not burn off some of those calories and thwart those tryptophans by dancing the Turkey Trot instead of sleeping on the living room sofa? This vigorous dance was developed …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Jukebox, Recorded Sound, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
The following post is by David Sager, Processing Technician in the Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress. This post is in commemoration of the 84th anniversary of Buddy Bolden’s death and the never-ending discussion of his legendary lost cylinder recording. Charles “Buddy” Bolden, 1877-1931, often referred to as the “first man of jazz,” holds an …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Jukebox, Recorded Sound, Uncategorized
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
This week’s recorded sound update is a guest post by Jan McKee, Reference Librarian, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress. Mark Twain was known to have made recordings on three occasions; unfortunately none of them are known to have survived. The earliest recording was made by Thomas Edison in 1888. In 1891, the author himself …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Recorded Sound
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
What follows is a guest post by Carla Arton and Harrison Behl, processing technicians in the Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress In May 2013, the staff-led Packard Campus Institute (PCI) hosted a presentation on the National Jukebox by Gene DeAnna, Head of the Recorded Sound Section at the Library of Congress. In his presentation, Gene showcases …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Jukebox, Recorded Sound, Uncategorized
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
This is a guest post by Janet McKee, Recorded Sound Reference Librarian in the Library’s Recorded Sound Section. Repeatedly over the years a recording purporting to be the voice of Walt Whitman has surfaced. Sadly, it has long been the opinion of the reference staff at the Library of Congress that the recording, like …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Recorded Sound, Uncategorized
Posted by: Mike Mashon
This guest post was written by Dan Streible, Director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University, and James Irsay, host of “Morning Irsay” on WBAI-FM in New York City. Dan Streible: While chopping down trees in Kentucky recently, I was enjoying the benefits of twenty-first century living, listening to music …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Film/Video, Jukebox, Motion Pictures, Radio, Recorded Sound
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
The following is a guest post by Matt Barton, Recorded Sound Curator, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center This Monday marked the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I. Songs relating to World War I are very well documented in the Library’s National Jukebox, which provides over 10,000 78-rpm discs recorded in the 1920s and before. For …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Jukebox, Recorded Sound
Posted by: Bryan Cornell
This week we will explore the wealth of ethnic recordings that are available in the Library’s National Jukebox and other online collections. The Jukebox includes some 10,000 recordings of 78-rpm discs made before 1926. To browse these recordings, visit the site’s browse all recordings page and click the headings “language” and “target audience.” Pictured at the right are Alfredo and Flora de Gobbi, a husband …
Posted in: Early Recording Industry, Jukebox, Uncategorized