Today’s post is by David Sager, Research Assistant in the Recorded Sound Research Center. In observance of Black History Month, we’re highlighting a little known song by the great Bert Williams, found in the Library’s National Jukebox. Although opportunities for African American performers during the early days of the recording industry were scant, they certainly […]
This post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. The Big Band era and the Golden Age of Old Time Radio were long past in the summer of 1956, when NBC Bandstand hit the airwaves. Live performances by the great dance orchestras had been a staple of network radio in the 1930s […]
Today’s post is by Harrison Behl, Reference Librarian at the Recorded Sound Research Center. Shortly after the formation of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division in 1978, one of our first reference librarians, James Smart, compiled a listing of the radio broadcast recordings the Library had acquired to that point. Covering the years […]
This blog post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. It’s not unusual for the Recorded Sound Section and the Music Division to share custody of a collection, with Recorded Sound taking the recordings and the Music Division taking the written scores of a particular artist. But the Billy and Marlene […]
This blog post was written by Sally Smith and Brianna Gist, 2019 Jr. Fellows in the Recorded Sound Section. The Native American Audio Project began as a response to an “Ask-a-Librarian” question submitted by a patron inquiring about recordings of Native American music in the Recorded Sound Section of the Library. Although the American Folklife […]
This is a guest post by Sally Smith, 2019 Jr. Fellow in the Recorded Sound Section. If someone told me I would be paid to listen to music all summer and research everything there is to know about the Native American recording industry, I would have laughed. Yet, here I am…..at the Library of Congress […]
This is a guest post was written by Harrison Behl, reference librarian in the Recorded Sound Section. As we celebrate and commemorate the achievements of the US space program in bringing a human to the moon with the successful mission of Apollo 11, a curious turn of events in recording provides an interesting way of […]
Released on July 11, 1969, 5 days before NASA’s Apollo 11 mission successfully landed the first man on the moon, David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity” became the first major hit of his career, climbing to number 5 on the UK singles chart. While the song cannot be solely credited with elevating Bowie to the pinnacle […]
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus. Thursday, July 11 (7:30 p.m.) River’s Edge (Island Pictures, 1986 – rated R*) Inspired by a true event, River’s Edge follows how a group of apathetic high school students in a dismal, dead-end California town deal with their friend’s murder of his […]
This is a guest post by Frances Allshouse and Susie Booth, librarian/catalogers in the Moving Image Section. Wednesday, May 29, 2019, would have been Bob Hope’s 116th birthday and we couldn’t let the day go by without a bit of a celebration. This year, our gift is the recently-formed Bob Hope moving image processing project. […]