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How Vernon Dalhart recorded country music’s first big hit in 1924

Dalhart recorded for many labels under many pseudonyms, and his massive discography defies easy characterization.
The first known recording of classical music

On 29 June 1888, an excerpt from Handel’s Israel in Egypt was captured on wax cylinder at London’s Crystal Palace
Do These Tubes Hold the Oldest Known Stereo Recordings?

In 1901, a traveling researcher recorded some Chinese opera, and accidentally made music history.
When cars talked using tiny phonograph records: Nissan's Voice Warning system

Before digital circuitry was cheap, Nissan used little vinyl records to make cars talk.
Gustav Eiffel’s voice travels through time

Incredible! Listen to Gustave Eiffel's voice and discover the history of how it was recorded.
A Speaking Watch

Mr. Sivan's Speaking Watch with the Edison Phonograph inside...
The Elusive Glass Phonograph

It's beautiful, it's compact, it's electric, it's unique and it's almost 100 years old. One of the more beautiful phonographs to look at, the Kutzmann is a little-known brand.
The Phonograph Goes To War

Thomas Edison invented the Phonograph in 1877: a handy tabletop device that could play music for a small group of listeners. By 1915 the phonograph (now with a small “p” as a generic name) was a moderately pricey luxury—an average working man could buy a good model with a month’s wages. Reported in Scientific American, November 6, 1915
A Great Day In Harlem: The Most Amazing Photograph In Jazz history

Photographer Art Kane took the most wonderful photograph in jazz history, featuring 57 of the best jazz musicians ever: A Great Day In Harlem.
Your Antique Halloween Music List

Looking for some good Halloween records to search out for your holiday listening? Why not start with this list of Teens and Twenties Halloween Records!
What was the first sound ever recorded by a machine?

The question of which sound was the first ever to be recorded seems to have a pretty straightforward answer. It was captured in Paris by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in the late 1850s, nearly two decades before Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call (1876) or Thomas Edison’s phonograph (1877). But it turns out that, while the answer is clear, the question is complicated.
Is this the smallest playable record disc in the world?

BBC Radio 3 Late Junction’s Verity Sharp and the co-founder of Finders Keepers Records, Andy Votel, disappeared into the BBC Archives in search of obscure vinyl recordings and rare oddities. They found a surprising, tiny delight…
Tiny Atlanta record label gathers big attention

When college student and roots music fan Lance Ledbetter grew frustrated at the near impossibility of buying 78 rpm gospel records from the 1920s and '30s, he began to ponder a question: What would it take to reissue those old tunes and put them in stores?
UC Berkeley uses optical scanning to recover indigenous coices from wax cylinders

Among the wax cylinders in UC Berkeley’s Hearst Museum of Anthropology are songs and spoken-word recordings in 78 indigenous languages of California.
After 90 years, Broadway singer gets her headstone

Nora Bayes was one of the most famous entertainers of the early 20th century, and after her death from cancer in 1928 at age 48, fans flocked to her Manhattan townhouse as she was carried out in a silver coffin.
Kostas Bezos, unsung hero of 1930s Greek music gets cult following

Rolling Stone magazine includes his old recordings in its list of ‘15 Great Albums You Probably Didn’t Hear in 2017’
Thomas Edison's Forgotten Sci-Fi Novel

When Thomas Edison died in 1931, he held more than 1,000 patents in the United States alone. He was credited with inventing, or significantly advancing, electric lighting, storage batteries, the motion picture camera, the phonograph and even cement making—among many other things.
Twain and Edison, on the record

For Twain, the lure of the talking machine wore off fast.
A remarkable temple of sound tucked away in a place called Pala

Inside a private museum of old gramophone records and players tucked away in Kerala's Kottayam district.
Names of Talking Machines

Phonograph. Gramophone. Graphophone. In the popular mind there is considerable misapprehension and confusion regarding the correct designation of talking machines. Several learned and esteemed gentlement assist in solving this confusing issue of today
New Documentary Blends Civil Rights Murders With Hunt for Blues Icons

'Two Trains Runnin'' fuses the story of the Mississippi Burning murders with the search for Son House and Skip James
Cornell University Celebrates the Voyager Golden Record this week

On Thursday (10/19) and Friday (10/20) this week, Cornell University will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voyager Golden Record, the gold phonograph records launched into space in 1977 as a message to extraterrestrials. All events are free and the public is invited.
Talking Machine Tried As Disturber

Flood of popular melodies is set loose in London court to horror of attaches and delight of spectators! Diary describes nightly din, arousing neighbors...
A Phonograph Fiasco

How and why the great invention has disapointed its backers. The failure due to defects that are real enough, but may be overcome. The instrument virtually a toy yet, but with a tremendous future.
5 Amazing Record Archives Where You Can Listen For Free

Collecting records might be a notoriously expensive endeavour, but right now hundreds of thousands of records are waiting to be played for free at awe-inspiring listening stations around the world. These library sound archives have records ranging from oratorial opera vocal tubes created in 1901, to comprehensive catalogues of original Motown pressings and field recordings of Polynesian tribes from the 1950s.

Here are five of the most extensive – and eclectic – record libraries across the globe, with architecture credentials that match their collections.
Done By The Phonograph: Unique Uses To Which Talking Machines Are Put

More than forty-five thousand talking machines are in use in the United States alone, and the demand for them is so great that the factories are working night and day. The phonograph is constantly being put to new and unique uses.
The First Jazz Recording Turns 100

A century ago, a recording of the startlingly novel “Livery Stable Blues” helped launch a new genre of music unknown to most of the rest of the United States.
A Phonograph School For Parrots

Only the most prestigious pupils could enroll in The Philadelphia Phonograph School of Languages for Parrots, which in 1903 was said to be “the only institution of its kind in the world.” It boasted over 100 feathered graduates that “could pronounce all kinds of sentences and phrases” and speak three different languages (English, French, and German).
Victrola trademark bought by Long Island Company

A Long Island consumer electronics company, Innovative Technology, is rebranding its nostalgia turntable line after acquiring the historic Victrola trademark for a six-figure sum, the company’s owner says.
Sounds from Shanghai

A few years after the founding of the earliest record player companies like Pathé by the Pathé Brothers in France in 1896, the Gramophone and Typewriter Company by William Owen in the UK in 1900, and the Victor Talking Machine Company by Eldridge R. Johnson in the US in 1901, Shanghai became the target for this new entertainment.
Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archive Opens

For over half a century, dedicated fans have dreamed of a permanent museum and archive to preserve the memory of the world-famous Bix Beiderbecke and his music. The long-planned Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archive opened to the public on Monday, July 24, 2017, in its new home at the River Music Experience in Bix’s hometown of Davenport, Iowa.
Thomas Edison and the Eclipse of 1878

Since we recently experienced the full solar eclipse on August 21, let's take a look back at how this celestial phenomenon affected the great American innovator of the Gilded Age.
Free Discography Downloads

The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. It is part of the American Discography Project (ADP)—an initiative of the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Packard Humanities Institute that is edited by a team of researchers based at the UCSB Library. These files are now available for download and provided free for personal use.
Edison invented recordings – but it was the phonography studios of Spain that popularised them

To the question “When were recordings invented?”, we might be tempted to answer “1877” – the year when Thomas A Edison was first able to record and playback sound with a phonograph. But what if we think of recordings not as mere carriers of sound, but as commodities that can be bought and sold, as artefacts capable of capturing and embodying values and emotions; of defining a generation, a country or a social class? The story then becomes one that unfolds over three decades and is full of many layers and ramifications.
Forget the vinyl comeback. See a house stuffed with antique phonographs.

Brian Gorrell spent most of his career teaching music to children, including directing the Henry Clay High School Band in the 1970s. But for the past two decades, he has sold, repaired and collected their ancestors’ mechanical music machines.
Restoring a vintage 1920s recording system for 'American Epic'

Adam Savage tells the story behind American Epic, the culmination of a two-decade-long project to reassemble a one-of-a-kind 1920s recording system and the exhausting restoration of hundreds of the era’s forgotten musical works.
30,000 78rpm Records Are Now In a Digital Archive

A giant pile of forgotten 78rpm records is now online.

A group over at the Internet Archive finally released their ambitious project. It’s being dubbed The Great 78 RPM Project!, and its mission is to post a vast digital collection of 78rpm records online. Currently, you can access and download over 30,000 records and cylinder recordings.

Latest from the Blog...

A giant pile of forgotten 78rpm records is now online.

Latest Archived 78s...