link: Canadian Historical Recordings Online!!

Subject: Canadian Historical Recordings Online!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:54 AM

Masato Sakurai appears to have found another treasure.

Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings


Quoting from the website's introductory copy:

About the Virtual Gramophone Database

The Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings is a multi-media database which, when completed, will provide a detailed picture of the 78-rpm era in Canada. The Virtual Gramophone is being undertaken as a multiphase project, of which four phases have been completed.

Phase One focused on the earliest commercial discs produced in Canada: approximately 2,100 7-inch 78-rpm recordings released by the Berliner Company of Montreal between 1899 and 1908.

Phase Two covered about 1,200 early 10-inch acoustic recordings made in Canada by the Berliner Company between 1901-1915.

Phases Three and Four added recordings from the First World War era.

Each record in the database provides detailed information about an original recording, such as its title and performer, relevant dates, and information about the label and disc. Also accompanying selected entries are links to digitally scanned images of the label, to biographies of Canadian artists featured on the recordings, and to digital audio reproductions of recordings with Canadian content.

Please note that RealAudio's RealPlayer version 5.0 or higher must be installed on your computer in order to hear the digital reproductions of 78-rpm discs on this site.


They have.... Everything, from opera to minstrelsy, from medleys of jigs to hymns.

Oh yes, and they're all downloadable as MP3's, too.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Canadian Historical Recordings Online!!
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 07:21 AM

This site was introduced at this thread: Great New Link - Virtual Gramophone, but it seems not many people has been there (judging from the number of links to its recordings). Let me add other sites (not so large as the Virtual Gramophone). The first three are American Memory collections.

Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry

Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment 1870-1920

The Sound Recording Collection at The National Park Service site

~Masato