Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1891-1922
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Music CD Cover
Edition: Music CDFormat: Explicit Lyrics
CD Release Date: 2005-10-11
Music Label: Archeophone Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Mamma's Black Baby Boy (Unique Quartette, 1893)
- Keep Movin' (Standard Quartette, 1894)
- Who Broke the Lock (Unique Quartette, c.1895)
- Brother Michael, Won't You Hand Down that Rope (Oriole Quartette, c.1895)
- Poor Mourner (Cousins and DeMoss, 1898)
- Who Broke the Lock (Cousins and DeMoss, 1898)
- Down on the Old Camp Ground (Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, 1902)
- Jerusalem Mornin' (Polk Miller and His Old South Quartet, 1909)
- Little David / Shout All Over God's Heaven (Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, 1909)
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Apollo Jubilee Quartet, 1912)
- Shout All Over God's Heaven (Apollo Jubilee Quartet, 1912)
- Good News (Tuskegee Institute Singers, 1914)
- The Rain Song (Right Quintette, 1915)
- Goodnight Angeline (Four Harmony Kings, 1921)
- Experiences in the Show Business (Charley Case, 1909)
- The Whistling Coon (George W. Johnson, 1891)
- Adam and Eve and de Winter Apple (excerpt) (Louis Vasnier, c.1893)
- The Laughing Song (George W. Johnson, c.1894Â?98)
- Minstrel First Part, featuring Â?The Laughing SongÂ? (Spencer, Williams & Quinn's Imperial Minstrels, c.1894)
- Listen to the Mocking Bird (George W. Johnson, 1896)
- The Laughing Coon (George W. Johnson, c.1898)
- The Whistling Girl (George W. Johnson, c.1899)
- My Little Zulu Babe (Williams and Walker, 1901)
- Carving the Duck (George W. Johnson, 1903)
- The Merry Mail Man (Len Spencer and George W. Johnson, 1906)
- Nobody (Bert Williams, 1906)
- My Own Story of the Big Fight (part 1) (Jack Johnson, 1910)
- Beans, Beans, Beans (Opal Cooper, 1917)
- Great Camp Meetin' Day (Noble Sissle, 1920)
- Atlanta Exposition Speech (Booker T. Washington, 1908)
- Old Black Joe (Thomas Craig, 1898)
- Old Dog Tray (Carroll Clark, 1910)
- I Surrender All (Daisy Tapley and Carroll Clark, 1910)
- Swing Along (Afro-American Folk Song Singers, 1914)
- The Rain Song (Afro-American Folk Song Singers, 1914)
- Exhortation (Right Quintette, 1915)
- Vesti la Giubba (Roland Hayes, 1918)
- Go Down Moses (Harry T. Burleigh, 1919)
- Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (Edward H. S. Boatner, 1919)
- Villanelle (Florence ColeÂ?Talbert, 1919)
- Barcarolle (R. Nathaniel Dett, 1919)
- Lament (Clarence Cameron White, 1919)
- When de Co'n Pone's Hot / Possum (Edward Sterling Wright, 1913)
- Down Home Rag (Europe's Society Orchestra, 1913)
- Bregeiro (Rio Brazilian Maxixe) (Joan Sawyer's Persian Garden Orchestra, 1914)
- On the Shore at Le-Lei-Wei (Ciro's Club Coon Orchestra, 1916)
- Down Home Rag (Wilbur C. Sweatman, 1916)
- Some Jazz Blues (Memphis Pickaninny Band, 1917)
- Sarah from Sahara (Eubie Blake Trio, 1917)
- The Jazz Dance (Blake's Jazzone Orchestra, 1917)
- Ev'rybody's Crazy 'Bout the Doggone Blues (Wilbur C. Sweatman's Original Jazz Band, 1918)
- Darktown Strutters' Ball (Lieut. Jim Europe's 369th U. S. Infantry Â?Hell FightersÂ? Band, 1919)
- Camp Meeting Blues (Ford Dabney's Band, 1919)
- St. Louis Blues (W. C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band, 1922)
Free Music Notes for Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1891-1922
Free Music Review: Priceless documents in context
Hit: 5 Stars
I read Tim Brooks' book Lost Sounds soon after it came out. Both early recordings and pre-jazz African-American music have been interests of mine for a while now, and Brooks' book is an invaluable work on both. This companion double CD set, used either as aural illustration for the book or by itself, is equally invaluable.
As Brooks readily admits, many of these sounds were forgotten and nearly extinguished because of their discomforting nature. Many of the black performers before 1922 engaged in one sort of "tomming" or another. The recording industry was a whites-only business, and only those artists who appealed to whites in some way got recorded at this time. Thus these recordings can't be taken as representative of the music African-Americans made for their own enjoyment.
The variety of styles and approaches in the black music recorded in the 90's, aughts, and teens reflects the variety of ideas and approaches to black self-representation in these times. From dignified gospel styles to minstrel songs, from sentimental ballads to the startling proto-jazz of Jim Europe, Ford Dabney and Wilbur Sweatman, every expression of black artists was necessarily related to political or social ideals and realities. The CDs not only present this wide variety of material, but the 58-page notes help draw out the social significance of each type of recording.
Rather than proceeding chronologically, the contents are divided roughly into four sections, Vocal Harmonies, Minstrel and Vaudelville Traditions, Aspirational Motives, and Dance Rhythms. Except for the last section which focuses on later instrumentals, there is a good deal of overlap between the sections, but this only helps illustrate the overlaps in the traditions.
The sound quality, while never hi-fi, is amazing considering the sources. Some of the best people in the early-sound restoration field contributed their efforts and it shows. I know from experience just how difficult it is to get all the sound out of an early recording. All involved deserve a big hand.
My one complaint with the package is the inclusion at the beginning of the Minstrel notes of a noxious quote from Stanley Crouch dismissing all rap music as new minstrelsy aimed at white audiences. Brooks is aware that the politics of self-representation among early 20th Century African-Americans were extremely complex. How he could fail to see that they still are complex, and how he could miss the blinding upper-class bias of Crouch, is beyond me. It's possible the quote was supposed to be a demonstration of the continuing complexity of these politics, but it appears to be just an endorsement of Crouch's ignorance.
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1891-1922 Poster
If you believe Robert Johnson was the first to play rock ?n? roll, listen up. Records made by African-American artists in the 1890s anticipated by decades the essentials of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ?n? roll?and yes, even Robert Johnson. Unlike the pioneer blues and jazzmen of the 1920s?whose contributions to American music are duly documented and appreciated today?the achievements of their forgotten predecessors are all but erased from history: the sound too limited, the grooves too noisy, the words too painful. Tim Brooks brought the Lost Sounds of these pioneer black performers to our notice with the publication of his groundbreaking book. Archeophone brings these Lost Sounds to life with the release of this CD. And none too soon, as the precious few sounds that have survived a century of neglect are fading fast. Those experienced with pioneer recordings are in for some surprises, as most are reissued here for the first time. And those who are not . . . you?ve not heard anything like them before. Many are not easy to listen to. But they are worth the effort, as they let us hear?as close to first hand as possible?the forgotten black artists who contributed so significantly to American music and culture. Your view of history is about to be rocked.Blues Music CDs
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Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Music in American Life)by Tim Brooks
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