It's time to hop in our time machine and head back to the early 1900's, shortly after phonographic cylinder recordings became popular. Long before CDs, cassette tapes, and vinyl records existed, recordings were made on disc shaped phonographic cylinders. The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison on 18 July 1877 for recording telephone messages. By the 1880s audio recordings using wax cylinders were mass marketed. These had sound recordings in the grooves on the outside of hollow cylinders of slightly soft wax. Early cylinder records would commonly wear out after they were played a few dozen times. The buyer could then either bring the worn cylinders back to the dealer to be traded in as partial credit for purchase of new recordings, or have their surface shaved smooth so new recordings could be made on them. In 1890 Charles Tainter patented the use of hard carnauba wax as a replacement for the common mixture of paraffin and beeswax used on phonograph cylinders.
Fortunately many of these phonographic cylinder recordings still exist, and have been also been digitally archived. I'm a proud member of the Cylinder Recordings group on last.fm. One of the group's connected artists is John J. Kimmel. Kimmel (1866–1942) was an Irish accordion virtuoso. He played a one row melodeon accordion. Despite only having 10 keys to work with, Kimmel was able to create complex medleys, waltzes and polka. Kimmel adopted a very driving accordion style on some of these pieces, which sounds almost demented at times, with the small skips in the recordings adding to the effect even more. This collection is also available to download as individual mp3 files on this website.
Track List:
American Cake Walk (1906)
Kimmble (sic) March: Kimmel March (1907)
American Polka (1908)
Medley of Bucks and Reels (1908)
Medley of Irish Reels (1909)
Medley of Irish Jigs (1909)
Medley of Irish Songs (1909)
Barn Dance (1910)
German Waltz Medley (1910)
International and "Fans" Marches (1910)
Kimmel Medley (1910)
Medley of German Polkas (1910)
Medley of Hornpipes (1910)
Allerdeen (1912)
The Elite March (1912)
Buck Dance Medley (1914)
Connaught Man (1918)
Kimmel March (1918)
Haste to the Wedding (1921)
Download: John J. Kimmel - 20 Phonographic Cylinder Recordings 1906-1921
Download Size: 56MB
this is really interesting post thanks for creating it
ReplyDelete@wheelzie: You're welcome. Thank you for commenting. I was wondering how this would be received if I posted it. I have several more cylinder recordings that I could post if more people are interested.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm interested!
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