I owe my understanding of recorded music to record collectors. In today’s world, these collections need to be digitized (analog to digital) and posted somewhere. Like this one on YouTube.com. Jazz roots have been recorded, and are now in the public domain starting with the early recordings in the beginning of the 20th century. It was called Jazz when it got to Chicago at the turn of the century.
Let’s get ready for the next baseball season with Ed Meeker’s version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” This classic recording of a hundred-year-old song extolling the virtues of America’s pastime is a must-listen.
Mr. Meeker was an Engineer at Edison Records when he was asked to record this version of a song written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer. Ironically neither of these gentlemen had ever been to a baseball game before writing this classic song. We have enhanced the sound quality of the original wax cylinder digitally with Michael Rosen’s assistance.
Peg Leg Howell led a very spicy life to say the least. He lost his leg in a fight and was in and out of jail for bootlegging. A self-taught guitarist, he supplemented his income performing his music wherever he could. With the help of Eddie Anthony, Joshua Howell (Peg Leg) bridged the gap between Country and 12 Bar Blues. After listening to this song, I wish I could have seen Peg Leg perform.
A real music pioneer, Paul Whiteman added orchestral instrumentation to the jazz of the day and recorded “Do Wacka Do” over 90 years ago. We mastered the original for streaming, and cleaned up this masterpiece of fun and joy. I can picture a truly great cartoon of the singer and band in my mind just listening to this song.
This is exactly why I love this site so much. I would have never heard Lydia sing, so clearly. Again thanks to Michael Rosen @ East Bay Recorders, he made us a clean digital file. What a great vocal! What fine 12 string guitar playing! What a dark song! Check out the translated lyrics.
Enigmatic blues legend Kid Bailey (AKA Willie Brown) left behind scant few recordings, and clean copies are difficult or perhaps impossible to come by. We downloaded the best audio we could find of Bailey’s classic “Rowdy Blues” from Archive.org, and asked producer Michael Rosen to employ his studio magic to reconstruct the audio with glitches and pops reduced and the warmth of the original recording brought to the fore. It’s a great live take from nearly a century ago, and we are happy to be able to share it for new audiences to enjoy today.
