Dec 17, 2007 11:29 PM

Dead Media Beat: Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Link: Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.

Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century.
They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike. With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of nearly 7,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online.
On this site you will have the opportunity to find out more about the cylinder format, listen to thousands of musical and spoken selections from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and discover a little-known era of recorded sound. If you know what you are looking for click the search button to begin, or you can browse by genre or sample some of our favorite selections in the featured cylinder section or by listening to online streaming radio.

(((Check out this guy's collection of Christmas songs from those halcyon days of dead media, well before the musical public domain ceased with the birth of a cartoon mouse on a tabletop in Kansas City.)))

http://paulfucito.blogspot.com/2007/12/vintage-christmas-wax-revisited.html

"Last year I posted a series of entries entitled "Vintage Christmas Wax" which most folks were pretty happy about. Alas, several of the old links have expired. Rather than have everyone search for the active links, I decided to compile the remaining links into one simple post. So, once again, here is a collection of vintage wax recordings from the early 1900s through the late 1930s (my favorite continues to be Eddie Cantor). Many of these fantastic transfers are from The Antique Christmas Lights Museum. Others were sourced from The Cylinder Preservation & Digitization Project, Canada's Virtual Gramaphone, the Library & Archives Canada, The Library of Congress, The Edison National Historic Site, and the Internet Archive. Happy Holidays!!! NOTE: Some of the files may take some time to load.

If Winter Comes / Fox Trot - (Atlantic Dance Orchestra) (1922)

Joy To The World - (The Edison Concert Band) (1906)

Hail, Hail, Day of Days! - (Edison Mixed Quartet) (1913)

Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah - (Oratorio Chorus) (1916)

Silent Night - (Elizabeth Spencer & Anthony Harrison) (1912)

Hail Smiling Morn (Christmas Carol) - (The Edison Quartette) (1904)

Christmas Bells - (Robert Gayler) (1919)

Holy Night (Florence Easton & Chorus) (1928)

The Star of Bethlehem: A Christmas Song (Henry Burr) (1908)

Silent Night (Florence Easton) (1924)

Bethlehem - The Shepherd's Nativity Hymn (Westminster Glee Singers) (1929)

Christmas Morn (Miro's Band) (1918) - Full track listing