Wired News: Archaic Sounds Reach Modern Ears

Wired News: Archaic Sounds Reach Modern Ears
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"A California library has created an online audio time machine by archiving some of the oldest sounds ever recorded.

A few mouse clicks give way to the jubilant sounds of Billy Murray singing 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' or Ada Jones warbling 'Whistle and I'll Wait for You.' Some pieces, like 'Negro Recollections,' serve as reminders of America's deeply racist past.

Curators at the University of California at Santa Barbara's Donald C. Davidson Library have digitized 6,000 late 19th-century and early 20th-century wax and plastic cylinder recordings -- precursors to the flat record. The audio, which includes ragtime hits, vaudeville routines and presidential speeches, encapsulates history with crackles and hisses, but archivists say preserving the sounds now is vital because the cylinders are deteriorating.

'The major record companies have been neglecting this aspect of music for the better part of 90 years,' said David Seubert, director of the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project."