Catalog of Phonograph Records [No. 1] -and- Folk Music of the United States: Catalog of Phonograph Records, No. 2

Library of Congress, Music Division, Recording Laboratory

Verlag: The Library of Congress 1943; 1945, Washington DC, 1943

Beschreibung

[No. 1 is heavily tanned at the corners and edges; No. 2 is externally age-toned, lightly and fairly evenly on the front cover, more irregularly on the rear]. The first two catalogs issued by the Music Division of the Library of Congress, representing the inauguration of the Library's sale to the public of selected recordings from its Archive of American Folk Song. The Archive had been established in 1928 and by 1943 had collected more than 6,000 "instantaneous recordings made in the field by folklorists" (the most renowned of which were the father-and-son team of John and Alan Lomax, both of whom had left their shared post as head of the Archive the year before these catalogs were issued). The first publication -- the full title of which is "Catalog of Phonograph Records: Selected Titles from the Archive of American Folk Song, Issued to January, 1943" (it only became "No. 1" retroactively, with the issuance of the designated "No. 2" two years later) -- is 20 pages in length (including the covers), consisting of ten sheets, unbound but folded in the middle to form a "booklet" measuring 5-1/2" x 7-1/2". It lists the contents of all six albums (each consisting of five individual discs) that had been issued up to that time, along with the contents of a two-record album that had been issued "for the Friends of Music in the Library of Congress" in 1941. The six albums are: (I) Anglo-American Ballads (including one sung by Woody Guthrie, "The Gypsy Davy"; (II) Anglo-American Shanties, Lyric Songs, Dance Tunes and Spirituals; (III) Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads; (IV) Afro-American Blues and Game Songs; (V) French Ballads and Dance Tunes [and] Spanish Religious Songs and Game Songs; (VI) Songs from the Iroquois Longhouse (indigenous peoples' songs, mostly recorded in Canada). For each song, the entry gives the performer(s), the date and place of recording, and the recordists. (Many of the "Afro-American" pieces were recorded in various prisons and work farms, mostly by the Lomaxes.) The second publication -- now properly typeset and printed, by the U.S. Government Printing Office (the earlier one looks to have been composed on a typewriter and printed by some offset process) -- is just 12 pages long, has a glued (not stapled or stitched) binding, and gives the impression that the enterprise is now on a bit more solid footing, as opposed to the provisional-appearing 1943 publication (that didn't even have the confidence to declare itself a "No. 1" and thereby imply the eventual appearance of a No. 2). It covers the additional five albums (now Arabic-numeraled) issued from January 1943 to December 1944: (7) Anglo-American Ballads; (8) Negro Work Songs and Calls; (9) Play and Dance Songs and Tunes; (10) Negro Religious Songs and Services; (11) Sacred Harp Singing. Library holdings of both publications are plentiful enough -- OCLC records a couple dozen of each -- but seemingly scarce in commerce, with no examples of either found for offer online as of October 2023. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 28463

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Catalog of Phonograph Records [No. 1] -and- ...

Verlag: The Library of Congress 1943; 1945, Washington DC

Erscheinungsdatum: 1943

Einband: Paper wrappers

Zustand: Good

Auflage: First Edition.