My grandmother had this record, and an old wind-up phonograph with a primitive needle to play it on. I used it as a child. It was not brought out as an antique, but as something old that was suitable only for a child to play with in the 1960's. It was a curiosity then, as was the phonograph. I don't know if either would be greatly valuable now, but had it survived to our era, we would be working to preserve it.
This version sounds familiar, so the one I listened to may have dated from 1923. If so, the years that I listened to it were closer to that year than to this, which seems impossible to me. Even those who pay great attention to history still tend to view the years before their own birth as deeply remote, while decades after that date seem not so far.
My childhood home's turntable would play 33, 45, or 78, so we often played my father's funky old 78s: Harry Lauder, Songs of the Lincoln Brigade, all kinds of stuff.
ReplyDeleteWe had one that also played 16 1/2, though I never saw a record that was cut for that speed. I heard they had been used for long-playing symphonies at one point.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of current disturbances came up briefly at work. I compared them to '68. I got blank looks or vague "something happened way back then didn't it?" Only one of my colleagues was around then, and he wasn't old enough to be reading newspapers.
ReplyDeleteI had a wind up phonograph in Africa, when I was very young. The only record I liked to play was the Warsaw Concerto. We only had about 5 total anyway. I don't know where my dad found it, in Kaduna.
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