Sound Beat is a daily, 90 second show highlighting the holdings of the Belfer Audio Archive. The Belfer is part of the Syracuse University Library, and with over half a million recordings, is one of the largest sound archives in the United States. Each SB episode focuses on one particular recordin…
Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann was, perhaps, one of music's great inventors…and, probably, one of 19th-century Germany's worst neighbors.
Few today recognize the name Euday Bowman, yet during ragtime's heyday Bowman's 12th Street Rag was one of the most well-known tunes around.
You're listening to Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra with Herbie Fields on sax.
One of the most famous, and best-selling, marches of all time.
Giuseppe Verdi: revered by music lovers, his countrymen and...the bearding community.
You're listening to Jim Reeves with I Could Cry, an Abbott 45 from 1953, and… Gentleman Jim Reeves had 51 top ten hits in a career cut short when a small plane he was piloting crashed in 1964. For your next Morbid Trivia Night: He was taught by the same man who taught Randy Hughes, Patsy Cline's pilot, who of course had met the same fate a year earlier. But Reeves' records kept on coming. RCA Victor continued releasing unpublished songs, mixed with previously released tracks, and people kept buying them. Of those 51 top ten hits we mentioned, 19 came posthumously. And there was a Jim Reeves single on the charts every year from 1970 to 1984, nearly 2 decades after his death.
"Harry though they drew the color line, you're a champion just the same."
Beethoven initially considered Napoleon a kindred spirit; indeed, they were more or less the same age, grew up in modest households, and neither had to stoop to pass through doorways.
No matter what your line of work..it's always good to have a back-up plan. Just ask James "Kokomo" Arnold.
You're listening to Julius Larosa with 1955's “Let's Stay Home Tonight” and…
Vernon Dalhart, one of the founding fathers of country music, got his start in...New York City opera halls?
How do you know when you've pretty much nailed a song? Earning a nickname from it is usually a good indication
You're listening to “Love, Here is My Heart” sung by Reed Miller and…
It's ironic that celebrity marriages command such attention, when all seem to be made up of the same three key ingredients: Glitz, glamour and short life spans.
You're listening to “I Found A New Baby”, recorded in 1942, and…
Arthur Sullivan was one of Britain's most important composers, one half of a little theatrical team known as Gilbert and Sullivan.
Famed lawman Wyatt Earp has been the subject of nearly a dozen movies, but his role as on-set advisor for westerns would have a major impact on film history.
You're listening to Johannes Brahms and the Banda de Estado Mayor de Mexico. That's right, a Hungarian danza by a Mexican banda. You're on the Sound Beat. Brahms composed 21 danzas, basing them on Hungarian folk themes. Mostly…in fact, he thought this one, number 5, was based on a folk song, but that song turned out it to be an original composition by Béla Kéler. You may have heard it in the Charlie Chaplin film “The Great Dictator”, in which Chaplin shaves a man to the tune. Brahms himself was cleanshaven until his mid-30's. And, by the way, described as “Herculean”. Though A late-comer to the no-shave game, he ended up with a magnificent specimen towards the end.
John Gielgud reads Ozymandias, from Columbia's 1939 “Voices of Poetry” collection.
Instrumentation in the past century of recorded music has been dominated by guitars, drums, horns, and, more recently, keyboards and synthesizers. But some instruments have left their unique mark on the recording industry, distinguishing songs from the rest of the pack and in some cases, establishing inextricable connections between the ear and the mind. For example, what does this song remind you of? Palm trees swaying in the breeze? Pristine waters, hula dancers, etc? That's all thanks to the Hawaiian steel guitar. You're listening to the Waikiki Hawaiian Orchestra with My Hawaiian Evenin' Star, an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder released in 1926. The easy, breezy sound translated into a big hit for Santo and Johnny Farina with their 1959 hit “Sleep Walk”, probably one of the most popular instrumental pop songs of all time. Curiosity piqued? Check out more on the Hawaiian steel. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/people/junnn/
Who better to explain the blues than the woman who named them?
What's an aeronautical adventurer got to do to get some coverage?
The pioneers of Country music just sound Country, even by their first names. (Roy, Hank, Gene). Which is why Clarence Albert Pointdexter simply had to go. So how do you get from Clarence to country? Some call Dexter the father of honky tonk music, which can be a bit confusing without musical accompaniment. You see, there's blues piano honky-tonk, a rollicking bridge between ragtime and boogie-woogie. But as you can hear, this is the other honky-tonk…another bridge, from Western Swing to what we now call “Country”. (Pencil scribble effects courtesy of mckinneysounds via http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/scribbles)
In 1936 Natalya Sats commissioned Sergei Prokofiev to compose a piece for Moscow's Central Children's Theatre. The goal: to introduce children to the principals of the symphony. Somewhat ironically, the Orchestra went unnamed in this 1938, 3-disc RCA Victor recording. And while the initial reaction was lukewarm, Peter and the Wolf has introduced generations of youngsters, and probably some oldsters, to the various instruments of the symphony. More than one critic has viewed the piece as allegory for Soviet and world politics of the time. After all, it can't be a mistake that the greatest Russian folk hero is…Peter the Great. For a reading of the Wolf as the Nazi threat, click through!
It's funny to think it, but even Ol' Blue Eyes had a first hit.
As far as boxing names go, there are lots of “Sugar Rays”, plenty of “Golden Boys”…but only one Cinderella Man.
Jay McShann gave birth to the “Kansas City Sound”, but this song has gone down in history as a beginning of another sort.
Jimmie Davis is regularly credited as creator of the classic “You Are My Sunshine”, heard here from 1941. But…if that's true, then how did the Rice Brothers record it in 1939?
Who says bluesmen aren't poets? "Mr. Blues" himself with a nod to an early 20th century British modernist poet. And, a fair bit of double entendre.
Those young drifters; Seems they'd use anything to get a fair maiden to their bed.
The film Aleksandr Nevsky is a recounting of a 13th century prince's rise to national hero-dom. But parallels to the storyline echoed through the USSR in the 1930's.
You're listening to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University sing Peter on the Sea, from 1927,
Wicked author Gregory Maguire did much to elicit sympathy for the Wicked Witch of the West.
Two keys to any good marriage: understanding and coffee.
You're listening to The Human Bird, Joe Belmont, with Byron Harlan.
“The Hunting Wolves”, an Edison cylinder recording made by Ernest Thompson Seton in 1920.
“Born” about 20,000 BC and “died” May 2, 2003. Well, he had a good run.
A man as prolific as Charles Trenet (850 songs published over a 60 year career) probably doesn't rest much, even on the train.
There's "hungry" and then there's "Diamond Jim Brady hungry".
There's "hungry" and then there's "Diamond Jim Brady hungry".
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