Songs your grandmother danced to...

January 8, 2010 7:28 PM

Mult-link Youtube: victrolaman
posted by grumblebee (7 comments total)

A neat one to start with is "Nothing From Nothing Leaves You (1905)."
posted by grumblebee at 7:35 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I endorse this.
posted by stilist at 9:11 PM on January 8, 2010

As a more substantial contribution, you can find a bunch of old recordings on the Internet Archive—here’s audio from 1879–1940. For example, Ada Jones is heavily represented.
posted by stilist at 9:17 PM on January 8, 2010

Something about watching an old-school Victrola on Youtube on my Macbook Pro via the internet seems... a little disconcerting.

I mean, god DAMN the world has changed so very quickly.
posted by LordSludge at 9:20 PM on January 8, 2010

Great stuff. Ages ago, when searching for audio of Danny Kaye and The Andrews Sisters singing Civilization (playing a lot of Fallout 3 back then) I came across gramaphoneshane's channel. I'm glad there's people out there that do this.
posted by Ritchie at 9:29 PM on January 8, 2010

The machines were built to last, and for the most part are not rare. The records are brittle, but stand up well (you can even play a cracked 78), and are not difficult to find. We listen to music on one of our wind-up phonographs nearly every day. Check out our matched set for DJ gigs!
posted by squalor at 10:39 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fun and interesting. But if want to watch old records go around I have an Edisonola that still plays and 49 of the 50 platters that it came with(lost one to moving). I have recorded all of the tunes to cassette and converted some to mp3. Baby Sister Blues is my favorite. When I have them all done I will put them on my website. Let you know when.
posted by bjgeiger at 1:11 PM on January 9, 2010