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Archeophone's 89 reissues to date have earned 27 Grammy nominations and 1 Grammy win. We specialize in making the world's oldest records accessible, and all of our releases feature top-notch audio restorations and extensive new scholarship that sets the standard for historical reissues. If you'd like to find out what's coming out next, sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Genius of the Seventh Ward
Louis Vasnier
Coming November 15, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH SPV-0702-241 • UPC: 98715107821
Thirty years before some fiddlers from Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia started recording a new genre of music called “hillbilly,” a Creole of color from the Seventh Ward of New Orleans named Louis Vasnier (1858–1902) beat them to the punch. Recorded in 1891, “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule” is the most raucous version of a song that, better known as “Johnson’s Old Gray Mule,” would enter the country music canon. But Vasnier did more than give us what is arguably the oldest country record in existence. For the short-lived Louisiana Phonograph Company he also waxed sermons by a fictional preacher named Brudder Rasmus, and “Adam and Eve and de Winter Apple” joins “Thompson” on this 45-rpm vinyl single. Vasnier’s two surviving cylinders are the earliest extant sounds from New Orleans. In them, he summons up the atmosphere and the culture of the Crescent City during the time Buddy Bolden was still a teenager.
This collection includes a 16-page booklet with notes and new research by Richard Martin that provides a deeper understanding of these recordings, the history of the Louisiana Phonograph Company, and significant new findings on the life and times of Louis “Bebe” Vasnier. List price: $17.99 Sale price $15.99
Centennial
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band / Various Artists
Released: August 30, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH 6014 • UPC: 860003210093
The 1923 recordings by King Oliver’s working Chicago band are the stuff of legend. Nothing like them had ever been heard on record before, and nothing in jazz would be the same afterward. Here, for the first time, all 37 sides are presented—in release order—on two LPs and two CDs, along with 55 additional tracks (on CDs 3 and 4) that allow us to understand these musical giants not only as innovators but also as products of the acoustic-era recording industry. With all-new restorations and remastering by Richard Martin, these selections have never sounded better. Further, there’s an 80-page book included, where GRAMMY-winning author Ricky Riccardi insightfully tells the story of the relationship between “Papa Joe” Oliver and “Little Louis” Armstrong and gives detailed notes on the tracks. Produced by Archeophone’s Meagan Hennessey and Richard Martin, GRAMMY-winning producers of Lost Sounds. Celebrate the 100th anniversary of these landmark records! List price: $114.95 Sale price $109.95
After Midnight
Ford Dabney’s Syncopated Orchestras
Released: May 17, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH 6013 • UPC: 198168060391
As a founding member of the all-Black Clef Club, Washington DC-born-and-raised Ford T. Dabney helped revolutionize 1910s society dance music with his chief collaborator, James Reese Europe. In 1916, his syncopated orchestra began a multi-year residency with Flo Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic, an after-hours show staged in New York’s New Amsterdam Theatre rooftop garden. Subsequently, Dabney’s Band made several dozen records for the Aeolian-Vocalion Company, pioneers in vertically-cut longer-playing records. When Prohibition forced the Frolic to close, Dabney moved on musically as well as professionally, making a few standout jazz records for the famed Paramount label. Highlights of the 48 tracks on these two CDs include “That’s It,” “The Dancing Deacon,” “Bugle Call Blues,” “Lassus Trombone,” “Slidin’ Sid,” “Rainy Day Blues,” and “Camp Meeting Blues.” Notes in the 36-page booklet by Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds. List price: $28.99 Sale price $25.99
The Moaninest Moan of Them All: The Jazz Saxophone of Loren McMurray, 1920-1922
Various Artists
Released: July 14, 2023 • Catalogue: ARCH 6012 • UPC: 860003210079
Like Icarus flying dangerously close to the sun, Loren McMurray was an all-too-bright flame in the nascent field of jazz recordings. Dead at only 25, and having made records for just two years, “Mac” was a genuine musical pioneer. His trailblazing sides offered many listeners their first real taste of jazz saxophone, and his signature performance style revolutionized dance music. Today, his recordings provide an unparalleled glimpse into the saxophone’s transformation from just-another-voice in the band to a signature sound of jazz. Featuring 2 CDs with 50 selections and an 80-page booklet by Grammy-nominated authors Colin Hancock and Mark Berresford, The Moaninest Moan presents the story and sounds of Loren McMurray, from his early days of making music in Kansas to his final sides recorded in New York. List price: $32.99
1905: "Deliver Daniel From the Lion’s Den"
Various Artists
Released: April 21, 2023 • Catalogue: ARCH 9025 • UPC: 860003210086
1905: “Deliver Daniel From the Lion’s Den” features 27 popular recordings from 1905, the year Einstein seemingly emerged from nowhere to publish four works that made his reputation and permanently changed our understanding of light, mass, and energy. Highlights include Arthur Collins’ “Preacher and the Bear,” Bob Roberts’ “Back Back to Baltimore,” and two works that helped establish Billy Murray’s reputation as the premier interpreter of George M. Cohan on record: “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” List price: $17.49
1904: "Call It the Land of Dreams"
Various Artists
Released: September 30, 2022 • Catalogue: ARCH 9024 • UPC: 860003210062
1904: “Call It the Land of Dreams” presents 27 popular recordings from the year the St. Louis Exposition introduced the world to ice cream cones and America took lead on the Panama Canal. Highlights include “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” “Under the Anheuser Bush,” and “Toyland.” List price: $17.49
Etching the Voice: Emile Berliner and the First Commercial Gramophone Discs, 1889-1895
Various Artists
Released: September 28, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 3006 • UPC: 860003210055
The recordings on these two CDs were made between 1889 and the mid-1890s at the launch of Emile Berliner’s disc gramophone in Europe. They are the first and scarcest manufactured sound recordings in the world-the archetypes of the 78, the 45, the EP, and the LP. Gathered together, all surviving discs could be carried in a hatbox. And as such, they are the holiest of grails among collectors of early recorded sound.
Yet much of what collectors believe about these discs is wrong. Historians Stephan Puille and David Giovannoni and the GRAMMY-winning Archeophone team set the record straight about the discs’ composition (it’s not celluloid), their size (it’s not five inches), the speed at which they were recorded (it’s not what you think), their content (it’s rarely Emile Berliner), and their purpose (it wasn’t to capture timeless performances). They explain how the first gramophones, after initial positive response, came to be misunderstood as toys, when in fact they embodied cutting-edge technology that initially outyelled, eventually outsold, and ultimately outlived Edison’s cylinder phonograph.
With 100 discs (plus two bonuses) restored here, this compilation holds the largest audio library of these pioneer recordings ever assembled. And it presents them with a sound quality unavailable to anyone at any time. Quite literally, these recordings could not be heard this clearly when new.
These 19th-century recordings document a key moment in entertainment and technological histories. They are the first performances that people could command at will in their own homes. We bring them into your 21st-century home accompanied by a comprehensive and enjoyable 80-page booklet of essays, track notes, transcribed lyrics, and illustrations.
List price: $32.99
Swede Home Chicago: The Wallin’s Svenska Records Story, 1923-1927
Various Artists
Released: August 27, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 8003 • UPC: 860003210048
Chicago, the most populous Swedish city after Stockholm, was also home to the first record label founded by a Nordic immigrant to the United States. Gustaf Waldemar Wallin, a former crofter from Sweden’s rocky western coast, owned a music shop and launched Wallin’s Svenska Records, issuing 28 ten-inch shellac discs (56 tracks) from 1923 to 1927. Performers ran the era’s gamut: raucous vaudevillians; operatic tenors; accordion dance bands intermingling venerable folk tunes with hot jazz; sedate classical duos and novelty bell ringers; rousing vocal quartets and massed choirs; seasoned professionals and moonlighting amateurs. Further, Wallin’s discs were recorded by two important entrepreneurs with Chicago studios: evangelist Homer Rodeheaver, who made acoustic records, and Orlando Marsh, who pioneered in the field of electrical recording.
Comprising two CDs remastered from rare discs, Swede Home Chicago includes a richly illustrated 76-page booklet—co-authored by folklorists Jim Leary and Marcus Cederström, and Archeophone’s Richard Martin—featuring an essay on the label’s history, performers’ biographies, track notes, Swedish lyrics, and English translations, combining to illuminate a vibrant bygone musical scene that expands our understanding of America’s perpetual musical pluralism. Produced in cooperation with the Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. List price: $28.99
1923: "Gonna Play the Villain Part"
Various Artists
Released: February 26, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 9026 • UPC: 860003210024
The newest volume in our Phonographic Yearbook series, 1923: “Gonna Play the Villain Part” features 25 selections from the year a popular president died amid growing public scandals, a new sign illuminated the Los Angeles skyline, and the country was swept up musically by the question of where one could find bananas. List price: $17.49
Anthology: America’s Favorite Entertainers
Arthur Collins & Byron Harlan
Released: January 29, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 5507 • UPC: 860003210031
Before Phil and Don Everly, before Simon and Garfunkel, long before Hall and Oates . . . the most popular recording duo over the first quarter of the 20th century was the team of Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. Dubbed “America’s Favorite Entertainers” as they crisscrossed America in the late 1910s and early 1920s promoting Edison’s superior talking machines, Collins and Harlan came face to face with the thousands of ordinary people who bought the records that became the comical soundtrack of a generation. They represented the best and the worst of popular culture: advancing the career of Jewish émigré Irving Berlin and Black songwriters such as Chris Smith, W.C. Handy, and Shelton Brooks, while also perpetuating racist stereotypes. The issues, as usual, are thorny, but Archeophone tackles them with care and honesty. GRAMMY-recognized authors Ryan Barna and Richard Martin present the clear-eyed but accurate case of these two rough-and-ready unlikely partners who also became friends and took the phonograph by storm. Over 29 tracks, we lead you from 1902 to 1924, depicting a story that has never been told in LP form until now. Fantastic sound, too—you won’t believe how great these records sound! List price: $16.99
Celebrated, 1895-1896
Unique Quartette
Released: May 29, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH EPV-1006-201 • UPC: 860003210017
They came from the South to make their way in New York City. They worked as hotel porters and singing waiters. And the Unique Quartette, the first African American quartet ever to make records—beginning in 1890—have been a flickering historical mystery until now. Two of their wax cylinders appeared on our GRAMMY-winning Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922, but that was thought to be the last word.
This 10-inch vinyl compilation shows the group in all its barbershop-harmonizing glory over six expertly restored cylinder selections, whose existence is revealed for the first time only now. New research identifies the most likely members of the group to have participated in the recordings, and the dates and places of their births and deaths are published here for the first time. This version of “Down on the Old Camp Ground” is now understood to be the earliest one known, and the quartet-style yodeling on “Hot Corn Medley” is also the first waxed example of its type. And take a closer look at the photo on the cover: It’s the first image of the group to ever surface, and we believe at least three of the members shown are on these recordings. List price: $19.99
At the Minstrel Show: Minstrel Routines From the Studio, 1894-1926
Various Artists
Released: March 13, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH 1004 • UPC: 868490000296
For all the vexed issues they pose to us now, minstrel shows were an important part of American social life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early days of the phonograph industry, the record labels attempted to bring the experience of minstrelsy into consumers’ homes. The records were popular; hundreds of titles and thousands of examples survive to this day.
A few of these records have been issued by modern labels, but never before has an attempt been made to deal authoritatively with the genre as a whole. At the Minstrel Show fills the void with 51 tracks on two CDs and a 56-page heavily annotated booklet by Tim Brooks, author of the new McFarland book, The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media. Disc One features three complete minstrel “shows”—that is, series of discs or cylinders that were intended to be listened to sequentially to give the listener the experience of a whole minstrel show. Disc Two has a number of minstrel “first part” routines (some extremely rare) and songs and skits about minstrelsy, recorded between 1894 and 1926. List price: $28.99
The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business
Various Artists
Released: February 21, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH 6011 • UPC: 860003210000
Under the pseudonym “Carl Fenton,” Gus Haenschen led some of the tightest orchestra recordings of the 1920s—but he also oversaw the musical direction at the Brunswick label, where he signed Isham Jones, Al Jolson, Nick Lucas, Abe Lyman, the Happiness Boys, and even Charlie Chaplin. Haenschen probably would not have gotten that job had it not been for his reputation as a musically innovative student of Scott Joplin—and especially for his recording of six personal sides in 1916 that are the stuff of legend. All but a couple were thought lost to history, but now, together with researcher Colin Hancock, Archeophone is proud to present all six of Haenschen’s explosive 1916 recordings, along with 19 other tracks that show his influence on the music industry. Move over ODJB. These six sides change the game, and they and their creator, Gus Haenschen, are the missing link between ragtime and jazz. List price: $16.99
1910: "Act Two, Scene New"
Various Artists
Released: October 25, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 9015 • UPC: 868490000289
1910: “Act Two, Scene New” features 26 selections from 1910, the year the largest fire ever recorded in the U.S. consumed parts of Idaho, Montana, and Washington and set up a policy debate that lingers to this day about enviromental resource management. List price: $17.49
Anthology: Singer, Songwriter, Soldier
Arthur Fields
Released: July 12, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 5506 • UPC: 868490000272
Wanting to run away from home since age eleven, Abraham Finkelstein was always after something. He masked his Jewish background by adopting the stage name Arthur Fields and launched a long and prolific career as a songwriter, vaudevillian, recording artist, radio personality, and music publisher. Featuring 26 tracks and a 32-page booklet with notes by Grammy-nominated author Ryan Barna, Anthology: Singer, Songwriter, Soldier tells the story of Fields’ four-decade recording career and constant reinventions. We hear his 1914 debut with a long-forgotten Irving Berlin number, follow along as he becomes one of the key voices and songwriters of World War I, then listen as he reinvents himself as a “hillbilly” during the country music boom of the ’20s and ’30s. The compilation ends with two remarkable selections: His emotional 1941 recording of “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” and a 1951 wire recording captured by record collector Dick Carty in which he reprises his most famous composition, “It’s a Long Way to Berlin, but We’ll Get There!” List price: $17.99
The Mike and Meyer Files
Joe Weber and Lew Fields
Released: May 31, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 5023 • UPC: 868490000265
With their potent mixture of slapstick and fractured German dialect comedy, the pioneering vaudeville duo of Joe Weber and Lew Fields can rightly be called the granddaddy of all American comedy teams. They conquered Broadway with a series of hit burlesque comedies that pointed the way towards “Forbidden Broadway” and Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” and laid the foundation for later comedy teams the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges. Now for the first time, all of the pair’s comedy recordings have been masterfully restored and compiled in one collection that tells the story of this hugely influential duo. Includes a 32-page booklet with new scholarship by celebrated authors Trav S.D., L. Marc Fields, and Richard Martin. List price: $16.99
Alpine Dreaming: The Helvetia Records Story, 1920-1924
Various Artists
Released: August 31, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH 8002 • UPC: 778632908505
In 1920 Ferdinand Ingold, a poor but visionary Swiss settler in the small Wisconsin town of Monroe, audaciously launched a record label, Helvetia—invoking his homeland’s ancient name and celebrating its musical heritage. Praised in the immigrant press yet beset by fiscal challenges, Helvetia issued a scant 36 sides. Scattered, scarce, and nearly forgotten, Ingold’s entire catalog, newly restored and remastered, is offered here. Rollicking and somber, sentimental and lusty, these Swiss, German, and Tyrolean tunes and songs feature virtuoso instrumental combos, vocal quartets, and especially yodelers from Swiss communities in New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin. A 60-page booklet by folklorist Jim Leary, richly illustrated with rare images, offers extensive background on the label, performers, and each track, along with bilingual lyrics unlocked by a team of translators tackling dialectical challenges. Illuminating one of the first American record labels established by an immigrant for his own community, Alpine Dreaming both recalls a bygone era and resonates with all who seek better New World lives while remembering their homelands. Produced in cooperation with the Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. List price: $27.99
The Product of Our Souls: The Sound and Sway of James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra
Various Artists
Released: June 1, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH 6010 • UPC: 868490000258
America was hot to trot in 1913, when a craze for social dancing swept across the nation. Vernon and Irene Castle were the faces of that cultural revolution—and the soundtrack was composed by James Reese Europe and played by his bands. An esteemed musician, bandleader, and labor organizer on behalf of his fellow African Americans, Europe described his cohort’s musical innovations as "the product of our souls." This compilation presents for the first time all eight sides recorded by Europe’s Society Orchestra in 1913 and 1914, and it contrasts them with recordings of the same material by studio bands made contemporaneously. Also included are selections composed by Europe but recorded by other stars of the day, showing Europe’s depth and influence. In the enclosed 56-page booklet, author David Gilbert gives incisive musical and cultural analysis, establishing James Reese Europe’s prominence of position among the great musical forces of the 20th century. Companion to the book, The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace, published by the University of North Carolina Press, 2016. List price: $17.99
4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897
Charles Asbury
Released: May 4, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH EPV-0704-181 • UPC: 868490000241
This May, you can hear what only a handful of people have ever heard: the oldest recordings of banjo songs in existence, played by an African American veteran of the minstrel stage, Charles A. Asbury. 4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897 presents four of the rarest wax cylinders in a beautiful vinyl package. It is a seven-inch 45-rpm disc in a gatefold sleeve, with lyrics and a 16-page booklet of biographical and musical notes by Grammy-nominated authors Richard Martin and Ted Olson. List price: $16.99 Sale price $14.99
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Inventor of Sound Recording: A Bicentennial Tribute
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Emile Berliner
Released: May 2, 2017 • Catalogue: ARCH SP-SBT-04 • UPC: 868490000234
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817–1879) invented sound recording twenty years before Thomas Edison re-invented it. But his phonautograph is only one of his many accomplishments. Here, at the bicentennial of his birth, his story is published in depth. This extensively illustrated 48-page softcover book presents new research on Scott and his role as the father of sound recording. Included is a 33-1/3 flexi disc with phonautograms not only by Scott, but also by famous inventors who were inspired by him and his invention: Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner. List price: $22.00
1909: "Talk of Your Scand’lous Times"
Various Artists
Released: March 31, 2017 • Catalogue: ARCH 9014 • UPC: 778632907997
Our newest Phonographic Yearbook features 28 selections from 1909, the year Theodore Roosevelt handed the presidential reins to William Howard Taft and cries of “Oh You Kid!” scandalized the nation. 1909: "Talk of Your Scand’lous Times" includes a 24-page full-color booklet with notes and illustrations that bring the year to life. List price: $17.49
Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900
Various Artists
Released: September 30, 2016 • Catalogue: ARCH 1009 • UPC: 868490000203
Before the 20th century, the “sacred” songs of Protestant camp meetings and revivals were as catchy, memorable and personal as the pop songs of that or any other time. Bringing you more recordings from the 1890s than any other historical album to date, Waxing the Gospel is a landmark collection of 102 tracks on three CDs in a 408-page beautifully illustrated hardback book. Commercial recordings go back to 1890 and feature pioneer artists Emile Berliner, Thomas Bott, J. W. Myers, Len Spencer, Steve Porter, and J. J. Fisher—as well as stunning instrumental performances by Baldwin’s Cadet Band, Holding’s Parlor Orchestra, and the U. S. Marine Band. Celebrity recordings by star evangelists include Ira D. Sankey, Dwight L. Moody, and Prof. John R. Sweney. And vernacular recordings taken in the field are by historic evangelical figures such as Fanny Crosby reading one of her poems, Winfield Weeden singing his original songs, and the “Golden Minstrel” of the Salvation Army, Edward Taylor, who accompanies himself on the guitar. It’s a great listen, a fascinating story, a book for the coffee table, and a resource you’ll want to have nearby. List price: $55.00
Attractive Hebrews: The Lambert Yiddish Cylinders, 1901-1905
Various Artists
Released: August 26, 2016 • Catalogue: ARCH 8001 • UPC: 778632906747
Recordings of arias from long-forgotten Yiddish operas, street-corner ballads, cantorial hymns, and odd traditional folk songs—these lost prizes of Jewish Old World history landed sideways into a 1903 Lambert Company catalog under the description, “Attractive Hebrew Selections.” The records are like an ethnographer’s dream, but listen closely and you will hear something more: the difficult assimilation experience of Jewish émigrés arriving on America’s shores at the turn of the last century. While the dandy “Up to Date Boychik” caricatured in 1904 sheet music (portrayed on the front cover) offered one path of “Americanization,” an emerging Yiddish theater scene in New York, built on recognizable Eastern European traditions, offered another. Here, the great works of Abraham Goldfaden and “Professor” Moshe Hurwitz were performed to eager audiences; here, the voices of Solomon Smulewitz, Kalman Juvelier, William Nemrell, and “King of Comic Singers” Dave Franklin rang out supreme. These are the earliest known Yiddish recordings in the world, and this anthology will be the first time since their issue over a century ago that the cylinders will be heard by those able to understand their pithy and colorful language. 56-page booklet included, with notes and Yiddish-to-English translations by Henry Sapoznik. Produced in cooperation with the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture and the Mills Music Library of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. List price: $17.99
Songs of the Night: Dance Recordings, 1916-1925
Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra
Released: September 11, 2015 • Catalogue: ARCH 6009 • UPC: 778632907416
It took a violin virtuoso leading the band at an upscale New York hotel to turn the world of dance records upside down. Eschewing the cold, impersonal arrangements of military bands, Joseph C. Smith brought a warmth and intimacy to the soundtrack of the 1910s dance craze–always with taste and discipline. He reinvigorated the waltz, helped standardize the fox trot, incorporated vocal refrains, and introduced many future classics. For a brief moment, the night belonged to Maestro Smith. Featuring 47 tracks recorded between 1916 and 1925, these two CDs and 32-page booklet tell the story of Smith’s career and the innovations he pioneered. Researcher Ryan Barna has uncovered new information on Smith’s life and shares valuable insights into the bandleader’s singular contributions during the rapidly-changing world of early-century dance music. Smith was the first bandleader to introduce vocal refrains on dance records, and you can hear old industry pros Harry Macdonough on songs such as “Smiles” and “Peggy” and Billy Murray on “Ching-a-Ling’s Jazz Bazaar.” Moreover, Smith provided a launching pad for many top musicians, who perform their solo specialties here, including trombonist Harry Raderman; xylophonists Teddy Brown and George Hamilton Green; pianists Hugo Frey, Harry Akst and William Bergé; and saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft. Smith himself provides sometimes beautiful (“Missouri Waltz”), sometimes scorching violin work (“Sally”) throughout the proceedings. List price: $27.99
Anthology: The King of Comic Singers, 1894-1917
Dan W. Quinn
Released: June 16, 2015 • Catalogue: ARCH 5505 • UPC: 778632907133
Anthology: The King of Comic Singers, 1894-1917 features 30 selections, taken from rare cylinders and discs, that highlight Dan W. Quinn’s quarter-century in the studio, featuring the up-to-date comic numbers he was best known for, along with sentimental ballads and ragtime songs he helped establish as standards. The 52-page booklet inside the digipak presents original research and stunning new discoveries about the man and his career, illustrated with many previously unpublished photos. List price: $17.99
1919: "Jazzin’ Around and Paintin’ the Town"
Various Artists
Released: September 9, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 9019 • UPC: 778632906662
25 selections from 1919, the year the White Sox threw the World Series and the nation experienced one of the largest labor strikes in history. Highlights include Marion Harris’ “After You’ve Gone,” John Steel’s “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” Billy Murray’s “The Alcoholic Blues” and hits by some of the leading dance orchestras of the day. The set includes a 24-page full-color booklet with an interpretive historical essay on key events of the year and notes on all of the selections. List price: $17.49
1911: "Up, Up a Little Bit Higher"
Various Artists
Released: September 9, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 9016 • UPC: 778632906655
26 hits from 1911, the year the nation got wrapped up in the aviation craze and the Triangle fire changed workplace safety laws. Highlights include Gene Greene’s “King of the Bungaloos,” Blanche Ring’s “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine,” and Collins and Harlan’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band. The set includes a 24-page full-color booklet with an interpretive historical essay on key events of the year and notes on all of the selections. List price: $17.49
Happy: The 1920 Rainbo Orchestra Sides
Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra
Released: August 19, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 6008 • UPC: 778632906754
Years before writing “It Had to Be You,” Isham Jones honed his craft at Mann’s Rainbo Gardens in Chicago—composing, arranging, and perfecting songs that he and his band performed nightly before the dinner-and-dance patrons. Jones’ style, capturing elements of the social dance craze of the 1910s and anticipating the jazz revolution of the 1920s, offers a rare glimpse into the beginnings of the era of great American dance bands. This two-CD set presents all 37 sides Jones’ Rainbo Orchestra recorded in 1920 and includes a 32-page booklet, with notes by Grammy-nominated author and trombonist David Sager, exploring Isham’s earliest years, his gift for tuneful arrangements, and his importance as an architect of the American dance band. List price: $27.99
The Indestructible Uncle Josh
Cal Stewart
Released: June 11, 2013 • Catalogue: ARCH 5009 • UPC: 778632906204
A humorist who spent 22 years waxing his Uncle Josh stories, Cal Stewart was the first performer whose stage appearances were celebrated by reference to his records rather than the other way around. In his famous role as “rube” Uncle Josh Weathersby, he entertained millions of listeners with tales of his antics both in New York City and at home in Punkin Center. The Indestructible Uncle Josh provides a snapshot of Stewart’s repertoire at the height of his career, featuring all 25 of his 2-minute cylinders for the Indestructible company and a choice sampling of his work on U-S Everlasting cylinders. The package includes a 28-page booklet with notes by Stewart expert and scholar Patrick Feaster. List price: $16.49
1918: "Like the Sunshine After Rain"
Various Artists
Released: June 11, 2013 • Catalogue: ARCH 9018 • UPC: 778632906068
1918: “Like the Sunshine After Rain” features 24 selections from the year World War I came to a close and an influenza epidemic swept the nation. Selections include wartime and comic songs, songs that would become part of the Great American Songbook, and early jazz and dance numbers by Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The CD includes a full-color 24-page booklet featuring an interpretive historical essay, notes on the selections, full discographical information and a bounty of historic photos and illustrations. List price: $17.49
World-Famous Wizard of the Cornet
Bohumir Kryl
Released: September 25, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5022 • UPC: 778632905931
Bohemian-born Bohumir Kryl made sounds with the cornet that audiences had never heard before and that no one had dared to try to record until he came along. He had the outsized ego to make sure he would not soon be forgotten, making his interpretations of the classic repertoire into standards along the way. World-Famous Wizard of the Cornet features 28 selections, recorded between 1901 and 1918, that showcase Kryl’s unique technical gifts. A 32-page full-color booklet is included that tells Kryl’s life story from his earliest days as a circus acrobat and sculptor. A must-have for musicians. List price: $16.99
1917: "Yankees to the Ranks"
Various Artists
Released: June 12, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 9017 • UPC: 778632905559
1917: “Yankees to the Ranks” presents 25 songs from the year the U.S. declared war on Germany and entered into World War I. The 24-page color booklet includes extensive notes on all the songs and an interpretive historical essay that tells the story of patriotic volunteerism. Old favorite artists such as Billy Murray, Campbell and Burr, and Collins and Harlan are all here in clear restored audio; so too are newcomers Van and Schenck, Marion Harris, Dietrich and Wright, Anna Wheaton with James Harrod, Arthur Fields, and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on their first record! List price: $17.49
Ed. Morton’s "Bit of Broadway"
Eddie Morton
Released: March 27, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5017 • UPC: 778632905542
The Sound of Vaudeville, Vol. 2 covers the career of Eddie Morton from 1911 through 1917. He was one of the variety stage’s most important song pluggers of the era: if Eddie featured it, it would be a hit. All-time classics include “The Oceana Roll” and “Play That Barbershop Chord.” Don’t miss Morton’s own compositions, “Noodle Soup Rag” and “I’ve Got You, Steve!” Researcher Ryan Barna revisits the early life of Morton and fills in some gaps before taking us to the end of Eddie’s stage life and beyond, when he ran a restaurant on the Wildwood boardwalk called Ed. Morton’s “Bit of Broadway. List price: $16.49
Pennant-Winning Battery of Songland
Van and Schenck
Released: February 7, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5016 • UPC: 778632905535
“Pennant-Winning Battery of Songland” compiles the first recordings made by Jazz Age superstars Gus Van and Joe Schenck. The collection features 28 selections recorded between 1916 and 1918 and includes a 28-page color booklet with biographical notes by vaudevillian and author Trav S.D. that trace their rise from boyhood friends performing in Brooklyn to vaudeville superstars. The booklet also includes full discographical information for the featured selections and lots of images of both the duo and the recordings. List price: $16.49
The High Priestess of Jollity & The Southern Singer
May Irwin and Clarice Vance
Released: June 14, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 5015 • UPC: 778632904385
The High Priestess of Jollity & The Southern Singer brings together the complete recorded output of two early stars of the vaudeville stage: Clarice Vance and May Irwin. Though prominent on stage—and sheet music covers—both had very short recording careers, with Irwin’s output totalling 6 sides and Vance’s 15. This set presents these 21 recordings for the first time and tells the story of these two remarkable women. The package includes a 32-page, full-color booklet with biographical essays on each of women and a bounty of photographs and lush illustrations. List price: $16.99
1914: "Her Memory Haunts You"
Various Artists
Released: June 14, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 9012 • UPC: 778632904378
1914: “Her Memory Haunts You” features 25 selections from the year that the hopes and dreams of the progressive coalition that had put their faith in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson saw their agenda put on hold while economic issues–and then the beginning of World War I–took center stage. The soundtrack to the year brings us a good mix of future classics and songs of the moment, odes to country life, and more than a handful of songs longing for home and hearth, both pathetic and humorous. As with Archeophone’s other Phonographic Yearbooks, 1914 includes a full-color 24-page booklet. List price: $17.49
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 4
Various Artists
Released: May 3, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 3005 • UPC: 778632905283
Volume 4 of The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings features 59 selections recorded between January and June 1932. The notes in the 24-page booklet follow the story of the Durium Corporation as they moved their focus from the weekly releases to the more lucrative business of producing advertising records, before eventually folding in 1934. List price: $31.99
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 4
Guido Deiro
Released: October 16, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5019 • UPC: 778632904453
Volume 4, which concludes the Complete Recorded Works of Guido Deiro, presents the final years of Deiro’s recording career. The set brings him into the electrical era of recording and features several super-rare recordings in the ethnic series of records as well as lots of personal photographs courtesy of Deiro’s son. The set includes a 28 page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by accordion expert Henry Doktorski. List price: $16.49
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 3
Guido Deiro
Released: October 16, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5018 • UPC: 778632904446
The third volume in our Complete Recorded Works of Guido Deiro picks up where Volume 2 left off, continuing his foray into popular material. The set features an increasing number of his own compositions (9 in total), including his signature song, “Kismet.” The set includes a 24 page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by accordion expert Henry Doktorski. List price: $16.49
There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916
Fisk University Jubilee Quartet
Released: September 28, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5020 • UPC: 778632904743
Stung by critics who perceived spirituals as painful reminders of slavery, uplifted by the praise of royalty and world-renowned artists, John Wesley Work II toiled for three decades at Fisk University with single-minded determination to promulgate the good news of jubilee songcraft. Here for the first time his story is told in vivid detail by celebrated author Doug Seroff, accompanied by the 43 extant selections recorded by the Fisk Quartet when Work led the group-including all nine legendary Edison cylinders that feature Roland Hayes as second tenor and the four recitations of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry by James A. Myers. The selections are introduced by spoken excerpts from Rev. Jerome I. Wright, one of the last living Fisk students to have sung under John Work’s direction. Two CDs, more than 100 pages of history and illustrations, and recording notes by Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds, give voice to the bondsman’s hope and breath to the freedman’s courage. List price: $39.99
Broadway’s Favorite Clowns
Six Brown Brothers
Released: April 20, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 6007 • UPC: 778632904064
With 24 tracks, Broadway’s Favorite Clowns features the selections not included in our first collection of the Six Brown Brothers’ work. Brown Brothers expert Bruce Vermazen again provides the notes and research, and the set is packaged with a 24 page full-color booklet with rare photos and illustrations. List price: $16.99
Masters of the Clarinet, 1892-1920
Various Artists
Released: April 20, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5451 • UPC: 778632901995
Featuring 32 rare tracks that go all the way back to 1892, Masters of the Clarinet, 1892-1920 tells the story of the clarinet’s instrumental role in the early recording industry. The set includes a 24 page booklet with notes by clarinet expert Stan Stanford and rare images and photos. List price: $16.99
Origins of the Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922
Sophie Tucker
Released: August 25, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5010 • UPC: 778632901674
Gathered for the first time, here are Sophie Tucker’s earliest recordings, from Edison wax cylinders and impossibly rare discs, chronicling the rough and ready rise of this lasting icon of the double entendre. A master of self-marketing, Tucker learned long before she became known as The Last of the Red Hot Mamas that the key to her success lie in controlling–and changing as needed–the facts of her personal story. Documentarians Susan and Lloyd Ecker unravel all the loose ends and contradictory threads comprising the early years of one of the 20th century’s most colorful stage personalities. With a hardback book-binding and 72 full-color pages, this beautiful package features dozens of illustrations from Sophie’s personal scrapbooks, a foreword by Michael Feinstein, and a personal remembrance by Carol Channing. List price: $23.99
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 2
Guido Deiro
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5014 • UPC: 778632901971
Volume 2 of Guido Deiro’s complete recordings includes 25 tracks showcasing Deiro’s mastery of both popular and classical material. The package includes a 24-page full-color booklet with extensive notes by free-reed scholar Henry Doktorski, meticulous restorations of the music, and personal photos provided by Guido’s son, Count Guido Roberto Deiro. The tracks were recorded between 1911 and 1917 and include the only two accordion duets waxed by Guido and his brother, Pietro. Additionally, Complete Recorded Works, Volume 2 will be of interest to historians of vaudeville and films, as it features new revelations about the marriage of Guido Deiro and Mae West. In his detailed notes, Guido’s son recalls his meeting with Mae West in 1959 when she told him the facts of her relationship with Deiro–the mysterious “Mr. D” mentioned in her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It. These are the things she never told any interviewer, and now the historical record is set straight. List price: $16.49
Sweetheart of the A.E.F.
Elsie Janis
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5013 • UPC: 778632901681
With 24 tracks, Sweetheart of the AEF features the almost-complete acoustic-era output of Elsie Janis, a star of the stage who took her act to the soldiers on the front lines in World War I. Sweetheart of the AEF comes with a lavishly illustrated, 24-page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by our late friend and collaborator, Allen G. Debus. List price: $16.49
1906: "When Things Was Lookin’ Bright"
Various Artists
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 9013 • UPC: 778632901476
1906: “When Things Was Lookin’ Bright” features 27 tracks from the year of the great San Francisco earthquake and the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The CD comes with a generously illustrated 24-page full-color booklet, including notes on each of the selections and an interpretive essay on the events of the year. List price: $25.00
Jubilee
Will Oakland
Released: December 16, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH SP-WOJ-03 • UPC: 778632901988
Star of the minstrel stage, singer on hundreds of records, personality of radio and television, and the man who discovered Al Jolson, Will Oakland had a career that spanned more than 50 years. Celebrating his golden jubilee as a performer, he recorded a commemorative LP with stories and snippets of old records and gave them to friends and fans. Made in 1954, this extraordinary souvenir has been the subject of rumors by collectors but has never been available commercially—until now. List price: $12.49
Debate ’08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph
William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft
Released: September 9, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH 1008 • UPC: 778632901964
A new animal disrupted the political circus in 1908 when the phonograph carried the voices of presidential candidates directly to the people. Debate ’08 marks the centennial of this historic premiere with the first reissue of all 22 Edison wax cylinders recorded by the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, and the Republican candidate, William Howard Taft. The two-minute duration of these records forced an eager Bryan and a reluctant Taft to excerpt their nuanced speeches and get to the point. Thus began the 20th century’s march to the sound bite . . . and the redefinition of political communications for all time. Includes full-color 80-page wide-format booklet with transcripts of the speeches and original research. List price: $18.99
"Ain’t Gonna Settle Down": The Pioneering Blues of Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson
Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson
Released: May 15, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH 6006 • UPC: 778632901483
“Ain’t Gonna Settle Down” features all 14 recordings made by the obscure but remarkable cabaret star Mary Stafford in 1921 and 1926 and 32 selections by Louisville-born Edith Wilson, covering her entire released repertoire from 1921 to 1930. A handsomely illustrated 32-page booklet with notes by blues scholar Steve Tracy accompanies the two CDs. These records have never sounded better, and for the first time they are presented with the care they deserve. List price: $28.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 3
Various Artists
Released: October 24, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 3004 • UPC: 778632901025
Volume 3 of The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings picks up where Volume 2 left off and features 51 tracks including the Durium 5 minute records and a number of rare advertising records. The package includes a 24-page booklet with complete discographical information, an essay about the Durium Corporation and notes on the recordings. List price: $31.99
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 1
Guido Deiro
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 5012 • UPC: 778632900370
The greatest piano-accordion player ever to grace the instrument! Compiled with the assistance of Guido Deiro’s son, Count Roberto Guido Deiro, and featuring the scholarship of master accordion player Henry Doktorski. Tracks range from light classical and operatic to ragtime and the pop hits of the day. List price: $34.99
The Famous Tramp Comedian
Nat M. Wills
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 5011 • UPC: 778632900363
26 tracks and a thoroughly entertaining 24-page booklet featuring a new biographical sketch by vaudeville historian Trav S.D. Although he was popular on stage for more than two decades, playing the scruffy but urbane tramp, Wills’ recorded output totaled only 26 distinct titles, and they are all here, compiled for the first time ever and sounding like they were recorded yesterday. List price: $16.49
Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s
Various Artists
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 1007 • UPC: 778632900509
Pioneer recording artist Russell Hunting went to jail for what’s on this CD. 19 cylinder selections (43 tracks) from c.1892-1900 of the rarest of the rare: explicit indecent spoken-word recordings that brought down the wrath of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock. Actionable Offenses is a critical edition that places these recordings in their original social and historical context. Featuring an oversized 60-page booklet with complete transcripts of the recordings, annotations on slang and out-of-date references, and a groundbreaking historical essay by Patrick Feaster and David Giovannoni detailing the rise of indecent recordings and arrest of Hunting. Also includes recordings by Cal Stewart, James White, and an unknown gentleman of the 1890s indulging his taste for home recordings. List price: $25.00
The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy
Various Artists
Released: February 6, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 2001 • UPC: 777215111219
Featuring 56 tracks, Archeophone’s The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy traces the history of American involvement in World War I by reviewing the kind of records that were released. What unfolds is a drama in which the U.S. transforms through a series of stages: from curious bystander and political neutral to naive dove, then from idealistic booster to jingoistic hawk, and finally from jubilant victors to street-wise questioners asking “What was it all for?” With a 76-page full-color booklet featuring historical graphics, original research on the recording industry and a personal reflection on the war, The Great War is an essential release for those who love the music of World War I. List price: $29.99
1915: "They’d Sooner Sleep on Thistles"
Various Artists
Released: October 11, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 9011 • UPC: 777215111158
25 songs from 1915, the year submarine warfare and the sinking of the Lusitania hit the news. Popular songs included the American Quartet’s “On the 5:15” and Billy Murray’s “The Little Ford Rambled Right Along,” Al Jolson’s “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers,” and one of the most famous war protest songs of all, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.” 1915: “They’d Sooner Sleep on Thistles” includes a 24 page full color booklet featuring an essay on the Lusitania and the push to war, discographical information on the records, notes on the songs, and rare images and photographs. List price: $17.49
Monarchs of Minstrelsy: Historic Recordings by the Stars of the Minstrel Stage
Various Artists
Released: June 3, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 1006 • UPC: 777215110366
From the research of Allen Debus comes Monarchs of Minstrelsy: Historic Recordings by the Stars of the Minstrel Stage, a collection of rare recordings by the stars who once performed them in minstrel shows. These are real veterans of the blackface minstrel stage, singing the songs they made famous on stage and performing the minstrel routines that have made them notorious today. Monarchs includes 28 tracks and a full-color 24-page booklet. List price: $16.49
Echoes from Asbury Park
Arthur Pryor and His Band
Released: April 8, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 5008 • UPC: 777215110038
One of the premier conductors of the early 20th century, Pryor was second in reputation only to Sousa, and his band traveled the world spreading Pryor’s fame for ragtime, classical adaptations, and masterful musical precision. Guided by trombonist and Pryor expert David Sager, we have assembled these 25 recordings into two simulated "concerts," presenting them the way that visitors to New Jersey’s resort spot, Asbury Park, might have heard them in the first decade of the last century. List price: $16.49
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 2
Various Artists
Released: December 14, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 3003 • UPC: 777215109544
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 2 includes 48 tracks, spanning 1930 through 1931, by standout bands led by Vincent Lopez, Ted Fiorito, Harry Reser, Sam Lanin, and Don Voorhees. Plenty of rare gems are here too, including all five A-series Durium Juniors (featuring Eva Taylor, Frank Luther, and Carson Robison), an experimental 5-minute Hit of the Week, and a live Durium recording of pianist Leola Felton playing “The St. Louis Blues.” List price: $31.99
Anthology: The Last Recording Pioneer
Irving Kaufman
Released: December 6, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 5504 • UPC: 777215109469
Irving Kaufman, Anthology: The Last Recording Pioneer represents Irving’s incredible 60-year span of activity, beginning from his first acoustic recordings in 1914 to the final cuts made in his home in August 1974. The booklet includes several rare photographs, some contributed by Irving’s family, and features detailed liner notes by Kaufman expert Ryan Barna, examining both the professional and personal life of this legendary performer. List price: $16.99
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922
Various Artists
Released: October 9, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 1005 • UPC: 777215109025
Fifty-four tracks by 43 artists, and 60 pages of in-depth commentary and analysis: Lost Sounds is a monumental achievement that stretches back to the faint beginnings of commercial recordings and travels to the brink of the Jazz Age to trace the contributions of black artists on American records. Sometimes noisy and raucous, sometimes quiet and austere, these recordings demonstrate the deep involvement and lasting influence of African Americans in the nascent recording industry. List price: $29.99
The San Francisco Sound, Volume 2
Art Hickman’s Orchestra
Released: October 2, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 6005 • UPC: 777215109018
The San Francisco Sound: Volume 2 compiles 25 selections from Hickman’s 1920-1921 sessions together with extensive notes by Bruce Vermazen in a 24-page booklet. The follow-up to our first collection of Art Hickman’s recordings, this second volume brings to a close thestory of the influential band’s dominance of dance floors on both U.S. coasts. List price: $16.49
1916: "The Country Found Them Ready"
Various Artists
Released: May 28, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 9010 • UPC: 777215108363
25 hits from the year that Woodrow Wilson won re-election to the U.S. presidency on the campaign, “He kept us out of war.” Behind the scenes, however, Wilson was preparing the nation for entry into the conflict, which came in April 1917. At the same time, child-labor laws were passed, and Emma Goldman found herself convicted for breaking the Comstock law. List price: $17.49
Anthology: The Original King of Pop
Henry Burr
Released: March 17, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 5502 • UPC: 777215108066
Now available in an improved second edition: a career-spanning retrospective, featuring 27 songs, recorded over 25 years by Henry Burr–the most popular ballad singer of the first 30 years of the recording industry. The collection begins in 1903, when disc technology was still in its primitive stages, and ends in 1928, during the early electrical recording era, showing Burr in full vocal power. Duets with Ada Jones, Albert Campbell, and Frank Stanley, trios with Campbell and Oakland and the Sterling Trio, and quartets with the amazing Peerless Quartet-they’re all here on this outstanding collection. List price: $16.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 1
Various Artists
Released: December 14, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 3002 • UPC: 777215107472
The first double-CD set in an eventual four-volume series featuring all regular weekly issues of these cardboard records that were the best-selling records during the Depression, along with several advertising and uncommonly scarce promotional records from the Durium Company. The biggest names in 1930s music are here: Ben Pollack, Phil Spitalney, Vincent Lopez, and Duke Ellington, playing as “The Harlem Hot Chocolates.” Top vocalists include Smith Ballew, Irving Kaufman, and Scrappy Lambert. More than two hours of music and a very informative 24-page booklet with notes by Doug Benson and Hit of the Week expert Hans Koert. List price: $31.99
Jazzin’ Straight Thru’ Paradise
Wilbur Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band
Released: December 14, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6004 • UPC: 777215107045
Vaudevillian Wilbur C. Sweatman impressed audiences by playing three clarinets at once, but he was more than just a novelty. A transitional figure in the move away from ragtime and into jazz, Sweatman and his band were the hottest and the best players of the Dixieland style of jazz that erupted onto the American music scene in the late 1910s. 25 tracks, including the complete Columbia releases of Sweatman’s band recorded from 1918 to 1920, along with one rarity, the Little Wonder (5-1/2″ disc) of “Lonesome Road.” The 24-page booklet with writing by Harlem Renaissance scholar Steve Tracy features an overview of Sweatman’s life, detailed and informative notes on the selections, and a persuasive argument for Sweatman’s place in the early jazz pantheon. List price: $16.49
Together and Alone
Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth
Released: October 12, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 5007 • UPC: 777215107052
With 51 songs on 2 CDs and running for over two and a half hours, Together and Alone is a landmark retrospective of two of Broadway’s brightest stars ever, Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. This ambitious collection boasts some of the most classic songs in American history, performed by the pair that brought them to the stage. In addition to a 32-page booklet with extensive illustrations and notes co-authored by Allen G. Debus, the CD includes three never-before released tracks: two by Nora Bayes from 1917 and one by Jack Norworth from ca. 1950—”a home recording of Bayes and Norworth’s biggest hit, “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” List price: $27.99
The San Francisco Sound, Volume 1
Art Hickman’s Orchestra
Released: August 31, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6003 • UPC: 777215106932
The San Francisco Sound compiles 25 selections from Hickman’s 1919-1920 sessions together with extensive notes by Bruce Vermazen in a 24-page booklet. Hickman’s sound influenced big band 20 years later, but you will be amazed at just how hot these guys could play! List price: $16.49
The Early Years, 1901-1909
Bert Williams
Released: August 21, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 5004 • UPC: 777215106611
The first volume of The Complete Bert Williams, featuringthe legendary comedian’s rarest records. 31 tracks from 1901-1909, including several with George Walker: 15 tracks from their 1901 sessions and a further 16 tracks from sessions in 1906 and following. Five selections are featured in both their 7- and 10-inch disc versions, and the collection includes all four of Williams’ 2-minute cylinders, one 3-minute cylinder, and one rejected take from 1906. The 32-page full-color deluxe booklet features illustrations as rare as the records, with notes co-authored by renowned scholar Allen G. Debus and also reprints in its entirety George Walker’s 1906 reminiscences about the beginnings of Williams and Walker in “The Real ‘Coon’ on the American Stage.” List price: $17.49
1908: "Take Me Out with the Crowd"
Various Artists
Released: April 20, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 9009 • UPC: 777215106079
26 hits from 1908, the year that Fred Merkle’s boneheaded play cost the Giants a trip to the World Series but sent the Cubs to their last series championship. Included here is baseball’s anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” by the Haydn Quartet, along with 2 hits by the newly-christened Peerless Quartet and standards by the acoustic-era’s great “teams”: Collins and Harlan, Stanley and Burr, and Jones and Murray. Also features the collectible hit by Lucy Isabelle Marsh, “The Glow Worm” and hits by vaudeville greats Eddie Morton and Clarice Vance. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
Those Moaning Saxophones
Six Brown Brothers
Released: February 24, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6002 • UPC: 777215105508
26 tracks, recorded between 1911 and 1927, spanning the entire career of this saxophone troupe that started the “saxophone craze” of the 1910s, and comprising roughly half of their recorded output. Beautiful 24-page, full-color booklet contains extensive notes by Brown Brothers expert Bruce Vermazen, and it includes uncommon illustrations from Vermazen’s personal collection. Of special note is the inclusion of three previously unreleased tracks, particularly one in which leader Tom Brown performs his legendary “abandoned-bride” routine–a humorous interplay between a full orchestra and the consummate saxophonist showing his full bag of tricks. List price: $16.99
The Benson Orchestra of Chicago, 1920-1921
The Benson Orchestra of Chicago
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 6001 • UPC: 777215105508
Complete releases from sessions between September 1920 and September 1921 in Camden and Chicago; 26 tracks and over 79 minutes total. A packed 28-page booklet reveals previously unknown details about the life and business of impresario Edgar A. Benson, the man who controlled the dance-band scene in Chicago for many years. This is the band that popularized “stop-time” rhythm and launched the career of pianist and arranger Roy Bargy, later of Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. List price: $16.49
Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot
Various Artists
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 1003 • UPC: 777215105492
27 songs from 1897-1925, 28-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and unusual graphics chronicling the rise of “hot” playing in American music over four decades. Rare tracks by banjo virtuosos Cullen and Collins, vocalist Silas Leachman, Jim Europe’s Orchestra, and his proteges in the Versatile Four. The ultra-rare “Sunset Medley” by Haenschen and Schiffer is here released for the first time, along with Edison cylinders by Sophie Tucker and Polk Miller. Companion to the book by David Wondrich, published by Chicago Review Press on the A Cappella imprint. List price: $16.49
The Sound of Vaudeville, Vol. 1
Eddie Morton
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 5006 • UPC: 777215104648
28 songs from 1907-1910, recorded in Camden and New York, with a lavish 28-page booklet containing newly discovered biographical data and rare graphics. Includes all the early rare Victors and Columbias, as well as the Edison 4-minute cylinder of “A Singer Sang a Song,” and the Indestructible cylinder of “In the Right Church, but in the Wrong Pew.” The former “Singing Cop” from Philadelphia, Eddie Morton was a top stage performer for more than 20 years. List price: $16.49
Floating Down the River
The Heidelberg Quintet featuring Billy Murray
Released: May 27, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 5005 • UPC: 777215104631
Complete releases from 1912-1914, with two bonus tracks from 1910 before the ensemble took the name of the Heidelberg Quintet; 26 total songs, including three Edison 4-minute cylinders. Lead vocals by Billy Murray and countertenor Will Oakland. Features a 24-page booklet with previously unpublished notes on the group and a complete reprinting of the hitherto forgotten “Reminiscences of Early Talking Machine Days” by first tenor John Bieling, from The Talking Machine World in April 1914. List price: $16.49
1907: "Dear Old Golden Rule Days"
Various Artists
Released: May 27, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 9008 • UPC: 777215104624
25 hits from 1907, the year that American banks suffered one of the worst panics in U.S. history, ushering in a two-year depression. Features sentimental favorites by Byron G. Harlan (“School Days”) and Frank Stanley (“Auld Lang Syne”), comic hits by Collins and Harlan, Bob Roberts, and Helen Trix (“The Bird on Nellie’s Hat”), and the first stateside hit for Harry Lauder (“I Love a Lassie”). Other top artists include Billy Murray (“San Antonio” and “Harrigan”), Bert Williams, Ada Jones, Stanley and Burr (“Red Wing”), Enrico Caruso (“Vesti La Giubba” from Pagliacci), and the U.S. Marine Band doing a rousing version of Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1922: "An Angel’s Voice I Hear"
Various Artists
Released: December 30, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 9007 • UPC: 777215104136
24 hits from 1922, the year that sales of radios to American homes skyrocketed. The music was also getting jazzier, witnessed by hits such as “Lovin’ Sam” by Miss Patricola and the Virginians, “On the Alamo” by Isham Jones, and “Hot Lips” by Paul Whiteman with Henry Busse. Other hits are by Fanny Brice (“My Man” and “Second Hand Rose”), Jones and Hare, Henry Burr, Al Jolson, and Lucy Isabelle Marsh and Royal Dadmun. Features the last hit by Jones and Murray, and the song of the year, the insanely popular “Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean” in two different versions. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
Anthology: The Denver Nightingale
Billy Murray
Released: October 22, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 5501 • UPC: 656605931821
Newly remastered in 2018—sounds better than ever!
30 songs from 1903-1940 that provide a career retrospective of the most popular recording artist of the acoustic era. Includes the rare brown wax cylinder of “The Way to Kiss a Girl” from one of Billy’s first recording sessions for Columbia, and “It’s the Same Old Shillelagh,” peformed with Harry’s Tavern Band in his comeback of 1940. Features collaborations with Ada Jones, the American and Haydn Quartets, Aileen Stanley, Ed. Smalle, and Walter Scanlan. A thick 24-page booklet contains a biographical essay and song notes by Murray biographer Frank Hoffmann and a reminiscence of Murray by a man who knew him, Quentin Riggs! List price: $16.99
The Middle Years, 1910-1918
Bert Williams
Released: August 15, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 5003 • UPC: 656605928920
The second volume of The Complete Bert Williams. 26 songs from 1910-1918, recorded in New York, including two monologuesthat were held for release until after Bert’s death: “How? Fried” and “You Can’t Do Nothing Till Martin Gets Here.” 24-page booklet with rare graphics, and notes co-written by Allen G. Debus. Also features the entire article “The Comic Side of Trouble,” by Bert Williams, published in 1918 by the American Magazine. List price: $16.49
The 1890s, Vol. 2: "Wear Yer Bran’ New Gown"
Various Artists
Released: May 17, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 9006 • UPC: 656605923925
30 tracks from 1892-1900, transferred from exceedingly scarce brown wax cylinders and Berliner discs. More hits by the biggest artists of the American 1890s, such as Gilmore’s Band, Cal Stewart, Dan Quinn, George Gaskin, Arthur Collins, and John Yorke AtLee. Standout tracks include the hitherto unattested cylinder of “Silver Threads Among the Gold” by J. W. Myers, the 1894 recording of “Then You’ll Remember Me” by the U.S. Marine Band, an exceptional copy of “Casey at the Telephone,” ca. 1896 by Russell Hunting, and the ultra-rare “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow” ca. 1892 by Silas Leachman for the North American Phonograph Company of Chicago. The deluxe 24-page booklet includes lyrics and bios and pictures of selected songwriters, a timeline of when the songs first hit big, and an historical essay focusing on major technological innovations of the decade. Companion volume to ARCH 9004. List price: $17.49
1913: "Come and See the Big Parade"
Various Artists
Released: December 1, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9005 • UPC: 656605923420
24 hits from 1913, the year that Henry Ford rolled out his first fully operational assembly line. Big songs by Alan Turner, Ada Jones (“Row! Row! Row!”), Al Jolson’s first sides for Columbia (“Pullman Porters Parade” and “You Made Me Love You”), the Peerless Quartet, Campbell and Burr doing “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine”, Charles Harrison with “Peg O’ My Heart,” and spirited numbers by Prince’s Band (“Too Much Mustard”) and the American Quartet, plus many more. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
His Final Releases, 1919-1922
Bert Williams
Released: July 2, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 5002 • UPC: 656605918129
The third volume of The Complete Bert Williams. 24 songs from 1919-1922, recorded in New York and Chicago, including both “Elder Eatmore” sermons. Booklet now (2005) expanded to 20 pages, with notes on Williams’ final years, sheet music illustrations, and other rare graphics. Sound of some noisier tracks now improved. List price: $16.49
The 1890s, Vol. 1: "Wipe Him Off the Land"
Various Artists
Released: April 4, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9004 • UPC: 656605928029
30 tracks from 1893-1902, transferred from exceedingly scarce Berliner discs and brown wax cylinders, with top artists such as Dan W. Quinn (“The Band Played On”), George J. Gaskin (“Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill”), John Yorke AtLee (“The Mocking Bird”), George W. Johnson (“The Whistling Coon”), Arthur Collins (“I’d Leave My Happy Home for You”), and Sousa’s Band, Vess Ossman, Edward M. Favor, Russell Hunting, and more. The deluxe 24-page booklet boasts extremely rare photos of several of the artists (many only now published for the first time in over 100 years), artist bios, a timeline of when the songs first hit big, and an historical essay focusing on major social problems of the decade. Companion volume to ARCH 9006. List price: $17.49
1912: "Waitin’ on the Levee"
Various Artists
Released: April 4, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9003 • UPC: 656605923826
24 hits from 1912, the year that the unsinkable Titanic went down and Teddy Roosevelt launched his Bull Moose Party. Big songs by Billy Murray and the American Quartet, Heidelberg Quintet, Ada Jones, Bob Roberts doing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe,” a very young Al Jolson singing “That Haunting Melody” and “Ragging the Baby to Sleep,” Collins and Harlan, Harry Lauder, and more. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
The Complete Victor Releases
Marion Harris
Released: December 9, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 5001A • UPC: 777215104600
Second edition (2005), featuring newly remastered sound, one bonus track, and expanded and enhanced 20-page booklet. 22 selections, recorded between 1916 and 1919, including one rejected take from 1917, and two final selections from 1927. Marion Harris was the first female vocalist to record songs with “jazz” and “blues” in their titles; she exemplifies the transition from the old school of gutsy ragtime singing to the newer, softer kind of delivery that was typical of female vocalists of the 1920s. List price: $16.49
1921: "Make Believe and Smile"
Various Artists
Released: October 9, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 9002A • UPC: 777215104617
25 hits from 1921, the year that the Tulsa underwent the worst race riot in American history. Top songs by Paul Whiteman, Campbell and Burr, Al Jolson, Marion Harris, Eddie Cantor, Van and Schenck, Zez Confrey, the Paul Biese Trio and Frank Crumit, Isham Jones, and Vernon Dalhart. 24-page color booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
Before Radio: Comedy, Drama & Sound Sketches, 1897-1923
Various Artists
Released: April 24, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 1002A • UPC: 656605912127
27 tracks from 1897-1923, 20-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and rare graphics. Includes monologues, dialogues, sketches, “descriptives,” and much more from the days before radio. Standout stars are Ada Jones, Len Spencer, Steve Porter, Haydn Quartet, Weber and Fields, Golden and Hughes, Cal Stewart, and Will Rogers. List price: $16.49
1920: "Even Water’s Getting Weaker"
Various Artists
Released: September 1, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 9001A • UPC: 656605911823
24 hits from 1920, the year that national Prohibition and women’s suffrage took effect. Top artists include Al Jolson, Billy Murray, Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, Van and Schenck, John Steel, Selvin’s Novelty Orchestra, Nora Bayes, and Art Hickman’s Orchestra. 24-page color booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
The Pink Lambert: A Collection of the First Celluloid Cylinders
Various Artists
Released: May 17, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 3001 • UPC: 656605913322
22 songs, sketches, whistling solos, and band performances from ca. 1902, with detailed notes in a 16-page booklet. Featured artists are the (original) American Quartet, Collins and Natus, Joe Belmont, Harry Macdonough, Sousa cornetist Otto Mesloh, and the Metropolitan Band. Includes original research into the operation of the Lambert Company of Chicago and 22 of the world’s rarest records. A glimpse into the culture of 100 years ago. List price: $15.99
Real Ragtime: Disc Recordings From Its Heyday
Various Artists
Released: December 5, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 1001A • UPC: 656605911724
29 songs from 1898-1923, 28-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and rare graphics. Includes two extremely rare Berliner discs. Banjos by Ossman and Van Eps, raggy marches by Pryor and Sousa, vocals by Collins, American Quartet, and ‘Gene Greene, and much more. These are the ragtime records people heard during the genre’s formative years. List price: $16.49
Genres
Real Ragtime: Disc Recordings From Its Heyday
Various Artists
Released: December 5, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 1001A • UPC: 656605911724
29 songs from 1898-1923, 28-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and rare graphics. Includes two extremely rare Berliner discs. Banjos by Ossman and Van Eps, raggy marches by Pryor and Sousa, vocals by Collins, American Quartet, and ‘Gene Greene, and much more. These are the ragtime records people heard during the genre’s formative years. List price: $16.49
Before Radio: Comedy, Drama & Sound Sketches, 1897-1923
Various Artists
Released: April 24, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 1002A • UPC: 656605912127
27 tracks from 1897-1923, 20-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and rare graphics. Includes monologues, dialogues, sketches, “descriptives,” and much more from the days before radio. Standout stars are Ada Jones, Len Spencer, Steve Porter, Haydn Quartet, Weber and Fields, Golden and Hughes, Cal Stewart, and Will Rogers. List price: $16.49
Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot
Various Artists
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 1003 • UPC: 777215105492
27 songs from 1897-1925, 28-page booklet with historical notes, artist bios, and unusual graphics chronicling the rise of “hot” playing in American music over four decades. Rare tracks by banjo virtuosos Cullen and Collins, vocalist Silas Leachman, Jim Europe’s Orchestra, and his proteges in the Versatile Four. The ultra-rare “Sunset Medley” by Haenschen and Schiffer is here released for the first time, along with Edison cylinders by Sophie Tucker and Polk Miller. Companion to the book by David Wondrich, published by Chicago Review Press on the A Cappella imprint. List price: $16.49
At the Minstrel Show: Minstrel Routines From the Studio, 1894-1926
Various Artists
Released: March 13, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH 1004 • UPC: 868490000296
For all the vexed issues they pose to us now, minstrel shows were an important part of American social life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early days of the phonograph industry, the record labels attempted to bring the experience of minstrelsy into consumers’ homes. The records were popular; hundreds of titles and thousands of examples survive to this day.
A few of these records have been issued by modern labels, but never before has an attempt been made to deal authoritatively with the genre as a whole. At the Minstrel Show fills the void with 51 tracks on two CDs and a 56-page heavily annotated booklet by Tim Brooks, author of the new McFarland book, The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media. Disc One features three complete minstrel “shows”—that is, series of discs or cylinders that were intended to be listened to sequentially to give the listener the experience of a whole minstrel show. Disc Two has a number of minstrel “first part” routines (some extremely rare) and songs and skits about minstrelsy, recorded between 1894 and 1926. List price: $28.99
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922
Various Artists
Released: October 9, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 1005 • UPC: 777215109025
Fifty-four tracks by 43 artists, and 60 pages of in-depth commentary and analysis: Lost Sounds is a monumental achievement that stretches back to the faint beginnings of commercial recordings and travels to the brink of the Jazz Age to trace the contributions of black artists on American records. Sometimes noisy and raucous, sometimes quiet and austere, these recordings demonstrate the deep involvement and lasting influence of African Americans in the nascent recording industry. List price: $29.99
Monarchs of Minstrelsy: Historic Recordings by the Stars of the Minstrel Stage
Various Artists
Released: June 3, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 1006 • UPC: 777215110366
From the research of Allen Debus comes Monarchs of Minstrelsy: Historic Recordings by the Stars of the Minstrel Stage, a collection of rare recordings by the stars who once performed them in minstrel shows. These are real veterans of the blackface minstrel stage, singing the songs they made famous on stage and performing the minstrel routines that have made them notorious today. Monarchs includes 28 tracks and a full-color 24-page booklet. List price: $16.49
Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s
Various Artists
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 1007 • UPC: 778632900509
Pioneer recording artist Russell Hunting went to jail for what’s on this CD. 19 cylinder selections (43 tracks) from c.1892-1900 of the rarest of the rare: explicit indecent spoken-word recordings that brought down the wrath of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock. Actionable Offenses is a critical edition that places these recordings in their original social and historical context. Featuring an oversized 60-page booklet with complete transcripts of the recordings, annotations on slang and out-of-date references, and a groundbreaking historical essay by Patrick Feaster and David Giovannoni detailing the rise of indecent recordings and arrest of Hunting. Also includes recordings by Cal Stewart, James White, and an unknown gentleman of the 1890s indulging his taste for home recordings. List price: $25.00
Debate ’08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph
William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft
Released: September 9, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH 1008 • UPC: 778632901964
A new animal disrupted the political circus in 1908 when the phonograph carried the voices of presidential candidates directly to the people. Debate ’08 marks the centennial of this historic premiere with the first reissue of all 22 Edison wax cylinders recorded by the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, and the Republican candidate, William Howard Taft. The two-minute duration of these records forced an eager Bryan and a reluctant Taft to excerpt their nuanced speeches and get to the point. Thus began the 20th century’s march to the sound bite . . . and the redefinition of political communications for all time. Includes full-color 80-page wide-format booklet with transcripts of the speeches and original research. List price: $18.99
Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900
Various Artists
Released: September 30, 2016 • Catalogue: ARCH 1009 • UPC: 868490000203
Before the 20th century, the “sacred” songs of Protestant camp meetings and revivals were as catchy, memorable and personal as the pop songs of that or any other time. Bringing you more recordings from the 1890s than any other historical album to date, Waxing the Gospel is a landmark collection of 102 tracks on three CDs in a 408-page beautifully illustrated hardback book. Commercial recordings go back to 1890 and feature pioneer artists Emile Berliner, Thomas Bott, J. W. Myers, Len Spencer, Steve Porter, and J. J. Fisher—as well as stunning instrumental performances by Baldwin’s Cadet Band, Holding’s Parlor Orchestra, and the U. S. Marine Band. Celebrity recordings by star evangelists include Ira D. Sankey, Dwight L. Moody, and Prof. John R. Sweney. And vernacular recordings taken in the field are by historic evangelical figures such as Fanny Crosby reading one of her poems, Winfield Weeden singing his original songs, and the “Golden Minstrel” of the Salvation Army, Edward Taylor, who accompanies himself on the guitar. It’s a great listen, a fascinating story, a book for the coffee table, and a resource you’ll want to have nearby. List price: $55.00
Critical Issues
The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy
Various Artists
Released: February 6, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 2001 • UPC: 777215111219
Featuring 56 tracks, Archeophone’s The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy traces the history of American involvement in World War I by reviewing the kind of records that were released. What unfolds is a drama in which the U.S. transforms through a series of stages: from curious bystander and political neutral to naive dove, then from idealistic booster to jingoistic hawk, and finally from jubilant victors to street-wise questioners asking “What was it all for?” With a 76-page full-color booklet featuring historical graphics, original research on the recording industry and a personal reflection on the war, The Great War is an essential release for those who love the music of World War I. List price: $29.99
Labels and Innovations
The Pink Lambert: A Collection of the First Celluloid Cylinders
Various Artists
Released: May 17, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 3001 • UPC: 656605913322
22 songs, sketches, whistling solos, and band performances from ca. 1902, with detailed notes in a 16-page booklet. Featured artists are the (original) American Quartet, Collins and Natus, Joe Belmont, Harry Macdonough, Sousa cornetist Otto Mesloh, and the Metropolitan Band. Includes original research into the operation of the Lambert Company of Chicago and 22 of the world’s rarest records. A glimpse into the culture of 100 years ago. List price: $15.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 1
Various Artists
Released: December 14, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 3002 • UPC: 777215107472
The first double-CD set in an eventual four-volume series featuring all regular weekly issues of these cardboard records that were the best-selling records during the Depression, along with several advertising and uncommonly scarce promotional records from the Durium Company. The biggest names in 1930s music are here: Ben Pollack, Phil Spitalney, Vincent Lopez, and Duke Ellington, playing as “The Harlem Hot Chocolates.” Top vocalists include Smith Ballew, Irving Kaufman, and Scrappy Lambert. More than two hours of music and a very informative 24-page booklet with notes by Doug Benson and Hit of the Week expert Hans Koert. List price: $31.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 2
Various Artists
Released: December 14, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 3003 • UPC: 777215109544
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 2 includes 48 tracks, spanning 1930 through 1931, by standout bands led by Vincent Lopez, Ted Fiorito, Harry Reser, Sam Lanin, and Don Voorhees. Plenty of rare gems are here too, including all five A-series Durium Juniors (featuring Eva Taylor, Frank Luther, and Carson Robison), an experimental 5-minute Hit of the Week, and a live Durium recording of pianist Leola Felton playing “The St. Louis Blues.” List price: $31.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 3
Various Artists
Released: October 24, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 3004 • UPC: 778632901025
Volume 3 of The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings picks up where Volume 2 left off and features 51 tracks including the Durium 5 minute records and a number of rare advertising records. The package includes a 24-page booklet with complete discographical information, an essay about the Durium Corporation and notes on the recordings. List price: $31.99
The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings, Volume 4
Various Artists
Released: May 3, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 3005 • UPC: 778632905283
Volume 4 of The Complete Hit of the Week Recordings features 59 selections recorded between January and June 1932. The notes in the 24-page booklet follow the story of the Durium Corporation as they moved their focus from the weekly releases to the more lucrative business of producing advertising records, before eventually folding in 1934. List price: $31.99
Etching the Voice: Emile Berliner and the First Commercial Gramophone Discs, 1889-1895
Various Artists
Released: September 28, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 3006 • UPC: 860003210055
The recordings on these two CDs were made between 1889 and the mid-1890s at the launch of Emile Berliner’s disc gramophone in Europe. They are the first and scarcest manufactured sound recordings in the world-the archetypes of the 78, the 45, the EP, and the LP. Gathered together, all surviving discs could be carried in a hatbox. And as such, they are the holiest of grails among collectors of early recorded sound.
Yet much of what collectors believe about these discs is wrong. Historians Stephan Puille and David Giovannoni and the GRAMMY-winning Archeophone team set the record straight about the discs’ composition (it’s not celluloid), their size (it’s not five inches), the speed at which they were recorded (it’s not what you think), their content (it’s rarely Emile Berliner), and their purpose (it wasn’t to capture timeless performances). They explain how the first gramophones, after initial positive response, came to be misunderstood as toys, when in fact they embodied cutting-edge technology that initially outyelled, eventually outsold, and ultimately outlived Edison’s cylinder phonograph.
With 100 discs (plus two bonuses) restored here, this compilation holds the largest audio library of these pioneer recordings ever assembled. And it presents them with a sound quality unavailable to anyone at any time. Quite literally, these recordings could not be heard this clearly when new.
These 19th-century recordings document a key moment in entertainment and technological histories. They are the first performances that people could command at will in their own homes. We bring them into your 21st-century home accompanied by a comprehensive and enjoyable 80-page booklet of essays, track notes, transcribed lyrics, and illustrations.
List price: $32.99
Pioneers
The Complete Victor Releases
Marion Harris
Released: December 9, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 5001A • UPC: 777215104600
Second edition (2005), featuring newly remastered sound, one bonus track, and expanded and enhanced 20-page booklet. 22 selections, recorded between 1916 and 1919, including one rejected take from 1917, and two final selections from 1927. Marion Harris was the first female vocalist to record songs with “jazz” and “blues” in their titles; she exemplifies the transition from the old school of gutsy ragtime singing to the newer, softer kind of delivery that was typical of female vocalists of the 1920s. List price: $16.49
His Final Releases, 1919-1922
Bert Williams
Released: July 2, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 5002 • UPC: 656605918129
The third volume of The Complete Bert Williams. 24 songs from 1919-1922, recorded in New York and Chicago, including both “Elder Eatmore” sermons. Booklet now (2005) expanded to 20 pages, with notes on Williams’ final years, sheet music illustrations, and other rare graphics. Sound of some noisier tracks now improved. List price: $16.49
The Middle Years, 1910-1918
Bert Williams
Released: August 15, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 5003 • UPC: 656605928920
The second volume of The Complete Bert Williams. 26 songs from 1910-1918, recorded in New York, including two monologuesthat were held for release until after Bert’s death: “How? Fried” and “You Can’t Do Nothing Till Martin Gets Here.” 24-page booklet with rare graphics, and notes co-written by Allen G. Debus. Also features the entire article “The Comic Side of Trouble,” by Bert Williams, published in 1918 by the American Magazine. List price: $16.49
The Early Years, 1901-1909
Bert Williams
Released: August 21, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 5004 • UPC: 777215106611
The first volume of The Complete Bert Williams, featuringthe legendary comedian’s rarest records. 31 tracks from 1901-1909, including several with George Walker: 15 tracks from their 1901 sessions and a further 16 tracks from sessions in 1906 and following. Five selections are featured in both their 7- and 10-inch disc versions, and the collection includes all four of Williams’ 2-minute cylinders, one 3-minute cylinder, and one rejected take from 1906. The 32-page full-color deluxe booklet features illustrations as rare as the records, with notes co-authored by renowned scholar Allen G. Debus and also reprints in its entirety George Walker’s 1906 reminiscences about the beginnings of Williams and Walker in “The Real ‘Coon’ on the American Stage.” List price: $17.49
Floating Down the River
The Heidelberg Quintet featuring Billy Murray
Released: May 27, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 5005 • UPC: 777215104631
Complete releases from 1912-1914, with two bonus tracks from 1910 before the ensemble took the name of the Heidelberg Quintet; 26 total songs, including three Edison 4-minute cylinders. Lead vocals by Billy Murray and countertenor Will Oakland. Features a 24-page booklet with previously unpublished notes on the group and a complete reprinting of the hitherto forgotten “Reminiscences of Early Talking Machine Days” by first tenor John Bieling, from The Talking Machine World in April 1914. List price: $16.49
The Sound of Vaudeville, Vol. 1
Eddie Morton
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 5006 • UPC: 777215104648
28 songs from 1907-1910, recorded in Camden and New York, with a lavish 28-page booklet containing newly discovered biographical data and rare graphics. Includes all the early rare Victors and Columbias, as well as the Edison 4-minute cylinder of “A Singer Sang a Song,” and the Indestructible cylinder of “In the Right Church, but in the Wrong Pew.” The former “Singing Cop” from Philadelphia, Eddie Morton was a top stage performer for more than 20 years. List price: $16.49
Together and Alone
Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth
Released: October 12, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 5007 • UPC: 777215107052
With 51 songs on 2 CDs and running for over two and a half hours, Together and Alone is a landmark retrospective of two of Broadway’s brightest stars ever, Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. This ambitious collection boasts some of the most classic songs in American history, performed by the pair that brought them to the stage. In addition to a 32-page booklet with extensive illustrations and notes co-authored by Allen G. Debus, the CD includes three never-before released tracks: two by Nora Bayes from 1917 and one by Jack Norworth from ca. 1950—”a home recording of Bayes and Norworth’s biggest hit, “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” List price: $27.99
Echoes from Asbury Park
Arthur Pryor and His Band
Released: April 8, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 5008 • UPC: 777215110038
One of the premier conductors of the early 20th century, Pryor was second in reputation only to Sousa, and his band traveled the world spreading Pryor’s fame for ragtime, classical adaptations, and masterful musical precision. Guided by trombonist and Pryor expert David Sager, we have assembled these 25 recordings into two simulated "concerts," presenting them the way that visitors to New Jersey’s resort spot, Asbury Park, might have heard them in the first decade of the last century. List price: $16.49
The Indestructible Uncle Josh
Cal Stewart
Released: June 11, 2013 • Catalogue: ARCH 5009 • UPC: 778632906204
A humorist who spent 22 years waxing his Uncle Josh stories, Cal Stewart was the first performer whose stage appearances were celebrated by reference to his records rather than the other way around. In his famous role as “rube” Uncle Josh Weathersby, he entertained millions of listeners with tales of his antics both in New York City and at home in Punkin Center. The Indestructible Uncle Josh provides a snapshot of Stewart’s repertoire at the height of his career, featuring all 25 of his 2-minute cylinders for the Indestructible company and a choice sampling of his work on U-S Everlasting cylinders. The package includes a 28-page booklet with notes by Stewart expert and scholar Patrick Feaster. List price: $16.49
Origins of the Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922
Sophie Tucker
Released: August 25, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5010 • UPC: 778632901674
Gathered for the first time, here are Sophie Tucker’s earliest recordings, from Edison wax cylinders and impossibly rare discs, chronicling the rough and ready rise of this lasting icon of the double entendre. A master of self-marketing, Tucker learned long before she became known as The Last of the Red Hot Mamas that the key to her success lie in controlling–and changing as needed–the facts of her personal story. Documentarians Susan and Lloyd Ecker unravel all the loose ends and contradictory threads comprising the early years of one of the 20th century’s most colorful stage personalities. With a hardback book-binding and 72 full-color pages, this beautiful package features dozens of illustrations from Sophie’s personal scrapbooks, a foreword by Michael Feinstein, and a personal remembrance by Carol Channing. List price: $23.99
The Famous Tramp Comedian
Nat M. Wills
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 5011 • UPC: 778632900363
26 tracks and a thoroughly entertaining 24-page booklet featuring a new biographical sketch by vaudeville historian Trav S.D. Although he was popular on stage for more than two decades, playing the scruffy but urbane tramp, Wills’ recorded output totaled only 26 distinct titles, and they are all here, compiled for the first time ever and sounding like they were recorded yesterday. List price: $16.49
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 1
Guido Deiro
Released: May 16, 2007 • Catalogue: ARCH 5012 • UPC: 778632900370
The greatest piano-accordion player ever to grace the instrument! Compiled with the assistance of Guido Deiro’s son, Count Roberto Guido Deiro, and featuring the scholarship of master accordion player Henry Doktorski. Tracks range from light classical and operatic to ragtime and the pop hits of the day. List price: $34.99
Sweetheart of the A.E.F.
Elsie Janis
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5013 • UPC: 778632901681
With 24 tracks, Sweetheart of the AEF features the almost-complete acoustic-era output of Elsie Janis, a star of the stage who took her act to the soldiers on the front lines in World War I. Sweetheart of the AEF comes with a lavishly illustrated, 24-page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by our late friend and collaborator, Allen G. Debus. List price: $16.49
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 2
Guido Deiro
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 5014 • UPC: 778632901971
Volume 2 of Guido Deiro’s complete recordings includes 25 tracks showcasing Deiro’s mastery of both popular and classical material. The package includes a 24-page full-color booklet with extensive notes by free-reed scholar Henry Doktorski, meticulous restorations of the music, and personal photos provided by Guido’s son, Count Guido Roberto Deiro. The tracks were recorded between 1911 and 1917 and include the only two accordion duets waxed by Guido and his brother, Pietro. Additionally, Complete Recorded Works, Volume 2 will be of interest to historians of vaudeville and films, as it features new revelations about the marriage of Guido Deiro and Mae West. In his detailed notes, Guido’s son recalls his meeting with Mae West in 1959 when she told him the facts of her relationship with Deiro–the mysterious “Mr. D” mentioned in her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It. These are the things she never told any interviewer, and now the historical record is set straight. List price: $16.49
The High Priestess of Jollity & The Southern Singer
May Irwin and Clarice Vance
Released: June 14, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 5015 • UPC: 778632904385
The High Priestess of Jollity & The Southern Singer brings together the complete recorded output of two early stars of the vaudeville stage: Clarice Vance and May Irwin. Though prominent on stage—and sheet music covers—both had very short recording careers, with Irwin’s output totalling 6 sides and Vance’s 15. This set presents these 21 recordings for the first time and tells the story of these two remarkable women. The package includes a 32-page, full-color booklet with biographical essays on each of women and a bounty of photographs and lush illustrations. List price: $16.99
Pennant-Winning Battery of Songland
Van and Schenck
Released: February 7, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5016 • UPC: 778632905535
“Pennant-Winning Battery of Songland” compiles the first recordings made by Jazz Age superstars Gus Van and Joe Schenck. The collection features 28 selections recorded between 1916 and 1918 and includes a 28-page color booklet with biographical notes by vaudevillian and author Trav S.D. that trace their rise from boyhood friends performing in Brooklyn to vaudeville superstars. The booklet also includes full discographical information for the featured selections and lots of images of both the duo and the recordings. List price: $16.49
Ed. Morton’s "Bit of Broadway"
Eddie Morton
Released: March 27, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5017 • UPC: 778632905542
The Sound of Vaudeville, Vol. 2 covers the career of Eddie Morton from 1911 through 1917. He was one of the variety stage’s most important song pluggers of the era: if Eddie featured it, it would be a hit. All-time classics include “The Oceana Roll” and “Play That Barbershop Chord.” Don’t miss Morton’s own compositions, “Noodle Soup Rag” and “I’ve Got You, Steve!” Researcher Ryan Barna revisits the early life of Morton and fills in some gaps before taking us to the end of Eddie’s stage life and beyond, when he ran a restaurant on the Wildwood boardwalk called Ed. Morton’s “Bit of Broadway. List price: $16.49
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 3
Guido Deiro
Released: October 16, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5018 • UPC: 778632904446
The third volume in our Complete Recorded Works of Guido Deiro picks up where Volume 2 left off, continuing his foray into popular material. The set features an increasing number of his own compositions (9 in total), including his signature song, “Kismet.” The set includes a 24 page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by accordion expert Henry Doktorski. List price: $16.49
Complete Recorded Works, Volume 4
Guido Deiro
Released: October 16, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5019 • UPC: 778632904453
Volume 4, which concludes the Complete Recorded Works of Guido Deiro, presents the final years of Deiro’s recording career. The set brings him into the electrical era of recording and features several super-rare recordings in the ethnic series of records as well as lots of personal photographs courtesy of Deiro’s son. The set includes a 28 page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by accordion expert Henry Doktorski. List price: $16.49
There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916
Fisk University Jubilee Quartet
Released: September 28, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5020 • UPC: 778632904743
Stung by critics who perceived spirituals as painful reminders of slavery, uplifted by the praise of royalty and world-renowned artists, John Wesley Work II toiled for three decades at Fisk University with single-minded determination to promulgate the good news of jubilee songcraft. Here for the first time his story is told in vivid detail by celebrated author Doug Seroff, accompanied by the 43 extant selections recorded by the Fisk Quartet when Work led the group-including all nine legendary Edison cylinders that feature Roland Hayes as second tenor and the four recitations of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry by James A. Myers. The selections are introduced by spoken excerpts from Rev. Jerome I. Wright, one of the last living Fisk students to have sung under John Work’s direction. Two CDs, more than 100 pages of history and illustrations, and recording notes by Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds, give voice to the bondsman’s hope and breath to the freedman’s courage. List price: $39.99
World-Famous Wizard of the Cornet
Bohumir Kryl
Released: September 25, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 5022 • UPC: 778632905931
Bohemian-born Bohumir Kryl made sounds with the cornet that audiences had never heard before and that no one had dared to try to record until he came along. He had the outsized ego to make sure he would not soon be forgotten, making his interpretations of the classic repertoire into standards along the way. World-Famous Wizard of the Cornet features 28 selections, recorded between 1901 and 1918, that showcase Kryl’s unique technical gifts. A 32-page full-color booklet is included that tells Kryl’s life story from his earliest days as a circus acrobat and sculptor. A must-have for musicians. List price: $16.99
The Mike and Meyer Files
Joe Weber and Lew Fields
Released: May 31, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 5023 • UPC: 868490000265
With their potent mixture of slapstick and fractured German dialect comedy, the pioneering vaudeville duo of Joe Weber and Lew Fields can rightly be called the granddaddy of all American comedy teams. They conquered Broadway with a series of hit burlesque comedies that pointed the way towards “Forbidden Broadway” and Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” and laid the foundation for later comedy teams the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges. Now for the first time, all of the pair’s comedy recordings have been masterfully restored and compiled in one collection that tells the story of this hugely influential duo. Includes a 32-page booklet with new scholarship by celebrated authors Trav S.D., L. Marc Fields, and Richard Martin. List price: $16.99
Masters of the Clarinet, 1892-1920
Various Artists
Released: April 20, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 5451 • UPC: 778632901995
Featuring 32 rare tracks that go all the way back to 1892, Masters of the Clarinet, 1892-1920 tells the story of the clarinet’s instrumental role in the early recording industry. The set includes a 24 page booklet with notes by clarinet expert Stan Stanford and rare images and photos. List price: $16.99
Anthologies
Anthology: The Denver Nightingale
Billy Murray
Released: October 22, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 5501 • UPC: 656605931821
Newly remastered in 2018—sounds better than ever!
30 songs from 1903-1940 that provide a career retrospective of the most popular recording artist of the acoustic era. Includes the rare brown wax cylinder of “The Way to Kiss a Girl” from one of Billy’s first recording sessions for Columbia, and “It’s the Same Old Shillelagh,” peformed with Harry’s Tavern Band in his comeback of 1940. Features collaborations with Ada Jones, the American and Haydn Quartets, Aileen Stanley, Ed. Smalle, and Walter Scanlan. A thick 24-page booklet contains a biographical essay and song notes by Murray biographer Frank Hoffmann and a reminiscence of Murray by a man who knew him, Quentin Riggs! List price: $16.99
Anthology: The Original King of Pop
Henry Burr
Released: March 17, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 5502 • UPC: 777215108066
Now available in an improved second edition: a career-spanning retrospective, featuring 27 songs, recorded over 25 years by Henry Burr–the most popular ballad singer of the first 30 years of the recording industry. The collection begins in 1903, when disc technology was still in its primitive stages, and ends in 1928, during the early electrical recording era, showing Burr in full vocal power. Duets with Ada Jones, Albert Campbell, and Frank Stanley, trios with Campbell and Oakland and the Sterling Trio, and quartets with the amazing Peerless Quartet-they’re all here on this outstanding collection. List price: $16.99
Anthology: The Last Recording Pioneer
Irving Kaufman
Released: December 6, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 5504 • UPC: 777215109469
Irving Kaufman, Anthology: The Last Recording Pioneer represents Irving’s incredible 60-year span of activity, beginning from his first acoustic recordings in 1914 to the final cuts made in his home in August 1974. The booklet includes several rare photographs, some contributed by Irving’s family, and features detailed liner notes by Kaufman expert Ryan Barna, examining both the professional and personal life of this legendary performer. List price: $16.99
Anthology: The King of Comic Singers, 1894-1917
Dan W. Quinn
Released: June 16, 2015 • Catalogue: ARCH 5505 • UPC: 778632907133
Anthology: The King of Comic Singers, 1894-1917 features 30 selections, taken from rare cylinders and discs, that highlight Dan W. Quinn’s quarter-century in the studio, featuring the up-to-date comic numbers he was best known for, along with sentimental ballads and ragtime songs he helped establish as standards. The 52-page booklet inside the digipak presents original research and stunning new discoveries about the man and his career, illustrated with many previously unpublished photos. List price: $17.99
Anthology: Singer, Songwriter, Soldier
Arthur Fields
Released: July 12, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 5506 • UPC: 868490000272
Wanting to run away from home since age eleven, Abraham Finkelstein was always after something. He masked his Jewish background by adopting the stage name Arthur Fields and launched a long and prolific career as a songwriter, vaudevillian, recording artist, radio personality, and music publisher. Featuring 26 tracks and a 32-page booklet with notes by Grammy-nominated author Ryan Barna, Anthology: Singer, Songwriter, Soldier tells the story of Fields’ four-decade recording career and constant reinventions. We hear his 1914 debut with a long-forgotten Irving Berlin number, follow along as he becomes one of the key voices and songwriters of World War I, then listen as he reinvents himself as a “hillbilly” during the country music boom of the ’20s and ’30s. The compilation ends with two remarkable selections: His emotional 1941 recording of “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” and a 1951 wire recording captured by record collector Dick Carty in which he reprises his most famous composition, “It’s a Long Way to Berlin, but We’ll Get There!” List price: $17.99
Anthology: America’s Favorite Entertainers
Arthur Collins & Byron Harlan
Released: January 29, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 5507 • UPC: 860003210031
Before Phil and Don Everly, before Simon and Garfunkel, long before Hall and Oates . . . the most popular recording duo over the first quarter of the 20th century was the team of Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. Dubbed “America’s Favorite Entertainers” as they crisscrossed America in the late 1910s and early 1920s promoting Edison’s superior talking machines, Collins and Harlan came face to face with the thousands of ordinary people who bought the records that became the comical soundtrack of a generation. They represented the best and the worst of popular culture: advancing the career of Jewish émigré Irving Berlin and Black songwriters such as Chris Smith, W.C. Handy, and Shelton Brooks, while also perpetuating racist stereotypes. The issues, as usual, are thorny, but Archeophone tackles them with care and honesty. GRAMMY-recognized authors Ryan Barna and Richard Martin present the clear-eyed but accurate case of these two rough-and-ready unlikely partners who also became friends and took the phonograph by storm. Over 29 tracks, we lead you from 1902 to 1924, depicting a story that has never been told in LP form until now. Fantastic sound, too—you won’t believe how great these records sound! List price: $16.99
Jazz, Dance and Blues
The Benson Orchestra of Chicago, 1920-1921
The Benson Orchestra of Chicago
Released: October 4, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 6001 • UPC: 777215105508
Complete releases from sessions between September 1920 and September 1921 in Camden and Chicago; 26 tracks and over 79 minutes total. A packed 28-page booklet reveals previously unknown details about the life and business of impresario Edgar A. Benson, the man who controlled the dance-band scene in Chicago for many years. This is the band that popularized “stop-time” rhythm and launched the career of pianist and arranger Roy Bargy, later of Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. List price: $16.49
Those Moaning Saxophones
Six Brown Brothers
Released: February 24, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6002 • UPC: 777215105508
26 tracks, recorded between 1911 and 1927, spanning the entire career of this saxophone troupe that started the “saxophone craze” of the 1910s, and comprising roughly half of their recorded output. Beautiful 24-page, full-color booklet contains extensive notes by Brown Brothers expert Bruce Vermazen, and it includes uncommon illustrations from Vermazen’s personal collection. Of special note is the inclusion of three previously unreleased tracks, particularly one in which leader Tom Brown performs his legendary “abandoned-bride” routine–a humorous interplay between a full orchestra and the consummate saxophonist showing his full bag of tricks. List price: $16.99
The San Francisco Sound, Volume 1
Art Hickman’s Orchestra
Released: August 31, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6003 • UPC: 777215106932
The San Francisco Sound compiles 25 selections from Hickman’s 1919-1920 sessions together with extensive notes by Bruce Vermazen in a 24-page booklet. Hickman’s sound influenced big band 20 years later, but you will be amazed at just how hot these guys could play! List price: $16.49
Jazzin’ Straight Thru’ Paradise
Wilbur Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band
Released: December 14, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 6004 • UPC: 777215107045
Vaudevillian Wilbur C. Sweatman impressed audiences by playing three clarinets at once, but he was more than just a novelty. A transitional figure in the move away from ragtime and into jazz, Sweatman and his band were the hottest and the best players of the Dixieland style of jazz that erupted onto the American music scene in the late 1910s. 25 tracks, including the complete Columbia releases of Sweatman’s band recorded from 1918 to 1920, along with one rarity, the Little Wonder (5-1/2″ disc) of “Lonesome Road.” The 24-page booklet with writing by Harlem Renaissance scholar Steve Tracy features an overview of Sweatman’s life, detailed and informative notes on the selections, and a persuasive argument for Sweatman’s place in the early jazz pantheon. List price: $16.49
The San Francisco Sound, Volume 2
Art Hickman’s Orchestra
Released: October 2, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 6005 • UPC: 777215109018
The San Francisco Sound: Volume 2 compiles 25 selections from Hickman’s 1920-1921 sessions together with extensive notes by Bruce Vermazen in a 24-page booklet. The follow-up to our first collection of Art Hickman’s recordings, this second volume brings to a close thestory of the influential band’s dominance of dance floors on both U.S. coasts. List price: $16.49
"Ain’t Gonna Settle Down": The Pioneering Blues of Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson
Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson
Released: May 15, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH 6006 • UPC: 778632901483
“Ain’t Gonna Settle Down” features all 14 recordings made by the obscure but remarkable cabaret star Mary Stafford in 1921 and 1926 and 32 selections by Louisville-born Edith Wilson, covering her entire released repertoire from 1921 to 1930. A handsomely illustrated 32-page booklet with notes by blues scholar Steve Tracy accompanies the two CDs. These records have never sounded better, and for the first time they are presented with the care they deserve. List price: $28.99
Broadway’s Favorite Clowns
Six Brown Brothers
Released: April 20, 2010 • Catalogue: ARCH 6007 • UPC: 778632904064
With 24 tracks, Broadway’s Favorite Clowns features the selections not included in our first collection of the Six Brown Brothers’ work. Brown Brothers expert Bruce Vermazen again provides the notes and research, and the set is packaged with a 24 page full-color booklet with rare photos and illustrations. List price: $16.99
Happy: The 1920 Rainbo Orchestra Sides
Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra
Released: August 19, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 6008 • UPC: 778632906754
Years before writing “It Had to Be You,” Isham Jones honed his craft at Mann’s Rainbo Gardens in Chicago—composing, arranging, and perfecting songs that he and his band performed nightly before the dinner-and-dance patrons. Jones’ style, capturing elements of the social dance craze of the 1910s and anticipating the jazz revolution of the 1920s, offers a rare glimpse into the beginnings of the era of great American dance bands. This two-CD set presents all 37 sides Jones’ Rainbo Orchestra recorded in 1920 and includes a 32-page booklet, with notes by Grammy-nominated author and trombonist David Sager, exploring Isham’s earliest years, his gift for tuneful arrangements, and his importance as an architect of the American dance band. List price: $27.99
Songs of the Night: Dance Recordings, 1916-1925
Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra
Released: September 11, 2015 • Catalogue: ARCH 6009 • UPC: 778632907416
It took a violin virtuoso leading the band at an upscale New York hotel to turn the world of dance records upside down. Eschewing the cold, impersonal arrangements of military bands, Joseph C. Smith brought a warmth and intimacy to the soundtrack of the 1910s dance craze–always with taste and discipline. He reinvigorated the waltz, helped standardize the fox trot, incorporated vocal refrains, and introduced many future classics. For a brief moment, the night belonged to Maestro Smith. Featuring 47 tracks recorded between 1916 and 1925, these two CDs and 32-page booklet tell the story of Smith’s career and the innovations he pioneered. Researcher Ryan Barna has uncovered new information on Smith’s life and shares valuable insights into the bandleader’s singular contributions during the rapidly-changing world of early-century dance music. Smith was the first bandleader to introduce vocal refrains on dance records, and you can hear old industry pros Harry Macdonough on songs such as “Smiles” and “Peggy” and Billy Murray on “Ching-a-Ling’s Jazz Bazaar.” Moreover, Smith provided a launching pad for many top musicians, who perform their solo specialties here, including trombonist Harry Raderman; xylophonists Teddy Brown and George Hamilton Green; pianists Hugo Frey, Harry Akst and William Bergé; and saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft. Smith himself provides sometimes beautiful (“Missouri Waltz”), sometimes scorching violin work (“Sally”) throughout the proceedings. List price: $27.99
The Product of Our Souls: The Sound and Sway of James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra
Various Artists
Released: June 1, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH 6010 • UPC: 868490000258
America was hot to trot in 1913, when a craze for social dancing swept across the nation. Vernon and Irene Castle were the faces of that cultural revolution—and the soundtrack was composed by James Reese Europe and played by his bands. An esteemed musician, bandleader, and labor organizer on behalf of his fellow African Americans, Europe described his cohort’s musical innovations as "the product of our souls." This compilation presents for the first time all eight sides recorded by Europe’s Society Orchestra in 1913 and 1914, and it contrasts them with recordings of the same material by studio bands made contemporaneously. Also included are selections composed by Europe but recorded by other stars of the day, showing Europe’s depth and influence. In the enclosed 56-page booklet, author David Gilbert gives incisive musical and cultural analysis, establishing James Reese Europe’s prominence of position among the great musical forces of the 20th century. Companion to the book, The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace, published by the University of North Carolina Press, 2016. List price: $17.99
The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business
Various Artists
Released: February 21, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH 6011 • UPC: 860003210000
Under the pseudonym “Carl Fenton,” Gus Haenschen led some of the tightest orchestra recordings of the 1920s—but he also oversaw the musical direction at the Brunswick label, where he signed Isham Jones, Al Jolson, Nick Lucas, Abe Lyman, the Happiness Boys, and even Charlie Chaplin. Haenschen probably would not have gotten that job had it not been for his reputation as a musically innovative student of Scott Joplin—and especially for his recording of six personal sides in 1916 that are the stuff of legend. All but a couple were thought lost to history, but now, together with researcher Colin Hancock, Archeophone is proud to present all six of Haenschen’s explosive 1916 recordings, along with 19 other tracks that show his influence on the music industry. Move over ODJB. These six sides change the game, and they and their creator, Gus Haenschen, are the missing link between ragtime and jazz. List price: $16.99
The Moaninest Moan of Them All: The Jazz Saxophone of Loren McMurray, 1920-1922
Various Artists
Released: July 14, 2023 • Catalogue: ARCH 6012 • UPC: 860003210079
Like Icarus flying dangerously close to the sun, Loren McMurray was an all-too-bright flame in the nascent field of jazz recordings. Dead at only 25, and having made records for just two years, “Mac” was a genuine musical pioneer. His trailblazing sides offered many listeners their first real taste of jazz saxophone, and his signature performance style revolutionized dance music. Today, his recordings provide an unparalleled glimpse into the saxophone’s transformation from just-another-voice in the band to a signature sound of jazz. Featuring 2 CDs with 50 selections and an 80-page booklet by Grammy-nominated authors Colin Hancock and Mark Berresford, The Moaninest Moan presents the story and sounds of Loren McMurray, from his early days of making music in Kansas to his final sides recorded in New York. List price: $32.99
After Midnight
Ford Dabney’s Syncopated Orchestras
Released: May 17, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH 6013 • UPC: 198168060391
As a founding member of the all-Black Clef Club, Washington DC-born-and-raised Ford T. Dabney helped revolutionize 1910s society dance music with his chief collaborator, James Reese Europe. In 1916, his syncopated orchestra began a multi-year residency with Flo Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic, an after-hours show staged in New York’s New Amsterdam Theatre rooftop garden. Subsequently, Dabney’s Band made several dozen records for the Aeolian-Vocalion Company, pioneers in vertically-cut longer-playing records. When Prohibition forced the Frolic to close, Dabney moved on musically as well as professionally, making a few standout jazz records for the famed Paramount label. Highlights of the 48 tracks on these two CDs include “That’s It,” “The Dancing Deacon,” “Bugle Call Blues,” “Lassus Trombone,” “Slidin’ Sid,” “Rainy Day Blues,” and “Camp Meeting Blues.” Notes in the 36-page booklet by Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds. List price: $28.99 Sale price $25.99
Centennial
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band / Various Artists
Released: August 30, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH 6014 • UPC: 860003210093
The 1923 recordings by King Oliver’s working Chicago band are the stuff of legend. Nothing like them had ever been heard on record before, and nothing in jazz would be the same afterward. Here, for the first time, all 37 sides are presented—in release order—on two LPs and two CDs, along with 55 additional tracks (on CDs 3 and 4) that allow us to understand these musical giants not only as innovators but also as products of the acoustic-era recording industry. With all-new restorations and remastering by Richard Martin, these selections have never sounded better. Further, there’s an 80-page book included, where GRAMMY-winning author Ricky Riccardi insightfully tells the story of the relationship between “Papa Joe” Oliver and “Little Louis” Armstrong and gives detailed notes on the tracks. Produced by Archeophone’s Meagan Hennessey and Richard Martin, GRAMMY-winning producers of Lost Sounds. Celebrate the 100th anniversary of these landmark records! List price: $114.95 Sale price $109.95
Ethnic & Foreign Language
Attractive Hebrews: The Lambert Yiddish Cylinders, 1901-1905
Various Artists
Released: August 26, 2016 • Catalogue: ARCH 8001 • UPC: 778632906747
Recordings of arias from long-forgotten Yiddish operas, street-corner ballads, cantorial hymns, and odd traditional folk songs—these lost prizes of Jewish Old World history landed sideways into a 1903 Lambert Company catalog under the description, “Attractive Hebrew Selections.” The records are like an ethnographer’s dream, but listen closely and you will hear something more: the difficult assimilation experience of Jewish émigrés arriving on America’s shores at the turn of the last century. While the dandy “Up to Date Boychik” caricatured in 1904 sheet music (portrayed on the front cover) offered one path of “Americanization,” an emerging Yiddish theater scene in New York, built on recognizable Eastern European traditions, offered another. Here, the great works of Abraham Goldfaden and “Professor” Moshe Hurwitz were performed to eager audiences; here, the voices of Solomon Smulewitz, Kalman Juvelier, William Nemrell, and “King of Comic Singers” Dave Franklin rang out supreme. These are the earliest known Yiddish recordings in the world, and this anthology will be the first time since their issue over a century ago that the cylinders will be heard by those able to understand their pithy and colorful language. 56-page booklet included, with notes and Yiddish-to-English translations by Henry Sapoznik. Produced in cooperation with the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture and the Mills Music Library of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. List price: $17.99
Alpine Dreaming: The Helvetia Records Story, 1920-1924
Various Artists
Released: August 31, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH 8002 • UPC: 778632908505
In 1920 Ferdinand Ingold, a poor but visionary Swiss settler in the small Wisconsin town of Monroe, audaciously launched a record label, Helvetia—invoking his homeland’s ancient name and celebrating its musical heritage. Praised in the immigrant press yet beset by fiscal challenges, Helvetia issued a scant 36 sides. Scattered, scarce, and nearly forgotten, Ingold’s entire catalog, newly restored and remastered, is offered here. Rollicking and somber, sentimental and lusty, these Swiss, German, and Tyrolean tunes and songs feature virtuoso instrumental combos, vocal quartets, and especially yodelers from Swiss communities in New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin. A 60-page booklet by folklorist Jim Leary, richly illustrated with rare images, offers extensive background on the label, performers, and each track, along with bilingual lyrics unlocked by a team of translators tackling dialectical challenges. Illuminating one of the first American record labels established by an immigrant for his own community, Alpine Dreaming both recalls a bygone era and resonates with all who seek better New World lives while remembering their homelands. Produced in cooperation with the Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. List price: $27.99
Swede Home Chicago: The Wallin’s Svenska Records Story, 1923-1927
Various Artists
Released: August 27, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 8003 • UPC: 860003210048
Chicago, the most populous Swedish city after Stockholm, was also home to the first record label founded by a Nordic immigrant to the United States. Gustaf Waldemar Wallin, a former crofter from Sweden’s rocky western coast, owned a music shop and launched Wallin’s Svenska Records, issuing 28 ten-inch shellac discs (56 tracks) from 1923 to 1927. Performers ran the era’s gamut: raucous vaudevillians; operatic tenors; accordion dance bands intermingling venerable folk tunes with hot jazz; sedate classical duos and novelty bell ringers; rousing vocal quartets and massed choirs; seasoned professionals and moonlighting amateurs. Further, Wallin’s discs were recorded by two important entrepreneurs with Chicago studios: evangelist Homer Rodeheaver, who made acoustic records, and Orlando Marsh, who pioneered in the field of electrical recording.
Comprising two CDs remastered from rare discs, Swede Home Chicago includes a richly illustrated 76-page booklet—co-authored by folklorists Jim Leary and Marcus Cederström, and Archeophone’s Richard Martin—featuring an essay on the label’s history, performers’ biographies, track notes, Swedish lyrics, and English translations, combining to illuminate a vibrant bygone musical scene that expands our understanding of America’s perpetual musical pluralism. Produced in cooperation with the Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. List price: $28.99
Phonographic Yearbooks
1920: "Even Water’s Getting Weaker"
Various Artists
Released: September 1, 1999 • Catalogue: ARCH 9001A • UPC: 656605911823
24 hits from 1920, the year that national Prohibition and women’s suffrage took effect. Top artists include Al Jolson, Billy Murray, Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, Van and Schenck, John Steel, Selvin’s Novelty Orchestra, Nora Bayes, and Art Hickman’s Orchestra. 24-page color booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1921: "Make Believe and Smile"
Various Artists
Released: October 9, 2000 • Catalogue: ARCH 9002A • UPC: 777215104617
25 hits from 1921, the year that the Tulsa underwent the worst race riot in American history. Top songs by Paul Whiteman, Campbell and Burr, Al Jolson, Marion Harris, Eddie Cantor, Van and Schenck, Zez Confrey, the Paul Biese Trio and Frank Crumit, Isham Jones, and Vernon Dalhart. 24-page color booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1912: "Waitin’ on the Levee"
Various Artists
Released: April 4, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9003 • UPC: 656605923826
24 hits from 1912, the year that the unsinkable Titanic went down and Teddy Roosevelt launched his Bull Moose Party. Big songs by Billy Murray and the American Quartet, Heidelberg Quintet, Ada Jones, Bob Roberts doing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe,” a very young Al Jolson singing “That Haunting Melody” and “Ragging the Baby to Sleep,” Collins and Harlan, Harry Lauder, and more. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
The 1890s, Vol. 1: "Wipe Him Off the Land"
Various Artists
Released: April 4, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9004 • UPC: 656605928029
30 tracks from 1893-1902, transferred from exceedingly scarce Berliner discs and brown wax cylinders, with top artists such as Dan W. Quinn (“The Band Played On”), George J. Gaskin (“Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill”), John Yorke AtLee (“The Mocking Bird”), George W. Johnson (“The Whistling Coon”), Arthur Collins (“I’d Leave My Happy Home for You”), and Sousa’s Band, Vess Ossman, Edward M. Favor, Russell Hunting, and more. The deluxe 24-page booklet boasts extremely rare photos of several of the artists (many only now published for the first time in over 100 years), artist bios, a timeline of when the songs first hit big, and an historical essay focusing on major social problems of the decade. Companion volume to ARCH 9006. List price: $17.49
1913: "Come and See the Big Parade"
Various Artists
Released: December 1, 2001 • Catalogue: ARCH 9005 • UPC: 656605923420
24 hits from 1913, the year that Henry Ford rolled out his first fully operational assembly line. Big songs by Alan Turner, Ada Jones (“Row! Row! Row!”), Al Jolson’s first sides for Columbia (“Pullman Porters Parade” and “You Made Me Love You”), the Peerless Quartet, Campbell and Burr doing “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine”, Charles Harrison with “Peg O’ My Heart,” and spirited numbers by Prince’s Band (“Too Much Mustard”) and the American Quartet, plus many more. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
The 1890s, Vol. 2: "Wear Yer Bran’ New Gown"
Various Artists
Released: May 17, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 9006 • UPC: 656605923925
30 tracks from 1892-1900, transferred from exceedingly scarce brown wax cylinders and Berliner discs. More hits by the biggest artists of the American 1890s, such as Gilmore’s Band, Cal Stewart, Dan Quinn, George Gaskin, Arthur Collins, and John Yorke AtLee. Standout tracks include the hitherto unattested cylinder of “Silver Threads Among the Gold” by J. W. Myers, the 1894 recording of “Then You’ll Remember Me” by the U.S. Marine Band, an exceptional copy of “Casey at the Telephone,” ca. 1896 by Russell Hunting, and the ultra-rare “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow” ca. 1892 by Silas Leachman for the North American Phonograph Company of Chicago. The deluxe 24-page booklet includes lyrics and bios and pictures of selected songwriters, a timeline of when the songs first hit big, and an historical essay focusing on major technological innovations of the decade. Companion volume to ARCH 9004. List price: $17.49
1922: "An Angel’s Voice I Hear"
Various Artists
Released: December 30, 2002 • Catalogue: ARCH 9007 • UPC: 777215104136
24 hits from 1922, the year that sales of radios to American homes skyrocketed. The music was also getting jazzier, witnessed by hits such as “Lovin’ Sam” by Miss Patricola and the Virginians, “On the Alamo” by Isham Jones, and “Hot Lips” by Paul Whiteman with Henry Busse. Other hits are by Fanny Brice (“My Man” and “Second Hand Rose”), Jones and Hare, Henry Burr, Al Jolson, and Lucy Isabelle Marsh and Royal Dadmun. Features the last hit by Jones and Murray, and the song of the year, the insanely popular “Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean” in two different versions. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1907: "Dear Old Golden Rule Days"
Various Artists
Released: May 27, 2003 • Catalogue: ARCH 9008 • UPC: 777215104624
25 hits from 1907, the year that American banks suffered one of the worst panics in U.S. history, ushering in a two-year depression. Features sentimental favorites by Byron G. Harlan (“School Days”) and Frank Stanley (“Auld Lang Syne”), comic hits by Collins and Harlan, Bob Roberts, and Helen Trix (“The Bird on Nellie’s Hat”), and the first stateside hit for Harry Lauder (“I Love a Lassie”). Other top artists include Billy Murray (“San Antonio” and “Harrigan”), Bert Williams, Ada Jones, Stanley and Burr (“Red Wing”), Enrico Caruso (“Vesti La Giubba” from Pagliacci), and the U.S. Marine Band doing a rousing version of Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1908: "Take Me Out with the Crowd"
Various Artists
Released: April 20, 2004 • Catalogue: ARCH 9009 • UPC: 777215106079
26 hits from 1908, the year that Fred Merkle’s boneheaded play cost the Giants a trip to the World Series but sent the Cubs to their last series championship. Included here is baseball’s anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” by the Haydn Quartet, along with 2 hits by the newly-christened Peerless Quartet and standards by the acoustic-era’s great “teams”: Collins and Harlan, Stanley and Burr, and Jones and Murray. Also features the collectible hit by Lucy Isabelle Marsh, “The Glow Worm” and hits by vaudeville greats Eddie Morton and Clarice Vance. Deluxe, full-color 24-page booklet features detailed notes on the songs, an historical essay, and rare graphics. List price: $17.49
1916: "The Country Found Them Ready"
Various Artists
Released: May 28, 2005 • Catalogue: ARCH 9010 • UPC: 777215108363
25 hits from the year that Woodrow Wilson won re-election to the U.S. presidency on the campaign, “He kept us out of war.” Behind the scenes, however, Wilson was preparing the nation for entry into the conflict, which came in April 1917. At the same time, child-labor laws were passed, and Emma Goldman found herself convicted for breaking the Comstock law. List price: $17.49
1915: "They’d Sooner Sleep on Thistles"
Various Artists
Released: October 11, 2006 • Catalogue: ARCH 9011 • UPC: 777215111158
25 songs from 1915, the year submarine warfare and the sinking of the Lusitania hit the news. Popular songs included the American Quartet’s “On the 5:15” and Billy Murray’s “The Little Ford Rambled Right Along,” Al Jolson’s “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers,” and one of the most famous war protest songs of all, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.” 1915: “They’d Sooner Sleep on Thistles” includes a 24 page full color booklet featuring an essay on the Lusitania and the push to war, discographical information on the records, notes on the songs, and rare images and photographs. List price: $17.49
1914: "Her Memory Haunts You"
Various Artists
Released: June 14, 2011 • Catalogue: ARCH 9012 • UPC: 778632904378
1914: “Her Memory Haunts You” features 25 selections from the year that the hopes and dreams of the progressive coalition that had put their faith in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson saw their agenda put on hold while economic issues–and then the beginning of World War I–took center stage. The soundtrack to the year brings us a good mix of future classics and songs of the moment, odes to country life, and more than a handful of songs longing for home and hearth, both pathetic and humorous. As with Archeophone’s other Phonographic Yearbooks, 1914 includes a full-color 24-page booklet. List price: $17.49
1906: "When Things Was Lookin’ Bright"
Various Artists
Released: May 12, 2009 • Catalogue: ARCH 9013 • UPC: 778632901476
1906: “When Things Was Lookin’ Bright” features 27 tracks from the year of the great San Francisco earthquake and the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The CD comes with a generously illustrated 24-page full-color booklet, including notes on each of the selections and an interpretive essay on the events of the year. List price: $25.00
1909: "Talk of Your Scand’lous Times"
Various Artists
Released: March 31, 2017 • Catalogue: ARCH 9014 • UPC: 778632907997
Our newest Phonographic Yearbook features 28 selections from 1909, the year Theodore Roosevelt handed the presidential reins to William Howard Taft and cries of “Oh You Kid!” scandalized the nation. 1909: "Talk of Your Scand’lous Times" includes a 24-page full-color booklet with notes and illustrations that bring the year to life. List price: $17.49
1910: "Act Two, Scene New"
Various Artists
Released: October 25, 2019 • Catalogue: ARCH 9015 • UPC: 868490000289
1910: “Act Two, Scene New” features 26 selections from 1910, the year the largest fire ever recorded in the U.S. consumed parts of Idaho, Montana, and Washington and set up a policy debate that lingers to this day about enviromental resource management. List price: $17.49
1911: "Up, Up a Little Bit Higher"
Various Artists
Released: September 9, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 9016 • UPC: 778632906655
26 hits from 1911, the year the nation got wrapped up in the aviation craze and the Triangle fire changed workplace safety laws. Highlights include Gene Greene’s “King of the Bungaloos,” Blanche Ring’s “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine,” and Collins and Harlan’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band. The set includes a 24-page full-color booklet with an interpretive historical essay on key events of the year and notes on all of the selections. List price: $17.49
1917: "Yankees to the Ranks"
Various Artists
Released: June 12, 2012 • Catalogue: ARCH 9017 • UPC: 778632905559
1917: “Yankees to the Ranks” presents 25 songs from the year the U.S. declared war on Germany and entered into World War I. The 24-page color booklet includes extensive notes on all the songs and an interpretive historical essay that tells the story of patriotic volunteerism. Old favorite artists such as Billy Murray, Campbell and Burr, and Collins and Harlan are all here in clear restored audio; so too are newcomers Van and Schenck, Marion Harris, Dietrich and Wright, Anna Wheaton with James Harrod, Arthur Fields, and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on their first record! List price: $17.49
1918: "Like the Sunshine After Rain"
Various Artists
Released: June 11, 2013 • Catalogue: ARCH 9018 • UPC: 778632906068
1918: “Like the Sunshine After Rain” features 24 selections from the year World War I came to a close and an influenza epidemic swept the nation. Selections include wartime and comic songs, songs that would become part of the Great American Songbook, and early jazz and dance numbers by Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The CD includes a full-color 24-page booklet featuring an interpretive historical essay, notes on the selections, full discographical information and a bounty of historic photos and illustrations. List price: $17.49
1919: "Jazzin’ Around and Paintin’ the Town"
Various Artists
Released: September 9, 2014 • Catalogue: ARCH 9019 • UPC: 778632906662
25 selections from 1919, the year the White Sox threw the World Series and the nation experienced one of the largest labor strikes in history. Highlights include Marion Harris’ “After You’ve Gone,” John Steel’s “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” Billy Murray’s “The Alcoholic Blues” and hits by some of the leading dance orchestras of the day. The set includes a 24-page full-color booklet with an interpretive historical essay on key events of the year and notes on all of the selections. List price: $17.49
1904: "Call It the Land of Dreams"
Various Artists
Released: September 30, 2022 • Catalogue: ARCH 9024 • UPC: 860003210062
1904: “Call It the Land of Dreams” presents 27 popular recordings from the year the St. Louis Exposition introduced the world to ice cream cones and America took lead on the Panama Canal. Highlights include “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” “Under the Anheuser Bush,” and “Toyland.” List price: $17.49
1905: "Deliver Daniel From the Lion’s Den"
Various Artists
Released: April 21, 2023 • Catalogue: ARCH 9025 • UPC: 860003210086
1905: “Deliver Daniel From the Lion’s Den” features 27 popular recordings from 1905, the year Einstein seemingly emerged from nowhere to publish four works that made his reputation and permanently changed our understanding of light, mass, and energy. Highlights include Arthur Collins’ “Preacher and the Bear,” Bob Roberts’ “Back Back to Baltimore,” and two works that helped establish Billy Murray’s reputation as the premier interpreter of George M. Cohan on record: “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” List price: $17.49
1923: "Gonna Play the Villain Part"
Various Artists
Released: February 26, 2021 • Catalogue: ARCH 9026 • UPC: 860003210024
The newest volume in our Phonographic Yearbook series, 1923: “Gonna Play the Villain Part” features 25 selections from the year a popular president died amid growing public scandals, a new sign illuminated the Los Angeles skyline, and the country was swept up musically by the question of where one could find bananas. List price: $17.49
Special Products
Jubilee
Will Oakland
Released: December 16, 2008 • Catalogue: ARCH SP-WOJ-03 • UPC: 778632901988
Star of the minstrel stage, singer on hundreds of records, personality of radio and television, and the man who discovered Al Jolson, Will Oakland had a career that spanned more than 50 years. Celebrating his golden jubilee as a performer, he recorded a commemorative LP with stories and snippets of old records and gave them to friends and fans. Made in 1954, this extraordinary souvenir has been the subject of rumors by collectors but has never been available commercially—until now. List price: $12.49
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Inventor of Sound Recording: A Bicentennial Tribute
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Emile Berliner
Released: May 2, 2017 • Catalogue: ARCH SP-SBT-04 • UPC: 868490000234
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817–1879) invented sound recording twenty years before Thomas Edison re-invented it. But his phonautograph is only one of his many accomplishments. Here, at the bicentennial of his birth, his story is published in depth. This extensively illustrated 48-page softcover book presents new research on Scott and his role as the father of sound recording. Included is a 33-1/3 flexi disc with phonautograms not only by Scott, but also by famous inventors who were inspired by him and his invention: Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner. List price: $22.00
Vinyl
4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897
Charles Asbury
Released: May 4, 2018 • Catalogue: ARCH EPV-0704-181 • UPC: 868490000241
This May, you can hear what only a handful of people have ever heard: the oldest recordings of banjo songs in existence, played by an African American veteran of the minstrel stage, Charles A. Asbury. 4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897 presents four of the rarest wax cylinders in a beautiful vinyl package. It is a seven-inch 45-rpm disc in a gatefold sleeve, with lyrics and a 16-page booklet of biographical and musical notes by Grammy-nominated authors Richard Martin and Ted Olson. List price: $16.99 Sale price $14.99
Celebrated, 1895-1896
Unique Quartette
Released: May 29, 2020 • Catalogue: ARCH EPV-1006-201 • UPC: 860003210017
They came from the South to make their way in New York City. They worked as hotel porters and singing waiters. And the Unique Quartette, the first African American quartet ever to make records—beginning in 1890—have been a flickering historical mystery until now. Two of their wax cylinders appeared on our GRAMMY-winning Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922, but that was thought to be the last word.
This 10-inch vinyl compilation shows the group in all its barbershop-harmonizing glory over six expertly restored cylinder selections, whose existence is revealed for the first time only now. New research identifies the most likely members of the group to have participated in the recordings, and the dates and places of their births and deaths are published here for the first time. This version of “Down on the Old Camp Ground” is now understood to be the earliest one known, and the quartet-style yodeling on “Hot Corn Medley” is also the first waxed example of its type. And take a closer look at the photo on the cover: It’s the first image of the group to ever surface, and we believe at least three of the members shown are on these recordings. List price: $19.99
Genius of the Seventh Ward
Louis Vasnier
Released: November 15, 2024 • Catalogue: ARCH SPV-0702-241 • UPC: 98715107821
Thirty years before some fiddlers from Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia started recording a new genre of music called “hillbilly,” a Creole of color from the Seventh Ward of New Orleans named Louis Vasnier (1858–1902) beat them to the punch. Recorded in 1891, “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule” is the most raucous version of a song that, better known as “Johnson’s Old Gray Mule,” would enter the country music canon. But Vasnier did more than give us what is arguably the oldest country record in existence. For the short-lived Louisiana Phonograph Company he also waxed sermons by a fictional preacher named Brudder Rasmus, and “Adam and Eve and de Winter Apple” joins “Thompson” on this 45-rpm vinyl single. Vasnier’s two surviving cylinders are the earliest extant sounds from New Orleans. In them, he summons up the atmosphere and the culture of the Crescent City during the time Buddy Bolden was still a teenager.
This collection includes a 16-page booklet with notes and new research by Richard Martin that provides a deeper understanding of these recordings, the history of the Louisiana Phonograph Company, and significant new findings on the life and times of Louis “Bebe” Vasnier. List price: $17.99 Sale price $15.99
GRAMMY Winners & Nominees
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922
Various Artists
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922
Various Artists
List price: $29.99
Waitlist
Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s
Various Artists
Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s
Various Artists
List price: $25.00
Debate '08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph
William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft
Debate '08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph
William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft
List price: $18.99
Origins of the Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922
Sophie Tucker
Origins of the Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922
Sophie Tucker
List price: $23.99
Happy: The 1920 Rainbo Orchestra Sides
Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra
Happy: The 1920 Rainbo Orchestra Sides
Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra
List price: $27.99
Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900
Various Artists
Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900
Various Artists
List price: $55.00
Celebrated, 1895-1896
Unique Quartette
Celebrated, 1895-1896
Unique Quartette
This 10-inch vinyl compilation shows the group in all its barbershop-harmonizing glory over six expertly restored cylinder selections, whose existence is revealed for the first time only now. New research identifies the most likely members of the group to have participated in the recordings, and the dates and places of their births and deaths are published here for the first time. This version of "Down on the Old Camp Ground" is now understood to be the earliest one known, and the quartet-style yodeling on "Hot Corn Medley" is also the first waxed example of its type. And take a closer look at the photo on the cover: It's the first image of the group to ever surface, and we believe at least three of the members shown are on these recordings. Read more
List price: $19.99
Etching the Voice: Emile Berliner and the First Commercial Gramophone Discs, 1889-1895
Various Artists
Etching the Voice: Emile Berliner and the First Commercial Gramophone Discs, 1889-1895
Various Artists
Yet much of what collectors believe about these discs is wrong. Historians Stephan Puille and David Giovannoni and the GRAMMY-winning Archeophone team set the record straight about the discs' composition (it's not celluloid), their size (it's not five inches), the speed at which they were recorded (it's not what you think), their content (it's rarely Emile Berliner), and their purpose (it wasn't to capture timeless performances). They explain how the first gramophones, after initial positive response, came to be misunderstood as toys, when in fact they embodied cutting-edge technology that initially outyelled, eventually outsold, and ultimately outlived Edison's cylinder phonograph.
With 100 discs (plus two bonuses) restored here, this compilation holds the largest audio library of these pioneer recordings ever assembled. And it presents them with a sound quality unavailable to anyone at any time. Quite literally, these recordings could not be heard this clearly when new.
These 19th-century recordings document a key moment in entertainment and technological histories. They are the first performances that people could command at will in their own homes. We bring them into your 21st-century home accompanied by a comprehensive and enjoyable 80-page booklet of essays, track notes, transcribed lyrics, and illustrations.
Read more
List price: $32.99
There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916
Fisk University Jubilee Quartet
There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916
Fisk University Jubilee Quartet
List price: $39.99
Songs of the Night: Dance Recordings, 1916-1925
Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra
Songs of the Night: Dance Recordings, 1916-1925
Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra
List price: $27.99
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Inventor of Sound Recording: A Bicentennial Tribute
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Emile Berliner
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Inventor of Sound Recording: A Bicentennial Tribute
Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Emile Berliner
List price: $22.00
4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897
Charles Asbury
4 Banjo Songs, 1891-1897
Charles Asbury
The Product of Our Souls: The Sound and Sway of James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra
Various Artists
The Product of Our Souls: The Sound and Sway of James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra
Various Artists
The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business
Various Artists
The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business
Various Artists
List price: $16.99
Alpine Dreaming: The Helvetia Records Story, 1920-1924
Various Artists
Alpine Dreaming: The Helvetia Records Story, 1920-1924
Various Artists
List price: $27.99
At the Minstrel Show: Minstrel Routines From the Studio, 1894-1926
Various Artists
At the Minstrel Show: Minstrel Routines From the Studio, 1894-1926
Various Artists
A few of these records have been issued by modern labels, but never before has an attempt been made to deal authoritatively with the genre as a whole. At the Minstrel Show fills the void with 51 tracks on two CDs and a 56-page heavily annotated booklet by Tim Brooks, author of the new McFarland book, The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media. Disc One features three complete minstrel “shows”—that is, series of discs or cylinders that were intended to be listened to sequentially to give the listener the experience of a whole minstrel show. Disc Two has a number of minstrel “first part” routines (some extremely rare) and songs and skits about minstrelsy, recorded between 1894 and 1926. Read more
List price: $28.99
Other Popular Releases
Real Ragtime: Disc Recordings From Its Heyday
Various Artists
Real Ragtime: Disc Recordings From Its Heyday
Various Artists
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Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot
Various Artists
Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot
Various Artists
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The Middle Years, 1910-1918
Bert Williams
The Middle Years, 1910-1918
Bert Williams
List price: $16.49
Currently Out of Stock
The 1890s, Vol. 1: "Wipe Him Off the Land"
Various Artists
The 1890s, Vol. 1: "Wipe Him Off the Land"
Various Artists
List price: $17.49
1920: "Even Water's Getting Weaker"
Various Artists
1920: "Even Water's Getting Weaker"
Various Artists
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Anthology: The Original King of Pop
Henry Burr
Anthology: The Original King of Pop
Henry Burr
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