What’s the most offensive/non-PC record you’ve come across?

[epigramophone]

[/quote] drh :

"Well, after all, Edison had the Scottish Maggie Teyte, who would go on to be her generation's supreme interpreter of French art song and a noted exponent of Debussy's Peleas et Melisande (which she studied with the composer), record something called "I'se Gwine Back to Dixie" and George Clutsam's dreadful "Ma Curly-Headed Babby."

Dame Maggie Teyte was not Scottish. She was born in Wolverhampton in 1888 and died in London in 1976.
Debussy hailed her as the successor to Mary Garden, who was of Scottish ancestry.

[Wolfe]

Harry C. Browne recorded "I’ll Make Dat Black Gal Mine" which uses the N and C word. Harry C. Browne seems to have had a propensity for recording racist songs.

[drh]

drh :

"Well, after all, Edison had the Scottish Maggie Teyte, who would go on to be her generation's supreme interpreter of French art song and a noted exponent of Debussy's Peleas et Melisande (which she studied with the composer), record something called "I'se Gwine Back to Dixie" and George Clutsam's dreadful "Ma Curly-Headed Babby."

Dame Maggie Teyte was not Scottish. She was born in Wolverhampton in 1888 and died in London in 1976.
Debussy hailed her as the successor to Mary Garden, who was of Scottish ancestry.
[/quote]

Oops--memory was mixing up the ancestry of the two. It's been a long time since I read Maggie Teyte's bio. Suffice it to say, though, that she was not a terribly likely candidate to be "Gwine Back to Dixie"! (Any more than Alma Gluck was likely, in real life, to have been pining for Ol' Virginny, I suppose.)

[VanEpsFan1914]

"I'se Gwine Back to Dixie" is a Southern dialect song--and the 1876 sheet-music cover had a black guy on it--but that's not necessarily what I'd call offensive. It's one of my favorite records but then again I have the 1906 recording by the Haydn Quartet, and it's not like the sheet music cover was included--

Billy Murray's "Dixie Dan" is a positive spin on black representation in these records-- "Coal black color all except my teeth / With a loving disposition underneath"
and though it's a 'coon song' it doesn't mock people like 'Abraham Jefferson Washington Lee' does.

But the absolute most offensive record I've come across is 'A Coon's Attempted Suicide.' It was a 12" Columbia record from maybe around 1915. I don't believe it's on the Internet, and I'm actually kinda OK with that. It was included in a huge pile of classical and orchestral records, oddly enough. It's around here somewhere but I have forgot where I put it. Considering, though, I'm not in a hurry to go dig it back up either!