The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I'd like to add my praise for the new plastic packaging. My copies always arrive looking great!

phonogfp wrote:
Finally, I should apologize for the personal nature of this issue's article. It really was a departure for me, but I promise to return with phact-philled phonographic phun in March!

George P.

George,
I very much enjoyed your article in this issue. I had been looking forward to reading it since you mentioned it on our last visit! I learned a great deal about the early history of religious recordings. I am definitely considering investing in the book you discussed. I tend to enjoy the religious recordings, even the later, less upbeat ones that seem to pop up everywhere.

I was particularity interested to read about the cylinder by Ann Maria Sawyer record you owned. You played it for me on one of my prior visits, and I was thrilled to read about it's history. It amazes me that recording was made a century before I was born!

I'm looking forward to your next article!

I want to renew online, but the site won't let me log in.

I tried to get a new password, but the site says my email address is "wrong".

Can someone fix this?

Bill

Bill,

Standby

We are attempting to correct this error ASAP

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I want to renew online, but the site won't let me log in.

I tried to get a new password, but the site says my email address is "wrong".

Can someone fix this?

Bill

NateO wrote:
George,
I very much enjoyed your article in this issue. I had been looking forward to reading it since you mentioned it on our last visit! I learned a great deal about the early history of religious recordings. I am definitely considering investing in the book you discussed. I tend to enjoy the religious recordings, even the later, less upbeat ones that seem to pop up everywhere.

I was particularity interested to read about the cylinder by Ann Maria Sawyer record you owned. You played it for me on one of my prior visits, and I was thrilled to read about it's history. It amazes me that recording was made a century before I was born!

I'm looking forward to your next article!

Thanks for your kind words, Nate. As I wrote in the article, it was a revelation (no pun intended) for me to discover that my long-held prejudice really had no basis. I don't know everything about antique phonographs, but I was pretty confident that I knew what I liked! Thanks to encountering that book and its 3 CDs, a new genre was opened to me. Better late than never, I guess.

Here's a photo that wouldn't fit into the (already too-long) article. It's the interior of the Methodist church I attended until age 10. I took this photo (and the exterior shot which appears in the article) in early October of this year, but the place is virtually unchanged from my boyhood. When I first read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in grade school, this was the church I envisioned during the funeral when Tom, Huck, and Ben Harper marched down the aisle; attending their own funerals. I spent many Sunday mornings sitting in those pews daydreaming, listening to religious music much like that found on so many of our early records.
I suppose that religious records repelled me partially because I'm not openly religious anymore, although I pray every day. To play Sacred Music might imply my own support of the sentiments of a particular song, or even the Church which espoused it. Yet, I can play schmaltzy "Heart Songs," or racially degrading "Coon Songs," or corny "Uncle Josh" recitations without any personal connection to the lyrics. Why could I look upon those records as historical documents, yet the religious records as somehow insidiously proselytizing? I don't know...maybe there have been too many people over the years standing on my front porch with Bibles in their hands... In any event, I can now accept Sacred Music as just another genre of early recorded sound, and I'm thankful to Archeophone for having provided me with that avenue to discovery through such an enjoyable book (Waxing The Gospel) and the accompanying CDs.

George P.

phonogfp wrote: I suppose that religious records repelled me partially because I'm not openly religious anymore, although I pray every day. To play Sacred Music might imply my own support of the sentiments of a particular song, or even the Church which espoused it. Yet, I can play schmaltzy "Heart Songs," or racially degrading "Coon Songs," or corny "Uncle Josh" recitations without any personal connection to the lyrics. Why could I look upon those records as historical documents, yet the religious records as somehow insidiously proselytizing? I don't know...maybe there have been too many people over the years standing on my front porch with Bibles in their hands... In any event, I can now accept Sacred Music as just another genre of early recorded sound, and I'm thankful to Archeophone for having provided me with that avenue to discovery through such an enjoyable book (Waxing The Gospel) and the accompanying CDs.

George P.

George,

Your wonderful article got me thinkin' of one of our recent visits, in which you asked me "...do you like Religious music?", and I hastily answered "No." I have been an abject failure at attending Church for most of my life, so my response was a function of bad memories coming out of this personal failure.

I am going to re-assess my thoughtless response, and go through the few titles I have, to listen to them with less prejudice. Who knows; maybe I'll like what I hear after all!

Thank you for your continued work, and dedication to "turning the lights on".

Best wishes,
Fran

fran604g wrote:
I am going to re-assess my thoughtless response, and go through the few titles I have, to listen to them with less prejudice. Who knows; maybe I'll like what I hear after all!

Fran,

After you listen to them, you may become convinced I'm crazy!

As I wrote at the end of the article, I may not listen to religious music very much, but at least now I give it more respect than I did. Much of the 1890s stuff on the accompanying CDs is surprisingly sprightly. I wish I had more of that early music in my collection, but then I'd use the CD anyway so as not to wear out the brown wax...

Bruce, you overseas fellows are lucky in that the excitement and anticipation never seems to end! It's like Christmas for 6 months a year!

Best,
George

phonogfp wrote:

Bruce, you overseas fellows are lucky in that the excitement and anticipation never seems to end! It's like Christmas for 6 months a year!

Best,
George

Yea I remember getting my last Christmas issue. The timing was perfect. Got it just in time to have something to read flying back for the Union show.

George P.

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