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As a child could not fully appreciate the Greek music my father played. I love foreign music now. I have a few 78s that I listen to from; India, Serbia, Japan, Switzerland, Mexico. Sadly, the only Greek record I have has a big bite out of it.

James.

James,

A couple years ago I bought a machine that came with about 150 Greek recordings. There was actually quite a few acoustic Victors, HMV's, Columbias and even an early red label G&T amoungst them. Most of the late 20s & early 30s stuff was on Pathé, Parlophon/Parlophone & Odeon, and the later recordings up to the late 50s was almost exclusively on HMV & Columbia.
I uploaded a few to my youtube channel if you ever want to hear them. Because I cant read or write Greek, you will probably have to search "Greek" on my home page to bring them up.
Probably half of the earlier records are comedy sketches, so I dont play those, but I quite enjoy many of the musical recordings.
I was glad to have got this collection of discs that spanned the decades, as I've found it interesting how the music was gradually influenced by what was popular in English speaking nations, yet in most cases it still retains traditional instruments etc that give it a distinct Greek flavour. I do tend to favour the earlier recordings though, because they are so different to what I'm used to.

I've been fairly lucky finding foreigh language 78 recordings here, partly because it seems there's not much interest in them from other collectors, but mostly due to the various Australian labels that started up and were dedicated exclusively to foreign language recordings, during the post WWII immigration boom we had here.
Earlier discs are not so easy to find here unfortunately.
The majority of my foreign recordings are Greek, Italian, Russia & Polish, but I think my favorites are my Japanese records. There just seems to be something about them that I find very appealing. particularly the more upbeat songs. I would love to find a large collection of Japanese discs
My least favorite would be my Chinese records. I can't seem to get into those for some reason, although I still buy them on the rare occasions I find them.
I also buy any foreign series Edison BA's I find. The British series issues are obviously quite common here, but other series dont turn up so often. I guess I've only got a dozen or so non-British foreign series cylinders, and I'm yet to find one that I dont enjoy listening to. Edisons reputation of boring recordings certainly doesn't seem to apply to these.

With close family connections to the world of military music, band recordings form a major part of my Blue Amberol collection.

As well as the British and American offerings, I can recommend the Mexican and Portuguese Series as good hunting grounds for band recordings, although they might be hard to find in Australia.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll certainly keep a look out for some, although I think you're right about them being hard to find in Australia. I only have one Mexican series cylinder, and it's a 2 minute blue amberol that I had sent over from usa.

I have a copy of Alexander Maloof's 1913 Victor disc of his two Syrian compositions. It must be one of the more exotic items they issued in the regular catalog.
He later issued sides by his "Oriental Orchestra" on the MALOOF label (Gennett pressings)

http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/d ... play/true/
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/4712

Shane,

Thanks for pointing out your uploads.
This one in particular is the kind of flavor I remember my father playing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQtfb38_V5k&feature=plcp

Here is a another's upload with more that I like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJDJloPBN08

Overall theses rural ethnic sounds are in touch with my liking of rural country and blues here in the U.S.

James.

gramophoneshane wrote: The majority of my foreign recordings are Greek, Italian, Russia & Polish, but I think my favorites are my Japanese records. There just seems to be something about them that I find very appealing. particularly the more upbeat songs. I would love to find a large collection of Japanese discs

Here are two Japanese 78rpm recordings I posted on my blog, I hope you will enjoy them ! http://ceintsdebakelite.com/category/japan/

Although I posted this 5" Japanese record I discovered in Mexico some time ago. I thought it would fit on this thread as well. I can't believe how well it plays considering it's obvious poor condition on one side...
http://youtu.be/FKdsPFRUWbQ
http://youtu.be/kYesk2sexNM

Any places to add on the list and the map ? "where to find 78rpm records" : http://ceintsdebakelite.com/where-to-find-78-rpm

My list and map "Where to find 78rpm records" reached 67 places in 18 different countries! Any places to add? http://ceintsdebakelite.com/where-to-find-78-rpm/