The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

estott wrote:

ewok wrote:The sound reminds me of our old .60 mortars firing.
Can we be sure that the "shelling" was by cannons?

estott wrote:I've wanted to hear the shelling record- could you or someone put it on youtube?

OK, I found it online: http://acenturyofnovember.com/html/audi ... rdment.php

Not meaning any ill to Mr. Gaisberg it sounds entirely false to me- like a stroke on a bass drum and a party noisemaker. I can not believe it is real even though he says it is. Having been quite near to a black powder cannon being fired I can tell you in not only makes a tremendous noise but a sharp physical concussion. I'd expect that the needle would have jumped right off the wax, but this recording is not only clear it is TOO clear.

If I am doubting and cynical it is because a great deal of fakery was passed off as the real thing, even by the government. Crowds wept at British government sanctioned documentary THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME which contained scenes of men dying in the trenches. One prominent woman said "Now I know what my son died for". Well, all the footage was fake, shot at a training school in the UK Midlands. I can be tolerant and forgive it- this was material people really wanted to see, and I suppose it gave many of them some comfort.

I wasn't intending to be technical when I wrote cannon. I think that a mortar would make a pretty loud sound as well.

gass shell mortar fiering was quite different than ordinairy mortar fiering it used less explosive than usual well you din't want to blowup the canister in the shell with the 2 chemicals that when mixed would form the deadly gass
insted the shells where propelled out of the mortar tubes like rockets thats why they make that weezing sound they did this in 2 ways 1 black powder (like fireworks)2 with compressed air
i think its compressed air beeing released here
and theres another reason why i think it was compressed air the shells would not have the same range as the black powder propelled ones so the troops fiering would often have the same fate as the enemy but only delayed

so poor william was recording the wrong type of batery and it costs his life

and another thing many victims of gass attacs would die of pneumonia and would be listed as such by medical staff
others would be listed as dying from the spanish flue it would make your lungs into mush so symtems would be confusing

gass shells are often wrongly named gass grenades this is false because the shells where quite big about the size of tank shell gass grenades did exist in WWI dough they where ball shaped objects just a bit bigger than a golf ball so basicaly the size of a regular hand grenade i gues they had the same type of box like this one in my collection it looks a bit like a cylinder box doesn't it

propelled mortars where used as far back as the war of 1812 in the battle of st louis

well thats all

greetings
tino

Here's one of mine, HM QM2's first visit to Australia in 1954. This record was issued by Radio Station, 2KO in Newcastle, NSW.

I love the steam train whistle that goes off halfway through Her Majesty's speech.

The announcer at the beginning sounds like a very young John Kerr (who just retired from radio in January 2013).

Regards, Glenn.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJi3q0wXSyA[/youtube]

these two Japanese labels are not of famous historical figures, but I just loved the labels and thought this might be a nice place to share them:

Good to see this thread resurrected. Here is General William Booth (1829-1912) founder of the Salvation Army.
As can be seen from the labels, these historic recordings remained in the Columbia catalogue for many years.

Margaret Woodrow Wilson was featured in this thread long ago, but only her rendering of The Star-Spangled Banner was mentioned. Here is a link to a page where she can be heard in an old Irish song. I think better of her as a singer than most, although I have to admit that she does herself no favours by letting the tempo drag as she does both here and elsewhere: –

http://www.horologia.me.uk/discs_1911_1925.html

Margaret was the President's second daughter and is said to have been responsible for introducing him to Edith Galt, his second wife, who became his mouthpiece after his health broke down. Her record is the third item on the page, which also includes a very early recording of the organ and also an example of the great violinist Eugène Ysaye as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Oliver Mundy.

This one was mentioned earlier in this thread but not pictured. So here it is: Florence Nightingale as dubbed from a brown wax cylinder.

The Florence Nightingale recording was intended to be Number 1 in Edison Bell's "19th Century Celebrity Series". Unfortunately sales were disappointing and no further titles were issued, so gems such as Trumpeter Lanfried (1834-1902) of the 17th Lancers recreating his sounding the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava never made it on to 78rpm disc.

Among the records in my collection is the President Harding March on Victor Records.

There were actually 2 FN recordings from 30 July, 1890, one considered a practice cylinder. Both originals are now housed in the British Museum.


Following is a portion of my correspondence with the Wellcome Foundation, from July, 2016


The wax cylinder which was kept in a small display case was held by Wellcome just before I
joined the organisation 11 years ago - it was in fact given to the British Library for safe keeping as we did not have appropriate environmental controls in place at the time.


The British Library transferred the material and passed on the results of this work which caused
some excitement at the time as there were two recordings - the first was considered to be a
practice rendition.


There’s more about the transfer here.


https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialec ... 7XX-0214V0


http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/cylinder.htm


Both sound files uploaded.

Florence Nightingale: greetings to the dear old comrades of Balaclava Rendition ½ and 2/2 (1890) These short recordings were made on 30th July 1890 to raise money for the impoverished veterans of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Thanks for posting those recordings. Interesting to hear both of the FN recordings and to be able to compare the differences. Seems the recording has deteriorated quite a bit since the transfer was done in the 1930's for the recording I own which is very clear and mostly without distortion.

I have lifted this transfer from you tube of someone else's copy of this record so you can hear the difference:

(Double-click the video above or click this link to watch the video on YouTube in HD.)