The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I was going through a few boxes of 78's and found a few discs marked with a KKK label. all sides appear to be music, but for one speech by hiram wesley evans. might anyone know anything about these?

There was a website at one stage that had information about these records & recordings, but as it's highly unlikely I would ever see one of these here in Oz, I didn't add it to my favorites list.

I see them quite frequently at shows. Most dealers have them put away as to not offend some people. A lot of them are familiar religious tunes with different wording. The Bright and Fiery Cross is sung to the tune of The Old Rugged Cross. I have a few let me know what titles you have if you want to sell them. Steve

These were pressed by Gennett.

I saw one one ebay going for $224 and another going for $90, but I think the auction was pulled before it was over.

Josh

thanks everyone for the information. I found a little online as well. I'm primarily into the machines, and the discs are really secondary interests for me - mainly just for the music I like to play on the phonos... I had no idea before this that such recordings were ever pressed. and I agree with the post above, this isn't really my thing in general either, although from a sociological and historical perspective, the speech at least was interesting enough.

I bought two at Union from a record dealer $25 and $40 for average used condition. They are sold mostly for the label design.

I found several in Southern Indiana several years ago. I found them kind of
creepy and I thought the performances were very poor. I sold them on ebay and
in those days they all brought well over $100.00. I wondered if they would pull
the auctions but they didn't.

Funny they were recorded in Richmond Indiana. Same place that was the first to
record King Oliver and the very young Louis Armstrong. Someone was coordinating
those recording dates!

I have one that just says SPECIAL RECORD on the label but the colors of the label are the same. I already had some of the regular ones with the KKK on it but I had no idea that this was one when I pulled it out of a garage sale box. The song is to the tune of Casey Jones and it is anything but the Billy Murray version. I haven't played it in decades but the one verse I remember is "The teachers of the day preach a brand new plea, that we all came from the chimpanzee, that may be true in their case but on the other hand , no man with monkey blood can join the klan." The last line of the song instead of "You've got another papa on the rock island line", this one ends, "there will be a klansman in the white house if we all sit tight."

They also produced a label marked 100% and some that just say Special Pressing with the wording in Red White and Blue printing. They are most of the same songs just on different labels.