Sunday, June 5, 2011

Roy Acuff on a Howard home recording disc



Here is quite an odd-ball find. It is a 7 inch home recording disc. You could get about two minutes on one side of these blanks.Before people had tape recorders and more modern ways to record stuff, you had to have a home disc cutter. Some were stand alone units that you could plug a radio or a microphone into, and some were a combination radio-disc cutter. The material here is recorded from radio broadcasts.
I`m guessing this is from the mid 1940`s, but that`s a total guess. The sound quality is pretty bad, I cleaned it up the best I could without compromising the audio.
The first cut is a mystery, the 2nd cut is from a live Grand Ole Opry performance by Roy Acuff with The Solemn Old Judge, George D. Hay announcing the number, the last cut is by Fats Waller. Quite a variety for sure.
Happy listening!



Track list---
1. no idea who the first cut is or the tune, it`s a pop number
2. Roy Acuff - Wabash Cannon Ball from a live Grand Ole Opry show
3. Fats Waller - I Understand

Click here to download Howard Home Recording Disc

2 comments:

  1. Hey Allan. First track is "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" written by Jule Styne and Frank Loesser, first published in 1941. Harry James had a big hit with it in 1942, That and the Roy Acuff are clearly from radio broadcasts. The Fats Waller excerpt is from a 1941 recording released on a Bluebird 78. Live radio on one side, a dub from a record on the other and no stylistic connection between any of them: we can't know for certain but I'd speculate that this disc is the product of someone messing around with their new home recording system in 1942, seeing what it could do. Thanks for posting all the great stuff. Jon in California

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes great stuff.
    I have my dad's recirdio and lots of records he cut from 1947 thrue the early 50's. Some of the same thing some radio cuts records and live shows even a few of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday and Saturday evenings. The rest are from friends around the neighborhood that played guitars sang whistled ( there were great whistlers back then) about half country and bluegrass and the others are ants and uncles resiting poems us cusins first words to singing little songs like It Ain't Going To Rain No More to Froggy Went A Corting. A grat blast from the past. Thanks for reminding me.. Floyd

    ReplyDelete