A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue recording and reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity, these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface, which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph. In the 1910s, the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium.
Edison Records was one of the early record labels that pioneered sound recording and reproduction, and was an important player in the early recording industry.
George Washington Johnson was an American singer and pioneer sound recording artist. Johnson was the first African American recording star of the phonograph. His most popular songs were "The Whistling Coon" and "The Laughing Song".
Polk Miller was a musician and entertainer from Richmond and Bon Air, Virginia. He was also a pharmacist and the founder of Sergeant's Pet Care Products, Inc.
The Graphophone was the name and trademark of an improved version of the phonograph. It was invented at the Volta Laboratory established by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C., United States.
George J. Gaskin was one of the most popular singers in the United States during the 1890s and an early American recording artist.
The Cylinder Audio Archive is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Library with streaming and downloadable versions of over 10,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1893 and the mid-1920s. The Archive began in November 2003 as the successor of the earlier Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Pilot Project.
Henry Burr was a Canadian singer, radio performer and producer. He was born Harry Haley McClaskey and used Henry Burr as one of his many pseudonyms, in addition to Irving Gillette, Henry Gillette, Alfred Alexander, Robert Rice, Carl Ely, Harry Barr, Frank Knapp, Al King, and Shamus McClaskey. He produced more than 12,000 recordings, by his own estimate, and some of his most popular recordings included "Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight", "Till We Meet Again" with Albert Campbell, "Beautiful Ohio", "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" "When I Lost You" and "In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree". A tenor, he performed as a soloist and in duets, trios and quartets.
Russell Dinsmore Hunting was an American comic entertainer, pioneer sound recordist, and an influential figure in the early years of the recorded music industry. He was described as "the most popular pre-1900 recording artist".
Cal Stewart was an American comedian and humorist who pioneered in vaudeville and early sound recordings. He is best remembered for his comic monologues in which he played "Uncle Josh" Weathersby, a resident of a mythical New England farming town called "Pumpkin Center" or "Punkin Center", leading to a number of small towns across the U.S. adopting those names.
Daniel William Quinn was one of the first American singers to become popular in the new medium of recorded music. Quinn was a very successful recording artist whose career spanned from 1892 to 1918. Quinn recorded many of his hits in the legendary Tin Pan Alley of New York City.
Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated was the main holding company for the various manufacturing companies established by the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison. It was a successor to Edison Manufacturing Company and operated between 1911 and 1957, when it merged with McGraw Electric to form McGraw-Edison.
Archeophone Records is a record company and label founded in 1998 to document the early days of America's recording history. It was started by Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey, a husband and wife who run the company in Champaign, Illinois. Archeophone restores and remasters audio from cylinders and discs of jazz, popular music, vaudeville, and spoken word recordings.
The Archéophone is a modern, electric version of the phonographs and ediphones from the 19th and early 20th century. It is specifically designed to transfer phonograph cylinders and other cylinder formats to modern recording media.
Edward Farren Morton, usually credited as EddieMorton, was an American singer and comedian who recorded during the ragtime era. Known as "The Singing Cop", he has been described as "one of the most extraordinary performers of the early recording industry."
Ulysses "Jim" Walsh was an American record collector, columnist and radio broadcaster. He was the leading authority on early recording artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and their techniques, especially through his columns written between the 1920s and 1980s, most notably for Hobbies magazine.
The North American Phonograph Company was an early attempt to commercialize the maturing technologies of sound recording in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Though the company was largely unsuccessful in its goals due to legal, technical and financial problems, it set the stage for the modern recording industry in the mid 1890s.
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in England through the early 1930s until, after it was absorbed by Decca in 1932, production of various Edison Bell labels ceased.
Issler's Orchestra was an early recording ensemble, and perhaps the first popular band. The group formed in the fall of 1889 at the Edison Laboratory Because the purpose of the group was only to make recordings, it had only four or five performers, a form that would come to be known as a "parlor orchestra". Personnel and instrumentation varied in the first year, but most sessions included Edward Issler on piano, George Schweinfest on flute and D.B. Dana on cornet. Clarinetist William Tuson and xylophonist Charles P. Lowe would also become core members in time.
