Got 90 seconds?
Then you've got time for a trip through the history of recorded sound! Sound Beat is a daily, 90 second show highlighting the holdings of the Belfer Audio Archive. The Belfer is part of the Syracuse University Library, and with over half a million recordings, is one of the largest sound archives in the United States. Each SB episode focuses on one particular recording from the Archive, and provides a back story detailing its place in recording history.
For more information, visit the Sound Beat website.
What kinds of recordings? Popular and classical music performances, film scores those from distinctly American musical forms like jazz, bebop, country, and bluegrass. Old favorites, rare gems, and some we guarantee you've never heard before - from Cab Calloway to the castrated stars of Italian opera, you'll hear it all on the Sound Beat!
And it's not just music. Sound Beat episodes also feature speeches and spoken word performances from some of the great thinkers, political figures and luminaries from the late 19th and early- to mid-20th centuries. People like Thomas Edison, George Bernard Shaw, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, and Theodore Roosevelt.
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Artie Shaw sure knew how to surround himself with the right crowd.
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Today we’re talking tornadoes and…You’re on the Sound Beat.
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Tomato, to-mah-to, potato-po-tah-to...no matter how you say it, you’re on the Sound Beat. Most married couples admit to occasional, let’s say…differences of opinion. Seldom are those…again, just differences of opinion, as productive as Ira and Lenore Gershwin’s. Their opposing pronunciations of words like “tomato” and “potato” led to the hit song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,”. It’s a conversational tune written by Ira and his brother George. You’re listening to the silk-smooth vocals of The Ink Spots, who recorded this song for Decca in 1937. Since then, the song has been sung by artists like Billie Holiday and performed as a duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers performed it, on rollerskates mind you, in the 1937 movie Shall We Dance. This episode was co-written by Syracuse University student Jill Comoletti as part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership. Find out more about the Partnership at soundbeat.org.
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This song, Since Henry Ford Apologized to Me, is a response to events surrounding Ford's newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. One of the largest publications in the US in the 20’s, it printed many anti-semitic articles, "The International Jew" among them. That particular gem proffered that “International financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews.” Lawsuits stemming from such articles eventually lead to the paper’s demise. Ford would later issue a statement apologizing for claims. Enter Billy Jones and Ernest Hare, the Happiness Boys, with a tongue-quite-in-cheek forgiveness. Sheet music for the song was, allegedly, the first to mention Hitler by name, though some hear it as “Edsel”. For our money, it kind of sounds like the names are blended together, but you decide.
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Blues fans and extra-terrestrials alike may recognize this one.
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From Coast Coast, from every state in the Union…it’s Groucho Marx and…
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Arthur Godfrey was a 50’s tv and radio icon, an aviator, equestrian…but not such a great tour leader. You’re on the Sound Beat You’re listening to The 1000 Islands Song, a Columbia 78 recorded in 1947. The archipelago lies in the St. Lawrence River, on the US-Canadian border. There are actually about 1800 islands, each passing the stringent criteria of :A. being above water level year-round, B. Having an area greater than one square foot and C. bearing at least one living tree. That island mentioned there, 793, is an actual one, belonging to…Arthur Godfrey. That’s right…it was gifted to him by Grant Mitchell of the 1000 Islands Admiralty in appreciation of the song. Check out more right here. "BoldtCastle aerial" by Teresa Mitchell; levels adjustment by Howcheng. - Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
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Half a century after the Battle of Gettysburg, veterans from both sides gathered at the battle site to pay tribute to the fallen.
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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was included on Harris’ Blue Kentucky Girl, a Warner Brothers LP.