Listen to the 'earliest known country song' ever recorded
A wax cylinder containing the oldest recorded country song was discovered in Pennsylvania. The track 'Thompson's Old Gray Mule' was recorded in 1891 and sung by Louis Vasnier, a black man from New Orleans. Now a specialty label, Archeophone Records, has restored and released the record [as a 2-side 7" 45 rpm]
Archeophone Records website here for more info.
The WaPO also has a good article on this, but require you to sign in even for a "free" link, so I won't post one
But a few brief quotes:
Archeophone, founded in 1998, is a tiny label known for its impressive discoveries. Six years ago, Martin and Hennessy released another Levin find, a song by Charles Asbury determined to be the oldest existing banjo recording...
John Levin had no idea what he’d stumbled upon... [he'd] paid about $100 for a box of wax cylinders at an auction in Pennsylvania coal country... [They] sat in his house for years until Levin put one of the unlabeled, decaying brown tubes onto his custom player and heard an old country song. Like 133 years old...
The unlabeled cylinder... contained Vasnier singing and braying his way through “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule,” a song later recorded by hillbilly masters Uncle Dave Macon and Riley Puckett.
A wax cylinder containing the oldest recorded country song was discovered in Pennsylvania. The track 'Thompson's Old Gray Mule' was recorded in 1891 and sung by Louis Vasnier, a black man from New Orleans. Now a specialty label, Archeophone Records, has restored and released the record [as a 2-side 7" 45 rpm]
Archeophone Records website here for more info.
The WaPO also has a good article on this, but require you to sign in even for a "free" link, so I won't post one
But a few brief quotes:Archeophone, founded in 1998, is a tiny label known for its impressive discoveries. Six years ago, Martin and Hennessy released another Levin find, a song by Charles Asbury determined to be the oldest existing banjo recording...
John Levin had no idea what he’d stumbled upon... [he'd] paid about $100 for a box of wax cylinders at an auction in Pennsylvania coal country... [They] sat in his house for years until Levin put one of the unlabeled, decaying brown tubes onto his custom player and heard an old country song. Like 133 years old...
The unlabeled cylinder... contained Vasnier singing and braying his way through “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule,” a song later recorded by hillbilly masters Uncle Dave Macon and Riley Puckett.
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