10,000 Wax Cylinders Digitized and Free to Download!

The University of California at Santa Barbara library has undertaken an heroic digitization effort for its world-class archive of 19th and early 20th century wax cylinder recordings, and has placed over 10,000 songs online for anyone to download, stream and re-use.

There are 2,000 more cylinders to come.  UCSB’s own trove has grown threefold over the past decade.

The new online database now boasts recordings from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, and they range from hit singles to operatic arrangements to vaudeville songs. There’s also spoken word — including speeches and readings — and everything is searchable by title, genre, instruments, region, and even subject.

Of particular interest to the bluegrass community may be the Early Hillbilly & Old Time Music.

• Old Joe Clark / Fiddlin' Powers and Family. Edison Blue Amberol: 5076. 1925.
• Cripple Creek / Fiddlin’ Powers & Family. Edison Blue Amberol: 5219. 1925.
• Wild reckless hobo / Cowen Powers. Edison Blue Amberol: 5131. 1926.
• Hand me down my walking cane / Ernest Stoneman. Edison Blue Amberol: 5297. 1927.
• When the work’s all done this fall / Ernest Stoneman. Edison Blue Amberol: 5188. 1926.
• McDonald’s reel / Jep Bisbee. Edison Blue Amberol: 4916. 1924.
• Wreck of southern Old 97 / Vernon Dalhart. Edison Blue Amberol: 4898. 1924.
• The death of Floyd Collins / Vernon Dalhart. Edison Blue Amberol: 5049. 1925.
• You will never miss your mother / Blue Ridge Duo. Edison Blue Amberol: 4961. 1924.
• Arkansas traveler / The Blue Ridge Duo. Edison Blue Amberol: 4936. 1925
• Life’s railway to heaven / The Blue Ridge Duo. Edison Blue Amberol: 4968. 1925.
• Little brown jug / The Blue Ridge Duo. Edison Blue Amberol: 4973. 1925.
• Turkey in the straw / The Blue Ridge Duo. Edison Blue Amberol: 4977. 1925.
• Walking water / Allen Sisson with John F. Burckhardt. Edison Blue Amberol: 4981. 1925.
• Durang hornpipe medley / John Baltzell (violin) and John F. Burckhardt. Edison Blue Amberol: 4918. 1923.
• The old red barn medley quadrille / John Baltzell. Edison Blue Amberol: 4914. 1923.