Here at the Recorded Sound Archives, we listen to A LOT of music, while digitizing and scanning recordings for research.
With the library being closed, we’ve had to get a little creative in how our department works since we’re so dependent on the physical recordings. So we’ve been working hard behind the scenes doing quality control on recordings and meta data since we haven’t been recording as much these days.
This week, we wanted to start by sharing and highlighting some RSA Staff’s Favorite Eddy Duchin Songs!
Check out the list below and let us know some of your favorites.
Eddy Duchin never pretended to be a great musician.
One of the members of Eddy Duchin’s orchestra once said “…Many people didn’t listen to him as much as they looked at him, he was the only musician I’ve ever known who could play a thirty-two-bar solo with thirty-two mistakes and get an ovation afterwards…”
So how did Eddy Duchin become the Reisman Orchestra Leader by 1932? Well, While enrolled at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy near Cambridge at the age of nineteen Eddy Duchin auditioned for a part in Leo Reisman’s Orchestra as a pianist. Which he got enjoying tremendous popularity in New York’s Central Park Casino. His effortless technique and charming personality not only won him the job. But also made him stand out among the long list of those aspiring to join. Three years later, his personality and flashy style had captured customers and Duchin had himself taken over the engagement becoming the leader of the Reisman Orchestra.
Throughout the 1930s, Duchin’s Orchestra played primarily in hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and appeared on quite a few radio series along with in two films.
He went on to get married and have a son, named Peter who went on to follow in his father’s musical footsteps. During the war, Duchin joined a commission in the Navy where he paid little attention to music. By the end of the war his popularity had declined and so had his health. In 1951, he passed away from leukemia.
Discover more recordings at Recorded Sound Archives
Please note, due to copyright some items may only be available as a 45 second snippet.
Are you a Researcher or Educator in need of full access to these recordings? Visit the Recorded Sound Archives website to apply for Research Station Access by click here.
In celebration of Black History Month, the Recorded Sound Archives has curated a collection of Black Blues Artists some of which are currently on display on the 1st floor of the FAU Wimberly Library for the month of February.
Click to discover 14 Blues Artists such as the voices of Huddie Leadbelly, Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and more in this collection!
In celebration, FAU Libraries and the Recorded Sound Archives have put together a Spotify playlist Celebrating Black Blues Artists coinciding with the exhibit currently on display. Click to listen to 12 recordings and discover who these Blues Artists influenced from Nirvana to The Weavers and more down below. Enjoy!
With over 100 recordings for you to choose from between our Chanukah and Christmas collections, the Recorded Sound Archives staff has put together a list of our favorite songs for you to listen to with family and friends.
While some horror films feature blood-curdling scores (Jaws, Halloween, The Exorcist), there are certain songs that will forever be associated with the movies they helped make all the more terrifying. Just in time for Halloween, here are six vintage songs made infinitely creepier by horror movies, four of which you can find here at the Recorded Sound Archives.
First up, is the Jeepers Creepers franchise which features the song Jeepers Creepers playing through the radio prior to the creature approaching and can be found playing on an old-timey radio as the movie progresses.
But our personal favorite here in the sound archive is Ethel Water’s version of Jeepers Creepers.
Next up is a classic from the 90s, while not necessarily a horror movie we’ve included it in honor of all things spooky. Hocus Pocus features three witches that come back to life after being accidentally summoned. In the movie, Winifred Sanderson along with her sisters sing the tune I Put a Spell on You at the town’s Halloween Party which was originally released in 1956 and sung by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
Watch the clip below to see Screamin’ Jay Hawkins perform I Put a Spell On You back in 1989 on the Arsenio Hall Show.
Another haunting tune that can be found in the Recorded Sound Archives, is Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips by Johnny Marvin who originally sang the song prior to Tiny Tim which is featured in the movie Insidious.
Tip-Toe Thru the Tulipsstarts to play as the Demon who is terrorizing this family uses a victrola-like device to sharpen its nails while the song plays on with marionettes and puppets moving about.
You can listen to the original by Johnny Marvin in the sound archive by clicking here.
Next up is the movie Misery which features Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes an obsessed fan who kidnaps her favorite writer forcing him to rewrite his novel.
And finally, we have Halloween II with the song Mr. Sandman by the Chordettes which can be heard playing at the beginning of the movie’s opening credits and as the film comes to an end.
click here to watch the opening scenes from the movie to listen to the song.
While we only feature six songs, there are tons out there to be discovered four of which you can listen to here at the Recorded Sound Archives.
Please note, due to copyright some items may only be available as a 45 second snippet.
If you are a Researcher or Educator in need of full access to these recordings, click here.
In celebration of college football season starting, we wanted to share a recording we have here at the Recorded Sound Archives by Walter Camp known as the Father of American Football.
While working as an adviser to the United States military during World War I, Camp devised a program to help servicemen in both the Navy and Army become more physically fit. Camp wrote a book explaining the exercises and extolling their benefits. This book was later taken and recorded in 1921 and marketed to a wider audience with the Musical Health Builder record sets called the Daily Dozen Health Building Exercises.
The names of the exercises in the original Daily Dozen, as the whole set became known, were hands, grind, crawl, wave, hips, grate, curl, weave, head, grasp, crouch, and wing.
All of which can be heard here at the Recorded Sound Archives, click here to listen.
In celebration of children’s book week, discover our children’s collection of recordings featuring stories, lullabies, nursery rhymes and more.
This collection of children’s music was produced mostly during the 1940s and 1950s, a time when vinyl replaced hard shellac as the basic material used in the making of phonograph records. The innovation of vinyl allowed manufactures to produce kid-friendly recordings that could be handled without adult supervision. These recordings became an extremely popular form of entertainment for children in the days before families had television sets.
Here are the Recorded Sound Archives we have over 480 children’s recordings for you to choose from.
Please note, due to copyright some of these recordings may only play for 45 second snippet to give the user a taste of what this music sounded like back in the day, if you are interested in full access consider applying for Research Station Access.Access to Research Station is limited to educators, students and serious researchers.
Did you know the Recorded Sound Archives at FAU Libraries has over 49,000 albums along with over 150,000 songs in its databases, which is growing everyday with the help of volunteers? With so many recordings to choose from, we have given Research Station users the ability to request items be digitized.
Below you’ll find a list of recordings that were recently added to the Research Station this Summer 2018 from requests made by Research Station Users.
Please note, due to copyright some of these recordings may only play for 45 second snippet to give the user a taste of what this music sounded like back in the day, if you are interested in full access considering applying for Research Station Access.Access to Research Station is limited to educators, students and serious researchers.
Please note, due to copyright some of these recordings may only play for 45 second snippet to give the user a taste of what this music sounded like back in the day, if you are interested in full access considering applying for Research Station Access.Access to Research Station is limited to educators, students and serious researchers.
Did you know that in 1933, Lucrezia Bori began a career as a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Opera during the Great Depression on top of performing?
Retiring, later that she wanted at age 48, Lucrezia Bori helped save the Metropolitan Opera. While the Metropolitan continued to sell tickets to performances with no difficulty despite the Great Depression. The contributions of its stockholders fell off dramatically and by the end of 1932 the board of directors found that a great deal of money would be needed if the next season were to be held.
Bori agreed to work with the Opera’s managers to obtain the funds and in 1933, she headed an organization called the Committee to Save the Metropolitan Opera House. Where Lucrezia made appeals by flyer, letter, and in personal contacts with potential benefactors to help save the Met. She traveled widely and participated in numerous benefits, at which she performed.
During this period of fundraising, Lucrezia also continued to carry out an exhausting schedule of performance at the Met.
To help raise the final fundsneeded, a masquerade ball was held to raise financial support for the opera house. Over 3,000 of the city’s aristocracy attended paying $10 each admission, contributing the final $30,000 towards the $300,000 fund needed to save the opera along with $10,000 to cover the cost of the ball.
Here at the Recorded Sound Archives we are celebrating Women’s History month through music by highlighting the voice of Lucrezia Bori and her accomplishment of saving the Metropolitan Opera.
To listen to recordings by Lucrezia Bori, click here.
Two weeks after his 101th birthday, pianist and composer Irving Fields passed away August 20, 2016 in Manhattan. He was perhaps the longest working musician in the world. At the age of hundred, he used to play the piano several nights a week at Nino’s Tuscany restaurant in Manhattan. Irving Fields became known by fusing Jewish tunes, jazz, and popular songs with Latin music.
Born as Isidore Schwartz in 1915 New York City to Jewish immigrants, Irving Fields started working as a pianist in the thirties during the years of the Great Depression. In this time of high unemployment, he started playing piano in resort hotels in the Catskills Mountains, and then he found work as a pianist on cruise ships sailing from New York to Havana, capital city of Cuba. In Havana, Irving Fields listened to the great Cuban orchestras, and developed his love for Latin music. Attracted by pictures from palm trees and beaches in travel magazines, Irving decided to settle in Miami Beach and performed in hotels playing dinner music, and did sessions with local orchestras.
After joining the army, he began the Irving Fields Trio, with a bass and a drummer, and started composing his own songs. In 1947, his song Miami Beach Rhumba became a big success by versions of Kay Kyser, Freddy Martin, Carmen Miranda, and even by the popular band leader Xavier Cugat. During the Latin craze trend in the 40s, Irving Fields was at the right time and place, and soon Miami Beach Rhumba was followed by the number one hit song Managua, Nicaragua (1947) recorded by big band leader Guy Lombardo, and ten years later by Chantez-Chantez (1957) by singer Dinah Shore.
In 1959, the Irving Fields Trio recorded the album Bagels and Bongos blending popular Jewish tunes with Latin rhythms such as Bei Mir Bist Du Schön as a mambo, Havannah Negila a paso doble, and I Love You Much Too Much a rhumba. The album became a big hit all over the world, and was followed by the albums More Bagels and Bongos (1960), Pizzas and Bongos (Italian traditionals), Champagne and Bongos (with French standards), and Bikinis and Bongos (with Hawaiian music). Every song was mixed with a Latin beat, which turned out to be a story of success.
After the success with his trio in the sixties, Irving Fields went back working as a solo pianist on cruise ships again, where he sailed the whole world, and finally settled as a music entertainer in restaurants, from 2004 six nights a week in Nino’s Tuscany, Manhattan. This would become the place, where he started his second career.
In the last decade, several films appeared about Fields playing piano on YouTube. These films form a good impression of his talent, wisdom, and humor. Although Irving Fields was not a user of a computer or the Internet, he did compose the YouTube theme song.
Regarding my research about the influence of Jewish tunes in American popular song, I contacted Irving Fields, and then I received several handwritten letters from him. At my birthday March 2010, I met Irving Fields and his lovely wife Ruth in person in Nino’s Tuscany restaurant, where he entertained the guests with his music. From my letters, he knew that I should visit him this special evening. To my surprise, he welcomed me with a newly composed personal anniversary song. When listening to his music and talking to him, I knew that I was close to one of the last persons, already in his nineties, who could tell me first-hand about the history of popular music in the Tin Pan Alley period before the second World War.
Irving Fields and Niels Falch at Nino’s
Of course, I also asked him about his secret for longevity, and he replied with more than ten rules. The first three rules for longevity are; (1) Have a sense of humor (you’ll never get ulcers), (2) Think of these three magic letters before you make a decision: L.T.D. Look, Think and Do, and (3) Be the first to say “hello” with a smile on your face and a friendly glow. Following these rules during his life, Irving Fields became ultimately 101 years young.
Even U.S. President Donald J. Trump admired Irving Fields, and shared one of his secrets for longevity: “Irving has said that work is a blessing, especially when you like your work. He loves his work, and that love is evident in his music. Irving is a great pro.”
Irving Fields will be remembered as the pianist who blended bagels and bongos, although he never had a way to play a bagel…
You can listen to over 30 recordings by Irving Fields on the Recorded Sound Archives website by clicking here.
RSA Guest Blogger, Niels Falch, is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and is currently writing a dissertation on the influence of Jewish music in American popular songs.
Please note, due to copyright some of these recordings may only play for 45 second snippet to give the user a taste of what this music sounded like back in the day, if you are interested in full access considering applying for Research Station Access.Access to Research Station is limited to educators, students and serious researchers.
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In celebration of Black History Month, the Recorded Sound Archives has curated a collection of Black Blues Artists some of which are currently on display on the 1st floor of the FAU Wimberly Library for the month of February.
While some horror films feature blood-curdling scores (Jaws, Halloween, The Exorcist), there are certain songs that will forever be associated with the movies they helped make all the more terrifying. Just in time for Halloween, here are six vintage songs made infinitely creepier by horror movies, four of which you can find here at the Recorded Sound Archives.
Themocracy