Look Back and Listen

For most of human history, if you wanted music you either had to make it yourself or go to a church or concert hall and hear it performed. That all changed in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented a recording device called the phonograph.  For the first time, you could hear an actual reproduction of a bird song, an opera singer, a preacher delivering a sermon or even the Prime Minister. All these sounds could be captured and enjoyed over and over again. Music moved out of concert halls and churches and into people's homes. 

The phonograph, later also called the gramophone, wasn't invented with music in mind. Edison thought it would be a useful tool for business. But it was through music, comedy and preaching that the phonograph found its true calling. The original foil cylinders were replaced by wax cylinders to record sounds. But they were fragile and difficult to mass produce. In 1908, the cylinder was replaced with a recording disc, which proved to be not only more durable, but also more functional as sound could be recorded on both sides. In these years before newsreels and radio, the phonograph disc rivaled the newspaper as a popular way to transmit news.                                                                                                         

In 1960, CBC Radio aired a celebration of the early history of the phonograph with a show called Look Back and Listen, hosted by Tony Thomas and record collector Ed Manning. 

They played samples of early phonograph recordings by artists like Canada's first great opera diva Emma Albani, well known Canadian singer Henry Burr, and Will Osborne, a popular crooner and bandleader. They also featured Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians and "Under the Moon," the first song ever recorded by the band. 

Listen to vintage recordings from some of the the artists featured, from Herbert Berliner to Harold Jarvis, Kathleen Parlow to the Peace Tower Carillon. 

Find out about two Stittsville teenagers whose passion for vintage recordings led them to create the Ottawa Phonograph Society.

Next year marks 140 years since the phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison.