playback PLAYBACK: Editor Alan Ward, Production manager Richard Fairman, Layout Julie Rimmer Julie Layout Fairman, Richard manager Production Ward, Alan Editor PLAYBACK: Front cover photograph: http://www.bl.uk/nsa Website: [email protected] E-mail: 020 7412 7441 Fax: 020 7412 7440. Tel: London NW1 2DB 96 Euston Road, National Sound The British Library Archive information contact For further St Pancras. in the world and is based at the British Library’s new building at future issues through the post. of this issue (if you have not done so already) if you wish to receive or complete and send in the tear-off slip at the end fax or e-mail us, the editor at NSA. Comments are welcome and should be addressed to preservation. and news from the world of sound archives and audio activities, with information on the NSA’s current and future times a year, The National Sound Archive is one of the largest sound archives phone, We Please write, have a special mailing list for PLAYBACK. on rhv NA.It is published free of charge three Sound Archive (NSA). PLAYBACK National is the bulletin of British Library akeNsig 197 Nesling, Harkie .Photo by Mike Yates.6. ‘playback’ NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE THE BULLETIN OF THE NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE

26 AUTUMN 2001 ISSN 0952-2360 what’s happening

nsa catalogue goes live On January 24 this year the NSA’s catalogue, CADENSA, went live on the internet.This is the first time that the public have been able to search the collections of the NSA from outside the British Library, allowing users to check whether items are held in the collections before making a listening appointment at the Library. The catalogue includes entries for more than two-and-a-half million recordings held by the NSA. You can search by name – to look for performers, composers, animals or record labels; by title – for songs, albums or radio programmes; by subject or by place. Peter Copeland demonstrates the NSA’s dictabelt machine to Dr Graham Dominy (left) of the National Archives of South A simple keyword search facility also allows users to search all fields. For example, a keyword search for ‘Churchill’ will provide a complete listing Africa and Ms Brigitte Mabandla, Deputy Minister of Arts, of all the recordings made by and about Churchill held by the NSA. Chris Clark, head of public services says,‘By making CADENSA available on the Culture, Science and Technology of the Republic of web we are opening up the Library’s collection of sound recordings to everyone. In the longer term we will add links from the catalogue to digitised copies of the recordings, making the collections even more accessible, where we have secured the right to do so.’ CADENSA can be found at: ■ Thanks to conservation work undertaken by http://cadensa.bl.uk the NSA one of the rarest historical sound recordings of the 20th century has been preserved for posterity – the speech made by ■ At the end of September the NSA will be ■ Two new oral history projects are getting ■ Excellent reviews have Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964 at the now hosting the 2001 joint conference of the underway. An oral history of the Post Office greeted the publication notorious ‘Rivonia’ trial in the Palace of Justice, Association for Recorded Sound Collections was launched in July with a one-year of A Century of Recorded Pretoria.Although written accounts of the court [ARSC] and the International Association of interviewing programme led by Rorie Fulton, Music: Listening to Musical proceedings had survived, no means had been Sound and Audiovisual Archives [IASA]. This will that amongst other things will look at the History, a new book by found of retrieving the recording that was made be the first time that the NSA has hosted the story of the stamp. Our second new project, a Timothy Day, the NSA’s at the time on a series of dictabelts.Then, late in annual IASA conference at the British Library’s corporate oral history of the design and curator of western art 2000, when Rob Perks, the NSA curator of oral new building at St. Pancras and also the first time branding consultancy Wolff Olins, will be led music.The book is the first history, was visiting South Africa, he offered to that the ARSC conference has been held outside by Melanie Roberts, who has previously worked to make a thorough see if we could help, as we still owned one of North America. The conference theme ‘Why with us as an interviewer for ‘Artists’ Lives’, exploration of the impact of recording the rare recorders. The seven dictabelt tapes collect?’ has attracted papers and presentations and will be working part-time over the next technology on the art of music. The Wall Street were brought to London on loan to the NSA. from audio-visual archivists, curators and two years interviewing both past and present Journal called it ‘[an] excellent narrative history’ By modifying the NSA’s dictabelt machine collectors from all over the world. Among the staff at all levels at Wolff Olins. and The American Library Journal said, ‘The to allow the correct playback speed, the additional attractions will be visits to the EMI fascination [this book] possesses for classical NSA’s technicians Peter Copeland and Adrian Archive, the audio collections of the Imperial ■ Among its recent orders the Wildlife music lovers is enormous… Day has written Tuddenham were able to produce a restored War Museum and the BBC Sound Archives at Section has supplied recordings of birds to what may come to be regarded as a music copy of the entire three-hour speech in Broadcasting House. A gourmet farewell dinner taxonomists in Sweden, Germany, Britain library cornerstone.’ A Century of Recorded remarkably clear sound. The original recording is planned at 116 Pall Mall, a magnificent regency and USA; sounds for a Life on Earth CD- Music is published by Yale University Press, has been returned, with the restored copy, to mansion designed by John Nash in 1820.The dates ROM published by Prentice-Hall; and a ISBN 0-300-08442-0, price £20. Spanish the National Archives of South Africa. Public of the conference are 23-27 September 2001 and recording of an African Grey Parrot to a translation rights have been acquired by interest in the rescued recording has been full details can be found on the NSA website at: person who wanted to lure back his Alianza Editorial S.A. and an English paperback enormous, not only in the UK and South Africa, 2 www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/iasa.html escaped pet parrot. edition is in preparation. but right across the world. bright golden store the Traditional Music in England project by Andrew King

Last year the Heritage Lottery Fund agreed to support the National Sound Archive’s two-year project Traditional Music in England – unlocking our musical heritage with a grant of £68,000. The project’s supervisor

and curator of the Photos: Oscar Woods, 1976 (left); Harkie Nesling, 1976 (above, left); Charlie Whitling, 1976 (above, right). Photos by Mike Yates. International Music The major recording companies of the early Company in 1908, which were only released as Collection, Janet Topp days of recorded sound saw little commercial a sop to Percy Grainger so that he would Fargion, has described this project as ‘the result of consultation with potential in field recordings of English record the Grieg Piano Concerto for them. collectors, musicians and specialists in the field of English traditional traditional singers and musicians. In this they The next release was not to be until HMV music who for several years have expressed concern over the future should not be too heavily condemned, for the issued recordings by the Northumbrian piper of their recordings’. Its aim is to bring 18-20 identified collections, concept of Folk Song as propagated by many of Tom Clough in 1930, followed by the English representing some 2000 hours of recording, into the NSA where the early collectors, and by the recently formed Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS)-funded Folk Song Society, was relatively new and was 78rpm disc of the Norfolk singer Harry Cox, they will be digitised on to CD-R for archival and playback purposes not likely to find much financial backing.While issued by Decca in 1934. and fully documented on the NSA catalogue CADENSA. Prospective the early collectors had an evangelising interest But it is totally misleading to look only at users will be able to identify and select the recordings via the web in the songs themselves, taking down the tunes published recordings when considering English (http:cadensa.bl.uk) before listening to them free of charge at the and publishing arrangements, the importance of traditional music. Between 1906-09, Grainger main British Library building at St Pancras or at our listening post the performers tended to be overlooked.Thus, supervised over 200 cylinder recordings (216 at Boston Spa.This historic project will, for the first time, create a until the 1930s, the only published recordings have survived) in Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, central collection of English traditional music within an accessible of English traditional music amounted to the Worcestershire, Warwickshire and London, five shellac discs of the Lincolnshire singer while the 106 cylinders that make up the public institution. 3 Joseph Taylor, issued by The Gramophone EFDSS collection (NSA Ref: C37) testify to the that otherwise would have been lost – ancient ballads, children’s Terry Yarnell’s collection (NSA Ref: C1005) specialises in Irish rhymes, shanties, customs, topical songs and dialect stories as well musicians in London, while the Steve Gardham collection (NSA as dance music for any number and combination of instruments, Ref: C1009, 15 tapes) concentrates on the East Riding area.We recorded in raucous pub sessions, in wood-sheds or just by the have also received an additional 200 tapes from Reg Hall to add side of the road. All documented, all saved for the coming to his collection (NSA Ref: C903, 484 tapes at the last count), generations. But it is with this very wealth of material, some many of which are interviews with important figures in the representing decades of work, and the disparate nature of these London Irish music scene in the 1940s and 50s. Collections that collections, that our problems really start. we hope to add to the project soon include John Howson’s East Firstly, the earliest of the post war recordings were made on Anglia recordings, Carole Pegg’s Suffolk recordings and others acetate tape, a notoriously unstable medium that deteriorates that concentrate on the West Country, Lancashire and over the years and which needs to be transferred to a stable Lincolnshire. medium as soon as possible. Secondly, as privately owned The importance of these recordings is incalculable. For many collections, these recordings run the risk of dispersal and loss years national archives around the world have made it their Reg Hall (left) and Scan Tester, 1958. Photo by Eddis Thomas, courtesy of through accident or death. Finally there is the question of access, business to preserve the recordings of their traditional cultures. The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (EFDSS). as most of the recordings are accessible only to a severely With this project, English traditional music will also be work of other early collectors in diligently making field restricted audience within a narrow circuit of scholars and represented by a comprehensive collection. Important private recordings in the years leading up to the Great War.The inter-war specialists. collections not already in institutions will be safeguarded for period, when there was a significant downturn in interest in With these questions in mind the NSA hosted a meeting posterity and made easily accessible to specialists and the general English traditional music, is represented by the collection of 179 of prominent recordists and collectors in October 1995. The public alike. dictaphone cylinders made by the American collector James general consensus was that most of these issues could be

Madison Carpenter in 1928-35. successfully addressed if the NSA acted as a central repository Jack Elliot of Birtley, 1965. Photo by Brian Shuel. Institutional and commercial interest in traditional music for important privately-recorded collections. After a grant from increased after World War II. Very few commercial recordings the National Folk Music Fund my colleague Clare Gilliam worked were made in the 1950s, but the availability of relatively portable on two pilot schemes for this project. In 1997 she transferred and equipment increased the potential for field recording. In support catalogued on CADENSA the Mike Yates collection (NSA Ref: of programmes such as As I Roved Out, the BBC sponsored a C796, 264 tapes – NB it is from Mike’s commercially recording of laudable collecting scheme during the 1940s and 50s, which the Norfolk singer Walter Pardon that I have borrowed the title amounted to over 1000 recordings. The folk club boom in the of this article), and in 1997-8 the Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie 1960s prompted numerous interested people to make collection (NSA Ref: C13, 581 tapes). This work provided the recordings of traditional music, often in their own localities, and template for the Traditional Music in England project after the in the 1970s specialist record companies such as Topic and NSA’s successful bid for Heritage Lottery funding. Leader issued a range of these field recordings, featuring often Since the project began in June we have added four brilliant but unknown performers. This in turn stimulated further new collections – the collections of Keith Summers (NSA Ref: interest and recording activity. C1002, 77 tapes) and Desmond and Shelagh Herring (NSA Ref: This meant the preservation of a wealth of unique material C999, 5 tapes) concentrate on Suffolk singers and musicians.

4 a month of sundays the Ken Stanton Archive

by Toby Oakes

At 4.45 on the afternoon of Saturday It was a characteristically odd conclusion to an engagement begun daily business as a means of examining the relationship between November 25th 2000 in the upper foyer two years earlier when we were approached with a proposal for the institution and its users. of the British Library’s Conference an artist-in-residence programme by the sculptor Stewart Wilson. Replacing the process of casual interaction with staff and He had been struck by the similarities between artists and curators readers which Paul and Stewart had envisaged, performed and Centre, Councillor Billy Buchanan of in their approaches to their subject, how each in their own way displayed elements originally designed as prompts for public Bonnybridge, Falkirk released the end selects, interprets and presents a text, recording, image or artefact. dialogue were reconfigured for use in the British Library.The Ken of a ten-inch reel of audio tape that Stewart wanted to work within the functions and practices of an Stanton Archive was left comprising four elements: ‘A Month of slowly unravelled to wrap around the institutional reference collection and we offered the resources, a Sundays’ – a series of public recordings to take place each Sunday legs of the stool on which it had been model, and a location. For our part, we were to be afforded throughout September, a website, an installation in the front hall unlimited access to the project, allowing us the opportunity to comprising a listening carrel salvaged from the NSA’s former carefully placed. Meanwhile a double- document the creative process in unprecedented detail. premises in Exhibition Road equipped to allow video and audio bassist and trombonist resolved a Stewart was joined by musician Paul Hookham and, taking their playback of recordings of the Sunday events and access to the discordant improvisation into the name from an alleged typographical Spoonerism in our old card website, and a final as yet unplanned performance allegedly closing bars of Duke Ellington’s Take catalogue, the Ken Stanton Archive was conceived.They began to intended for broadcast. formulate a programme of work, refining the process in the On a first floor balcony overlooking the lonely expanse of the the ‘A’Train. So ended the Ken Stanton course of residencies at the Harris Museum in Preston and the British Library on a Sunday, Mr Dave Ray took his seat as the first Archive’s residency at the British Czech Centre in London.Their approach in each case was to be subject to be recorded in ‘A Month of Sundays’. He described the visibly busy in a public space during the course of the institution’s prejudices he encountered as an African American in Europe and Library National Sound Archive. 5 as a jazz musician. Putting on a pair of headphones, he listened to through the PA system announced problems with the live link to recordings of A Poem for Players by Al Young and Song No 2 by Sonia Utrecht and instructed Paul to commence with the next part of Sanchez before picking up his six stringed bass guitar to improvise the programme. an accompaniment.This was filmed by cameraman Peter Collis as A photograph of a man recording a steam locomotive was Stewart wheeled him back and forth along a track, past a tape projected on to the screen to a soundtrack of a collage of train recorder, a pair of speakers and some shelving salvaged from noises and the repeated title line sampled from a recording of Exhibition Road. Take the ‘A’ Train. From the front row, a trombonist stood up and The following week the KSA turned its attention to Councillor began to improvise to the recording.The PA announced that the Billy Buchanan, seated by the entrance to the restaurant, a row of link had been restored and another voice asked ‘Are you ready pillars receding behind him framing a guitarist and two violinists. London?’ The screen filled with the image of Dave Ray sitting in a Holding up a cassette tape, Councillor Buchanan described his efforts rehearsal studio giving his considered opinion of the music to discover the extent of government knowledge of or involvement industry (‘An open trench….in which good men die unregarded in the apparent frenzy of extra-terrestrial activity in the skies above – but it has its downside too’).Then on his bass he picked out a Bonnybridge in central Scotland. The cassette in his hand allegedly theme which was taken up by the violinists on stage as his image contained recordings of air traffic controllers in Glasgow, Edinburgh faded from the screen. and Newcastle observing such phenomena, and it was Councillor ‘A Month of Sundays’, and at Sir Colin’s request, the recording was Councillor Buchanan rose to his feet to repeat the address Buchanan’s claim that he was not allowed to release the recording to not open to the public. that he had given during his earlier visit to the Library and Blue the media.As his address reached its climax the musicians began to Rushes of this material provided puzzling evidence for visitors Cylinder was again performed.The PA announced the restoration play his song Blue Cylinder. Again the performance was recorded by to the installation. Instead of information or explanation, the only of the live link and the identical footage of Mr Ray was shown Peter in a series of long tracking shots. available text was a series of cryptic phrases written in upon the screen. An edited showreel of elements recorded The next event was entitled ‘Artists in Residence’. To the chinagraph on the wooden surface of the carrel. The website – during ‘A Month of Sundays’ was shown before the audience was unexpected accompaniment of a choir practising for an evening intended to be a showcase and discussion forum during the ushered out to witness the tape cutting and performance of Take recital, at four easels set up in front of the bare brick wall to the course of the residency – proved equally enigmatic. Shortage of the ‘A’ Train which concluded the event and this phase of the right of the Library’s entrance hall worked four painters who had time and resources meant that only one item (an unrelated project. come together as part of a scheme organised by John Parkhouse sound piece called Arches) was accessible through its barely It would be premature to draw conclusions about the Ken for former inmates of Pentonville Prison.The camera tracked back navigable pages. Stanton Archive now. A great deal of the material that was and forth past their gradually occluded faces as the images that ‘Public Recording for Transmission’ – the final event – took produced remains unedited and unplayed and the procedure by they painted filled the clear perspex on which they worked.The place in the Conference Centre. Paul acting as floor manager which the documentation of the work will be lodged in the final recording in the series was conceived as a companion piece; stood at a monitor to the left of the stage on which sat Billy National Sound Archive’s collections has yet to be finalised. the subject was the artist of the residence, architect of the British Buchanan and his accompanists in front of a screen displaying the However, the website is up and running and well worth a visit at: Library Sir Colin St John Wilson. Delayed by a week, it fell without Ken Stanton Archive rubber stamp logo. A disembodied voice http://www.kenstantonarchive.com/index.html

6 from torch song to birdsong the NSA’s new CD releases

Black British Swing Carrying the Torch Songs and Dances from The Moken Rainforest Requiem Catalogue number:TSCD 781 Catalogue number:TSCD 782 Papua New Guinea Catalogue number:TSCD 919 Catalogue number: NSACD 9 Price £12.99 Price: £12.99 Catalogue number:TSCD918 Price: £12.99 Price: £8.99 Price: £12.99

Following the success of its international music series in conjunction and in nightclubs, and includes tracks by such great singers as Frank This autumn the NSA also reissues its best-selling CD, with Topic Records, the NSA is pleased to announce the start of a Sinatra, Anne Shelton, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, Peggy Lee, Elsie ‘Rainforest Requiem’ for the first time on its own label. The complementary jazz series. The first two releases of recordings Carlisle, Judy Garland and Billie Holiday. Writing in the booklet, recordings were made by Richard Ranft, the NSA’s wildlife curator, taken from the NSA’s jazz collection are now available:‘Black British Andrew Simons says that ‘simply told, torch singing minimally mostly in AmazonianColumbia in August 1988.As reproduced here, Swing’, exploring the African Diaspora’s contribution to England’s displays a dissatisfaction with a love affair gone sour’. they form a continuous one-hour sequence of ‘beautiful and exotic own jazz of the 1930s and ‘40s, and ‘Carrying the Torch’, which There are also two further releases in the Topic-NSA sounds’, in which the listener hears the passing of a day in the life of follows the evolution of the torch song in popular music. international music series now on sale. The first is ‘Songs and the rainforest from dawn to dusk, taking in an afternoon equatorial ‘Black British Swing’ includes a substantial booklet in which Dances from Papua New Guinea’, taking us to one of the world’s rainstorm and the evening chorus of birds after the storm. Andrew Simons, the NSA jazz curator, provides a detailed essay most mysterious countries, its long, wide rivers home to hundreds showing how Afro-Caribbean musicians enriched musical life in the of Melanesian cultures. Here are songs and dances of hunting, war, How to order UK in the decades up to and including the Second World War.The cannibalism, myth, initiation, courtship, rain-making, funerals, magical All these CDs can be ordered directly from the British Library disc profiles such early jazz figures as Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson and his healing, shark-catching, and marathon feasting, recorded in remote Bookshop. Postage is free in the UK, but £2.00 for overseas orders West Indian Dance Band, the Lauderic Caton Quartet, and Leslie coastal and island villages.The second is devoted to ‘The Moken’,the By post Please send a cheque made payable to ‘The British Library ‘Jiver’ Hutchinson and His Coloured Orchestra, including some sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea who have been sailing up and down Bookshop’ to: British Library Bookshop,The British Library, previously unissued recordings.A review from the Evening Standard the west coast of the Malay peninsula for hundreds of years. The 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB in August said that ‘this enjoyable collection of high-spirited, precisely music on this CD, recorded on a deserted beach between surf and By telephone The British Library Bookshop accepts telephone played rarities demonstrates how good these musicians were’. jungle, is wild and unpredictable, full of warmth and drama, and yet orders with credit card payment by Access,Visa and American Express, ‘Carrying the Torch’ starts with Helen Morgan in 1928, the first as detached from our world as their hard, uncertain sea-faring Tel: +44 (0) 20 7412 7735 7 popular torch singer who helped to establish the genre on records lifestyle. nsa user profile events Sue MacGregor

The broadcaster Sue MacGregor is the longest-serving presenter of the BBC Radio 4 flagship ■ Oral History training courses programme ‘Today’.She joined the programme part-time as a presenter in 1984 and became full- One-day courses in oral history techniques time in 1987,working alongside Brian Redhead,John Humphrys,Peter Hobday and James Naughtie. At the Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham After starting her broadcasting career in South Africa she first joined the BBC as a current affairs September 20 producer and then became a reporter on ‘’.She went on to spend 15 years as a At the British Library presenter on Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’. Among awards she has won are the 1998 Radio Personality October 24 of the Year and a Sony Award for her presenting work.She is visiting Professor of Journalism at the Contact: Rob Perks, NSA Tel: 020 7412 7405. Fax: 020 7412 7441 Nottingham Trent University and a member of the Board of the Royal National Theatre.In 1992 she E-mail: [email protected]

eturn this slip to this slip to eturn was awarded the OBE for services to broadcasting. ■ Joint conference of International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives [IASA] and Association for Recorded Sound Collections [ARSC] At the British Why did you first come to the the BBC, some not.Then I printed when she was 80; and Phyllis Library Conference Centre

London NW1 2DB London National Sound Archive? out the catalogue entries off the Pearsall, who founded the A-Z map Contact: Alan Ward, NSA I had known of the NSA’s existence screen and made an appointment company. Tel: 020 7412 7440. Fax: 020 7412 7441

please fill in and r fill in and please E-mail: [email protected] , for about 30 years, as long as I had to hear the recordings with Website: www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/ worked with the BBC. The first the NSA’s Listening & Viewing How did you find the NSA iasa.html September 23-27

e to be time I had a need to use the NSA’s Service.This was the first time in services at St. Pancras? services myself was when I was my life that I have had a British In almost every respect they were

96 Euston Road, 96 Euston ■ Friends of Wildlife Sound lectures , commissioned to write my own Library reader pass and I’ll be back! immaculate. The services are not e ‘Recording wildlife sounds on Gough Island in ould lik ould story about working in broadcasting. as quick as at the BBC, but that is 1956’, by Mike Swales chiv I have tried to keep copies of the What recordings did you hear? a news organisation which has a October 6 (afternoon) Ar radio programmes I have made on I heard various interviews that I one-hour turnaround for urgent ‘Bushbaby talk: identifying mammals by sound’ by Dr Simon Bearder, and ‘Vocal variety splits tree cassette, but you do not always had done for Woman’s Hour, requests, whereas the British hyraxes species’, by Diana Roberts have the one you need years later. Kaleidoscope and a Radio 4 series Library is an academic institution. December 1 (afternoon) Even though I have access to the called Conversation Piece.Among the It was a shame that you can’t take At the British Library s mailing list and w list and s mailing BBC’s vast sound archives there programmes the BBC had not kept in a cassette recorder when you Contact: Richard Ranft or Keith Williams, NSA Tel: 020 7412 7402/7403. Fax: 020 7412 7441 y National Sound Sound y National were also some items they had was a 1973 interview with Dame are listening, but I understand that E-mail: [email protected] not kept. Rebecca West, when she was 81, members of the public cannot be talking about her beginnings in allowed to make copies of the ■ The Saul Seminars How did you use the NSA? journalism when she was working recordings. It was a wonderful ‘Music Listening as Social Practice – music as a resource for organising everyday life’ by Tia I looked at the NSA catalogue, on a women’s magazine during experience to be in the new eady on the NSA’ eady DeNora (University of Exeter) CADENSA, over the Internet. It the time of the suffragettes. Then British Library building. There is October 16

The British Librar The British was very easy – I just typed in my there were interviews with Mary such a marvellous atmosphere of ‘BBC broadcasts, Musicians and Musicologists’ by Jenny Doctor e not alr e not CK, name and found a list of the radio Renault, the author; the composer scholarship and the facilities are so

A November 6 broadcasts I have made that the Minna Keal, who had her First modern – very different from At the British Library, free of charge YB ou ar NSA holds, some duplicated by Symphony premiered at the Proms what a journalist is used to! Tickets from the British Library Events Office If y ADDRESS 8 PLA Tel: 020 7412 7332 E-mail: [email protected]