VOICES OF AMERICA

You’d expect the Library of Congress, as it begins an effort to preserve and catalog important American sound recordings with the same care already extended to important American documents and memorabilia, to include on its just-published list of the first 50 projects something so thoroughly American as an 1897 Edison cylinder of John Philip Sousa leading his famous band in “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Scott Joplin player piano rolls from the turn of the century, a 1915 recitation of “Casey at the Bat,” Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five sides from the mid-20s, FDR’s Fireside Chats, Ike’s D-Day radio address, Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech all are “musts” for the first 50 recordings chosen in this massive project.

It’s no surprise, either, to find on this list such cherished recordings as Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine, Orson Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” George Gershwin playing his own “Rhapsody in Blue,” Herbert Morrison’s chilling eyewitness report of the Hindenburg crash, the first broadcast – 1939 – from the Grand Ole Opry. Bessie Smith, Jimmie Rodgers, Kate Smith and Billie Holiday are there, as are artists so famous one name suffices – Caruso, Bing, Woody, Duke, Dizzy, Frank, Elvis, Aretha. Like it or not (the librarian of the Library of Congress, James W. Billington, personally does not like but understands the cultural significance), one of the first rap hits, “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, made the list.

But guess what’s second on the list, older than everything but some demos Edison himself cut in 1888-89 to show off his invention? You’ll never guess, so we’ll tell you.

The 1890 Jesse Walter Fewkes field recordings of Passamaquoddy Indians. Live from Calais, Maine.

Mr. Fewkes (1850-1930) was an ethnographer and archaeologist who combined his twin interests into what he called “ethnoarchaeology” – using the actions and behaviors of modern-day people to explain archaeological remnants. Most of his work in this field was done among the tribes of the Southwest, but it is his Passamaquoddy recordings for which he is best remembered.

The Edison machines were just becoming household items in the late 1880s; Americans loved the pre-recorded wax cylinders of the top music-hall acts of the day. It was Mr. Fewkes who realized that the way those cylinders were recorded would revolutionize the documentation of human cultural expression: speaking, singing or playing an instrument into the large horn on top would cause the needle to vibrate which would cut grooves in a wax cylinder that would preserve the expression verbatim and forever.

So in the spring of 1890, in preparation for an expedition that summer to Southwest pueblos, the Boston-based scientist took this new technology to Calais for a test-run. His recordings of Passamaquoddy songs, tales and vocabulary, sung and spoken by Noel Josephs and Peter Selmore, launched a new era in ethnological studies, not to mention the vital role they played in the Passamaquoddys’ own efforts to preserve their language and culture.

The brilliant Mr. Fewkes was wrong about one thing, however. The wax recordings do not last forever. In fact, the truly sad part about this project (mandated by Congress in the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 and modeled on the earlier film project to preserve important American movies) is what already has been lost, such as recordings of Mark Twain reading from his own works, cylinders that are too mold-encrusted to play and too brittle from age to clean. The Passamaquoddy recordings reportedly are in much better condition and, judging from this Top 50 list, in some pretty good company.