Dec 07 2008
The Very FIRST Recording EVER!
No, it wasn’t Thomas Edison who made the first recording, after all!
Y’see, most people think ol’ Tom’s recitation of Mary Had A Little Lamb during an early phonograph test in 1877 was the first one. But, a few months ago (actually, in March), the Association for Recorded Sound Collections discovered a recording of Au Clair de la Lune in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris . The recording was made by a French inventor named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on what he called a phonautograph, which engraved sound waves onto a sheet of paper blackened by the smoke of an oil lamp (see the pic on yer left). And here’s the kicker: he recorded it on April 9th, 1860…17 years before Thomas Edison invented his phonograph, and nearly a full year before the American Civil War began!
STAYIN’ ALIVE
Y’know, it’s no surprise that the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever has gone platinum fifteen times over. (Apparently, John Travolta also found a flashy new way to screw in a light bulb! [See pic on right])
But didja know that The Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive (one of my fave trax from the movie) was originally called Saturday Night? Seems that big brother Barry decided the title just didn’t fit (and, when ya listen to the song, you’ll see he’s right), so he, Maurice and Robin came up with the new title — and the rest is history!
Of course, they also filmed a video for it (guess what’s comin’ up in a minute, yardbirds? Uh-huh …), and, if the set looks a little worse for wear, bear in mind they were usin’ the one from the old Combat! TV series (about a platoon led by Sgt. Chip Saunders [Vic Morrow] in World War II!).
That bein’ said, let’s take a look at it. The song’s dynamite, and the set is still strangely familiar to us boomers:
Okay … since we’re comin’ up on the 3+30 in the AM, I’m gonna finish my coffee and hit the sack for about a circle of minutes (360). But tune in tomorrow for more goodies from the Relic’s RockVault, okay? ‘Til then …
see ya on the flip side!
