Shellac? Hell, yeah

I’ve been looking at my 78rpm shellac record collection.  The ones above are what I’ve called Various. They date from the 1920s through to the 40s. Although there’s some familiar names there with the big band names (Duke Ellington and Edmundo Ros), there’s a whole heap of weird and wonderful ensembles.  At the time, jobbing musicians were badly paid and so ad hoc bands were common, usually taking the name of the band leader.  You really have to know your record history (I’m a complete amateur, I don’t!) to know that an achingly sweet horn on a particular record was actually Louis Armstrong, for example. And look at The Seven Gallon Jug Band playing on the reverse side of the queen of the blues, Bessie Smith!

Johnny Dodds often put together a great group of musicians and those records are some of my favourites. None of my records are particularly rare or valuable, but I treasure them. This list is only a small part of the collection.  Maybe I’ll talk about some more about it in the future.

Oh and to anyone thinking of starting a collection, you have to do one important thing first. Buy a wind-up gramophone, the best you can get.  You don’t need a vast cabinet machine, just a portable, maybe an HMV 101. And a pile of needles. Believe me, 78s played on a wind-up machine gets you as close to being there in that smokey old studio with those guys slugging bourbon as you’re likely to get.