News

Public Domain Day 2024
January 1st, 2024, David Seubert
Over 8,000 recordings made in 1923 enter the public domain on January 1, 2024, that are dodocumented by DAHR! This includes thousands of recordings that have already been digitized by the UCSB Library for free public access. On January 1 these recordings will be made downloadable so that the...
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New Historical eBooks
November 8th, 2022, David Seubert
The American Discography Project at the UC Santa Barbara Library is pleased to announce publication of six additional eBooks in the UCSB Historical Discography Series. The new titles are: Rhythm on Record: Who's Who and Register of Recorded Dance Music 1906-1936 by Hilton R. Schleman...
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5,200 Bluebird Recordings Online
May 18th, 2022, David Seubert
Over 5,200 masters recorded by RCA Victor and issued on their Bluebird Records label have been digitized and can be streamed online thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Bluebird was founded in 1932 to compete with other budget labels during the...
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Public Domain Day 2022
December 23rd, 2021, David Seubert
On January 1, 2022, sound recordings published prior to Jan 1, 1923 will enter the public domain in the United States. This is the first time U.S. recordings will enter the public domain, thanks to a 2018 change to the copyright law. In celebration of this historic change, and...
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DAHR to Include Gennett Records
June 15th, 2021, David Seubert
The next American record company to be added to DAHR will be Gennett Records of Richmond, Indiana. Researchers and discographers Malcolm Rockwell and Charlie Dahan have spent the better part of a decade meticulously compiling data on the recordings made by one of America&rsquo...
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Historical Discography Series Launched
February 1st, 2021, David Seubert
The American Discography Project is pleased to announce the launch of the UCSB Historical Discography Series, a new series of eBook reprints of historical and out-of-print discographies. The series launches with four titles on a broad range of subjects. The initial titles are:  Ethnic...
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Victor Red Seal Discography Available As eBook
January 15th, 2021, Samuel Brylawski
The American Discography Project is proud announce the publication of John R. Bolig’s momentous achievement, The Victor Red Seal Discography. The new e-book is available as a free download here. Mr. Bolig’s discography documents comprehensively every 78-rpm disc that derived from...
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Help Us Reconstruct Missing Columbia Data
September 24th, 2020, David Seubert
Between 1908 and 1923, Columbia Records issued thousands of recordings for “ethnic” and foreign markets in its domestic double-faced E series, the double-faced Spanish C series, and several other series. Noted discographer Dick Spottswood, compiler of Ethnic Music on Record (EMOR), has compiled listings of...
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Discos E y C y T de Columbia desaparecidos
September 23rd, 2020, David Seubert
Entre 1908 y 1923, Columbia Records emitió miles de grabaciones para mercados "étnicos" y extranjeros en su serie nacional de doble cara E, la serie de doble cara C española, la serie T argentina, y varias otras series. El conocido discógrafo...
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DAHR Now Utilizing Linked Data
July 14th, 2020, David Seubert
DAHR is taking advantage of a growing feature of the Internet known as “Linked Data.” The obvious advantage that users will immediately notice is a richer talent record for many names in the database, with contextual data about artists and groups, such as...
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HMV Discography Online
June 22nd, 2020, David Seubert
The American Discography Project is pleased an announce the publication of a new ebook by John R. Bolig and John Milmo, His Master’s Voice Celebrity Series Recordings and Historical Reissues, 1924‐1958. Continuing the work of Gramophone Company/HMV discographer Alan Kelly, this new publication...
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5,000 Edison Recordings Online
May 11th, 2020, David Seubert
The Edison Disc Recordings Access Initiative, a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities is now being wrapped up by the library’s team of editors and digitizng staff.  Over the past two years, editors have added a complete discography of...
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NEH Funds Expansion of DAHR
April 7th, 2020, David Seubert
The UCSB Library has been awarded a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the “The American Discography Project-Victor and Bluebird Records Access Initiative.” The $349,721 grant will allow the library's editorial team to complete discographic work on 14,000 Victor and...
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15,000 Additional Audio Files are Accessible
March 26th, 2019, Sam Brylawski and David Seubert
We are very pleased to announce that this week we added approximately 15,000 audio files to DAHR. The discography now features more than 30,000 sides from historical recordings made between 1900 and 1941. (Click here to see all audio available online.) Audio new to the website includes masters...
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DAHR in 2019
February 12th, 2019, Sam Brylawski and David Seubert
The beginning of a new year is an appropriate time to review the progress of the Discography of American Historical Recordings, what we've accomplished and what the future holds. All master recordings made by RCA Victor before 1938 are now documented in the DAHR database, as...
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Decca Records
July 9th, 2018, Sam Brylawski & David Seubert
DAHR users may have noticed the addition of Decca Records masters to the discography. Documentation of more than 48,000 masters is already listed. The Decca entries are an adaptation of Michel Ruppli's six-volume Decca labels discography, published in 1996 by Greenwood Press, now ABC-CLIO. Online rights to...
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Leeds & Catlin Records Now Online
May 20th, 2018, David Seubert & Sam Brylawski
In partnership with Mainspring Press we are pleased to announce the addition of Leeds & Catlin Records to DAHR.  Leeds & Catlin Records may be more noted today for its protracted legal battles than its recordings, but as one of the first independent (albeit...
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Edison Disc Recordings Access Initiative
April 23rd, 2018, David Seubert
UCSB has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the Edison Disc Recordings Access Initiative. This funding provides additional support for the longtime collaborative project between the UCSB Library and the Packard Humanities Institute.  Over the next two...
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John Bolig Bluebird Label Discography
December 19th, 2017, David Seubert
The American Discography Project is pleased to announce the availability of the second volume in our collaboration with John Bolig, the Bluebird Label Discography. A PDF can be downloaded here. It documents discs issued by RCA Victor’s budget label, Bluebird Records...
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MARC records added to DAHR
November 6th, 2017, David Seubert
In an effort to aid libraries in cataloging their collections, 120,000+ MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging) records have been added to DAHR. The MARC records are displayed in a special tab of the disc view section of DAHR and can be cut and paste into OCLC Connexion...
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Up and About
October 16th, 2017, Sam Brylawski
DAHR users might be interested in an overview of the work being undertaken by American Discography Project editors. New descriptions of recording sessions are posted almost every day. About three to five hundred new masters of a variety of record labels are added every week...
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Welcome, Zonophone
March 11th, 2017, Sam Brylawski
The American Discography Project is very pleased to announce that documentation of nearly 2500 ten- and twelve-inch Zonophone discs recorded between 1904 and 1912 is now included in the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR). This addition of Zonophone discs to the DAHR is an adaptation of the...
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John Bolig Victor Black Label Discography Volume 5
February 16th, 2017, Sam Brylawski and David Seubert
The American Discography Project (ADP) is proud to announce the availability in electronic form of the concluding volume of John Bolig’s Victor Black Label Discography. This fifth volume in the series covers Victor Records’ black label popular releases from catalog number 25000, through...
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What's going on
October 12th, 2016, Sam Brylawski
ADP editors are presently tackling a special project, the documentation of every Victor double-faced popular black label issue. When we’re done, DAHR users will have at hand definitive discographic documentation relating to every Victor issue within its most popular series of recordings, double-faced...
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Smith and Stanley
August 2nd, 2016, Sam Brylawski
Among our present projects is documentation of OKeh masters of the 1920s. Early OKeh repertoire is not very different from contemporary pop releases of Victor and Columbia: concert bands, dance bands, small vocal ensembles, Billy Murray, Henry Burr, Ada Jones, the Green Brothers, and the...
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Foray into OKeh
April 11th, 2016, Sam Brylawski
We recently began posting OKeh masters to the website. Our work is an electronic adaptation of Ross Laird’s and Brian Rust’s Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934 (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2004), and represents the fourth record label to be included in the DAHR...
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The Columbia Master Book Discography is now complete in DAHR
January 24th, 2016, Sam Brylawski
The American Discography Project adaptation of Tim Brooks’ and Brian Rust’s four-volume Columbia Master Book Discography is now entirely online. Major US master series of Columbia’s Records, comprising more than 32,000 matrix records of 1901 through July 1934, are now documented in the...
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A Lot of Help from Our Friends
January 11th, 2016, Sam Brylawski
The original sources of our listings of early Columbia releases are volumes one and four of Tim Brooks’ and Brian Rust’s Columbia master book discography (Greenwood Press, 1999). The basis of our listings of U.S. Berliner discs, also recently added to the...
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Editing of Brazilian Releases Begins
May 20th, 2015, David Seubert
Victor recorded in Brazil as early as 1907 but they didn't set up permanent operations in Brazil until 1927. After they did, a flood of Brazilian sides began to be recorded and issued on 78rpm discs for the local market as well as export. More than 8,700 titles...
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Welcome EDVR Users
August 6th, 2014, David Seubert
All web traffic from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) is now being redirected to the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR). All of the content of EDVR now appears in DAHR along with the addition of thousands of new entries. You should be...
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Launch of the Discography of American Historical Recordings
June 5th, 2014, David Seubert and Sam Brylawski
With the generous support of the Packard Humanities Institute, the American Discography Project releases the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) an online database with discographic information on over 100,000 recordings made in the early years of the American recording industry. The Discography of American Historical...
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New Website Faceting
May 31st, 2014, Sam Brylawski
The transition from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings to the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is more than a "re-branding." In addition to the new record companies (Columbia and Berliner) added to the discography, we have redesigned the website and added or expanded...
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Analysis of Asian Recording Series
May 15th, 2014, David Seubert
Jonathan Ward's extensive research into the Asian recording series of the Victor Talking Machine Company is now online. With the growth of the Chinese middle class, there has been an explosion of interest in early Chinese recordings, and for the first time all known series...
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Packard Humanities Institute Renews Project Funding
May 1st, 2014, David Seubert
The Packard Humanities Institute has renewed funding for the American Discography Project for another two years, allowing work to continue on the expansion of the Discography of American Historical Recordings. A $500,000 grant will fund acquisitions and keying of Michael Ruppli's Decca discography as well as...
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Motion Picture Soundtrack Recordings in the DAHR
January 6th, 2014, Sam Brylawski
The Institute of the American Musical, directed by Miles Kreuger, very kindly provided DAHR editors with access to several Victor company documents in the institute's collections. Among them are two recording books, or ledgers, that describe the creation of thousands of early motion picture soundtrack...
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New Editor - Katy Costantinidis
December 3rd, 2013, David Seubert
The American Discography Project (ADP) is pleased to welcome Katy Costantinidis as our newest Editorial Assistant. Katy worked as a student researcher on the Project for two years before joining the staff full time this fall. She started by editing the Berliner Gramophone Co. data...
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Columbia Records Being Digitized
January 24th, 2012, David Seubert
Under contract from the Library of Congress, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Library is digitizing 6,000 sides recorded by Columbia Records before 1925 for inclusion in the Library of Congress National Jukebox website and the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) database. Drawn initially from...
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Brunswick, Okeh Discographies Licensed, To Be Added to EDVR
December 15th, 2011, David Seubert
The American Discography Project (ADP) has licensed electronic publication rights for Okeh and Brunswick discographies from publisher ABC-CLIO for the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR). The Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934 by Ross Laird and Brian Rust (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004) is the most...
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New Editor - Fran Smith
November 16th, 2011, David Seubert
The American Discography Project (ADP) is pleased to welcome Fran Smith as our newest Associate Editor. Fran worked for the American Film Institute in Los Angeles as an editor on the AFI catalog for many years before joining the ADP team. She is currently editing...
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Columbia Records Data Licensed
July 13th, 2011, David Seubert
The American Discography Project (ADP) has reached an agreement with ABC-CLIO, publisher of The Columbia Master Book Discography, to license the data compiled by Brian Rust and Tim Brooks on domestic Columbia recordings made before 1934. The monumental four-volume work is a landmark of discographic publishing...
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Support from the National Endowment for the Humanities
May 18th, 2011, David Seubert
The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings is very fortunate to have been recently awarded a third grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The EDVR, and the National Jukebox to which the discography provides cataloging information, would not be possible without the generous support...
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"Lights for Starting and Stopping Talent"
December 1st, 2010, Sam Brylawski
There are not a lot of first-hand accounts of how recording sessions were conducted during the acoustical era. For that reason, EDVR editors were pleased to recently come across a set of instructions to recording talent on when to begin and end their performances.  ...
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Asian Recordings Project
July 26th, 2010, Jon Ward
In 1902-1903, with a series of discs featuring traditional Chinese opera, the Victor Talking Machine Company began recording the music of Asian cultures, and subsequently marketing those records to Asian communities in the United States. In the ensuing years, Victor expanded its reach to Asia...
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Update
May 6th, 2009, Sam Brylawski
Recently, I've been making changes to the locations of very early Victor recording sessions. Victor expert John Bolig questioned why we set so many early 1900s sessions in Camden, and not Philadelphia. He reminded me of the research conducted by Allan Sutton at Mainspring Press...
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