Vintage mandolin orchestra recordings

[JeffD]

I have no financial interest in this what so ever, just want to share my enthusiasm. Some of you may have found this guy already.

There is a fellow online selling classical mandolin orchestras and solo recordings. There are four CDs that cover recordings from

1904-1938
1915-1940
1930-1950
1935-1955

The CDs seem to be copies of LP recordings - because they contain all the hiss and pop you would expect of old records. Just beautiful beautiful stuff.

One note about the hiss and pop - at first I was disappointed with the noise, because it has been a while since I had had to listen to music that way, and I was "out of practice". I soon got used to listening the way I did as a kid with my Dads records - listening to the music, not the spaces between the music. Its like the authenticity of black and white, or even amber photograph - you look at the picture not the lack of colors.

The music is glorious, and has inspired many hours of playing.

He has a lot of other golden era recordings too, especially vintage Spanish Guitar stuff. Its worth checking out.

http://www.finefretted.com/

It might be nice to find "cleaned up" versions of these records, but I would not want to give up the noisey ones.

Jeff

[Neil Gladd]

I've looked at their site but I've never bought anything since I have so many of the original recordings (on 78, not LP). Are these commercially pressed CDs or just CD-Rs?

[JeffD]

I've looked at their site but I've never bought anything since I have so many of the original recordings (on 78, not LP). Are these commercially pressed CDs or just CD-Rs?
I guess they would have had to be 78s.

No these are not commercially pressed CDs. The recordings are good though, faithful to the records, such as they are.

I would love to see your record collection. Perhaps you could post a list of the titles, just to get us all drooling.


BTW I just got the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble CD "All the Rage" which is mandolin ensemble music from 1897 to 1924. Really enchanting stuff. I especially like when the melody is given to the mandola, while the mandolins play high sweet whole note tremolos.

I could very easily get addicted to this music.

Jeff

[Jim Garber]

Neil:
I have one of Randy's earlier compilations as well as other mandolin recordings he transferred to cassette. These are merely transferred without any sound enhancement and are not commercially produced.

Jim

[Eugene]

I bought the first two mandolin volumes shortly after the 2nd was released. #Certainly, the first is more interesting to me and features the greatest density of recognizable names.