Page 40 - summer 22

Apart from photography, recorded sound was the earliest major contributor to
twentieth century popular culture. The original concept of imprinting the vibrations
caused by the sound, onto a suitable surface, and retrieving that sound by means of a
stylus, was not superseded until the introduction of the compact disc about 100
years later, despite such innovations as magnetic tape.

It all started with Thomas Edison’s cylinder phonograph in 1876, though at the time
he couldn’t see a commercial future for it. Ten years later, Alexander Graham Bell,

having received a prize from the French Government for his invention of the
telephone , used some of the money to develop the phonograph, patented a greatly
improved machine, which he called a graphophone. His laboratory was in
Washington DC and he thought it had potential as a dictation machine. He contacted
a local successful journalist named Edward Easton who agreed. Edward Easton was
obviously very good at his career because he had made quite a lot of money at it. He
bought the patents and set up The American Graphophone Company with

headquarters in Washington in 1889. Within a couple of years, the company was
selling cylinders with music, mostly for use in coin in slot players. These music
cylinders were marketed under the name Columbia Phonograph Company. By the
way I think I read somewhere that the cylinders were called phonograms.
Meanwhile a guy called Emile Berliner was closely following Bell’s work, and figured it
would be better to mount the sound onto a flat disc. He had worked out how to
make these discs cheaply in large quantities and always saw the potential for home
entertainment. In !891 his Gramophone was patented, and he set up a production

company. From here things got mighty complicated. In essence, Columbia and
several smaller companies produced their own gramophones often in contravention
of Berliner’s patents. The law suits that followed from 1897 cost Berliner to the point
that he had to relinquish control of his company.

Berliner visited Britain that year and helped set up the Gramophone Company of

Great Britain. The company commissioned a painting of a dog, apparently listening to
the horn, and in 1901 it became the company logo. Back in the USA Berliner’s old
company won the final law suits against Columbia, and they celebrated by changing
its name to Victor and also adopting the logo. Thus the record industry had been
established.

I have just one recording which was originally made on a Bell cylinder. It was
recorded in Britain, and not until 1905, when they were almost obsolete.
(Clip No.1 Olly Oakley- Americana)