Eddie South – Dark Angel of the Violin

Eddie South in 1946 (The Library of Congress, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons) By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music For Black History Month in previous years I have written about classical musicians such as Dean Dixon and Cullen Maiden who had to leave the United States for Europe in…

Recording of the week: Go on then, tell me about the duppies

This week’s selection comes from Andrew Ormsby, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. ‘Go on then, tell me about the duppies…’ Made in 1976, at Princess Junior School in Moss Side, Manchester, this recording captures a group of schoolboys talking about duppies, the malevolent ghosts of Caribbean folklore,…

Recording of the week: Electricity in the kitchen

This week’s selection comes from Harriet Roden, Digital Learning Content Developer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Almost every time someone enters a new room in the UK, there’ll be a flick of a switch. To turn on a light, a plug or household appliance. From cups of tea to loads…

Making of: The Unearthed Odyssey

Written by AWATE, Artist-in-Residence for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. In 2019-20, I was the Artist-in-Residence at the British Library Sound Archive for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. I was tasked with creatively using the sounds (up to 7 million!) in order to showcase the recordings in the collections. I decided to…

Recording of the week: Radio’s Holy Grail

This week’s selection comes from Paul Wilson, Curator of Radio Broadcast Recordings. Given that the surviving recordings from British radio’s first decade, the 1920s, can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and that most of those are unintelligible, it was astonishing when proof finally emerged of something long…