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 The 1893 recording of "Mama's Black Baby Boy" by the Unique Quartet
pre-dates vinyl recordings. The song was recorded on a wax-covered
cylinder using technology invented by Thomas Edison. It can only be
played on a special cylinder player that was a predecessor to
phonographs, which played flat, vinyl discs, said Troy Thibodeau,
manager of Saco River Auction Co.
The 120-year-old recording, along with a second Unique Quartet song,
"Who Broke the Lock (on the Henhouse Door)?" from 1896, came from a
Portland collector who amassed 3,000 of the old cylinder recordings.
"They're in fantastic shape," Thibodeau said Wednesday, carefully
showing off the smooth cylinder covered in brown wax on which the
music resides in etched grooves. "All it takes is a little bit of
heat or a little bit of cold, and these things are junk. So, for
more than 100 years, someone really took care of these things and
treasured them."
Both cylinders are up for auction on Saturday, along with hundreds
of other items, including a shirt belonging to George Custer, the
cavalry captain who died in 1876 while fighting Indians at Little
Bighorn in Montana.
Cylinder recordings are becoming rare, and recordings of black
artists even more rare.
There are so few cylinders that have the historical significance of
the Unique Quarter recordings that it's hard to know how much they
might sell for. An appraiser believes they'll go for $25,000 or more
— apiece.
The cylinders rotate on a machine that looks like an early Victrola-style
player. A needle fits in the wax grooves as the cylinder spins. Such
players still exist, but the wax degrades with each playing. Later
phonographs featured flat platters and vinyl recordings that lasted
far longer than wax.
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 Another black group, the Standard Quartet, is
credited with making earlier cylinder recordings than the Unique
Quartet, but none of those recordings exist today, said Bob Marovich,
a gospel music historian in Chicago.
Marovich said he holds out hope that more of the old music could
turn up. "Finding this one serves as a well of hope that maybe some
more of them are out there," he said in a telephone interview.
It's startling how soon music can be lost.
Robert Darden, who's working to save the music by digitizing
existing vinyl recordings through the Black Music Restoration
Project, estimates that 75 percent of gospel music recorded on vinyl
from 1940 to 1970 has disappeared.
"All pre-digital black sacred music is at risk. The cylinders are
made from pressed, hardened wax and grow brittle and chipped with
age. Vinyl 78s, 45s, and LPs were melted down and recycled as part
of the war effort during World War II," said Darden, who's a
professor at Baylor University in Texas.
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Online:
Auction house: http://www.sacoriverauction.com/
Library of Congress recording of "Mama's Black Baby Boy":
http://bit.ly/1aGE69X
[Associated
Press; DAVID SHARP]
Follow David Sharp on
Twitter at
https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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