Michael The Researcher: John McCormack With The Star-Spangled Banner Victor Record 1917

Friday, September 12, 2014

John McCormack With The Star-Spangled Banner Victor Record 1917

It is September 12, 2014 and the countdown to the 200th Anniversary of "The Star-Spangled Banner" continues. As I had mentioned yesterday, David Hildebrand and others will be putting on a very special commemorative concert in honor of the Bicentennial. Tonight I have for you another version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". This time Irish tenor John McCormack. This 78 rpm record was pressed on the Victor label (catalog number 64664). It was recorded in Camden, New Jersey on March 29, 1917, and made it to number one on the singles chart in May of that year. I am going to play this record two times - the first time it will be played with a fiber needle, specifically made of bamboo, and the second time it will be played with a steel needle, specifically the soft version. I will be playing the record on the 1920s Brunswick Panatrope Exponential Type 106 Gramophone/Phonograph that you see in this incredible photograph.

I uploaded my complete video on youtube and it got hit with a bogus copyright claim so I deleted it. I then uploaded it to photobucket. Unfortunately, I had to severely decrease the size so it would be below photobucket's maximum limit and that decrease affects the quality to a large extent. Plus photobucket only allows ten minutes ... my original video was ten minutes and five seconds. Here is the video ...

I hope to see many of you at the Bicentennial concert in Baltimore, Maryland this Sunday, September 14. That is the exact day that the song was written in 1814.

Photographs ...