Over at Turtle Services they’ve got a huge collection of old 78 RPM records converted to mp3 format. There’s something strangely appealing about the idea of using an iPod to play a song originally released on a chunk of shellac. Some digital restoration has been done to the songs, but they are still obviously in glorious monaural sound.
I’m kind of sad that they don’t have some of the old novelty songs that my dad has in has his collection of 78’s Up North. I still love the World War One classic “Oh How I Hate to Get Up In The Morning.” They do have “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” and “Barney Google,” so that’s a plus.
Content wise be warned: the songs have some examples of the jaw-droppingly casual racism of their time. Pretty much anything with “Dixie” in the title was probably popularized by blackface minstrel shows, but there’s plenty of swipes at the Irish (“If I Knock The ‘L’ Out Of Kelly”) and the Germans too.
UPDATE: There’s more! If you want to get all the way back to the Edison Wax Cylinder days, check out Tinfoil.com‘s archive.