“Rhythm Nation 1814” by Janet Jackson, “The Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog, “Free to Be … You and Me” by Marlo Thomas & Friends, Louis Armstrong’s 1938 version of “When the Saints Go Marching In ”And a Thomas Edison 1878 recording that may be the oldest reproducible recording of an American voice is among the 25 recordings that have just been added to the Library of Congress’s National Record Registry.
The record, created in 2000, designates recordings that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and are at least 10 years old. Carla Hayden, Congressional librarian, named the nominees this year from around 900 nominations from the public.
Jackson’s 1989 album, which broke the record for seven singles in the Top Five, may have won the most votes in the public nomination process. But it was Kermit who gave an interview with Hayden, presented in a video released by the library.
“It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in a swamp, playing the banjo and singing ‘Rainbow Connection’,” said the famous amphibian, recalling the opening scene of “The Muppet Movie” (whose aerial photo, according to him, was captured by Sam the Eagle). “The weather is certainly fun if you’re having flies … or something.”
(Music composer Paul Williams also appeared for a brief cameo, elaborating on his favorite line of music: “It’s a line about the immense power of faith – faith in someone or something, or a great idea,” he said. “Sometimes the questions are more beautiful than the answers.”)
The newly designated recordings cover a wide range of American sound, samples of opera, jazz, country, radio broadcasts, folk (in several languages) and recent pop hits, including Patti LaBelle’s 1974 single “Lady Marmalade”, the album Jackson Browne’s 1974 “Late for the Sky”, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s 1993 single “Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World” and the 1994 Nas album “Illmatic”.
The oldest recording is by Edison, made in St. Louis in July 1878, just a few months after he invented his recorder. Engraved on a piece of aluminum foil and 78 seconds long, it is believed to be the oldest reproducible recording of an American voice and the oldest surviving document capturing a musical performance. This was not heard until 2013, when scientists announced that they had developed a way to recover the sound of the sheet. (The library calls it “surprisingly audible”.)
The most recent is “The Giant Pool of Money”, the 2008 episode of the radio program This American Life on the subprime mortgage crisis.
Other non-musical recordings include Phil Rizzo’s account of Roger Maris’ 61st home run on October 1, 1961 (holy cow!) And a 1945 radio episode from the soap opera “The Guiding Light”, described as the oldest program script in the history of the broadcast, having been broadcast on the radio and then on television from 1937 to 2009.
The record also includes lost pop hits like “Nikolina”, a 1917 song by Hjalmar Peterson, a Swedish immigrant who settled in Minnesota and became extremely popular with Swedish Americans. Peterson recorded the song – described as narrating “his comedic difficulties with his father-in-law” – three times, selling 100,000 copies in total.
The record so far includes 575 recordings in total. Some of the newly selected recordings are already preserved by copyright holders, artists or other archives. But where they are not, the Library of Congress, whose recorded sound collection includes nearly 3 million items, will work to ensure that they are preserved and available to future generations.