Race, Music and Message at The Dawn of Recorded Sound with Bill Doggett

This program will examine the suppressed history of the commercialization of Race and Race Consciousness through the lense of sheet music and early sound recordings of turn of the century Coon Songs and Minstrel Shows produced by Victor and Columbia Records 1900-1910.

Bill Doggett is a California based archivist and specialist in Race and Race Consciousness in recordings at the Dawn of Recorded Sound.  With hundreds of rare 1900-1920 78rpm recordings of Coon Songs and other "Race Records" in his Sound Archive, Doggett was commissioned in 2015 by The Sound Division of The Library of Congress to create a project for The National Juke Box which will launch in 2017.

The Sound files are: (a) Jests from Georgia by Ralph Bingham- attached is Jest#1(b) Two Negro Stories by Nat Wills: Attached is Story#1-The Head Waiter (c) Collins and Harlan: Nigger Loves His Possum-a 1905 Platinum Gold record for Victor Records (d) Moonlight in Jungleland by Collins and Harlan-excerpt (e) The Whistling Coon sung by the George W. Johnson:the first African American to record a record for Victor Records