Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation 1814,” Kermit the Frog’s “The
Rainbow Connection,” Marlo Thomas & Friends’ “Free to Be... You and Me,” Louis
Armstrong’s 1938 rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In” and an 1878
Thomas Edison recording that may be the oldest playable recording of an
American voice are among the 25 recordings just added to the Library of
Congress’ National Recording Registry.
اضافة اعلان
The registry, created in 2000, designates recordings that
are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and are at least 10
years old. Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress, named this year’s inductees
from around 900 nominations by the public.
Jackson’s 1989 album, which scored a record-breaking seven
top five singles, may have won the most votes in the public nominating process.
But it was Kermit who sat for an interview with Hayden, featured in a video
released by the library.
“It seems like only yesterday I was sitting in a swamp,
playing the banjo and singing ‘Rainbow Connection,’” the celebrity amphibian
said, recalling the opening scene of “The Muppet Movie” (whose aerial shot, he
claimed, was captured by Sam the Eagle). “Time sure is fun if you’re having
flies ... or something like that.”
(The song’s composer, Paul Williams, also popped up for a
brief cameo, elaborating on his favorite line of the song: “It’s a line about
the immense power of faith — faith in someone or something, or a big idea,” he
said. “Sometimes the questions are more beautiful than the answers.”)
The newly designated recordings cover a broad swath of
American sound, sampling opera, jazz, country, radio broadcasts, folk (in
several languages) and recent pop hits, including Patti LaBelle’s 1974 single
“Lady Marmalade,” Jackson Browne’s 1974 album “Late for the Sky,” Israel
Kamakawiwo‘ole’s 1993 single “Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” and Nas’
1994 album “Illmatic.”
The oldest recording is by Edison, made in St. Louis in July
1878, a few months after he invented his recording machine. Recorded on a piece
of tinfoil and running 78 seconds, it is believed to be the oldest playable
recording of an American voice, and the earliest surviving document capturing a
musical performance. It went unheard until 2013, when scientists announced they
had developed a way to recover the sound from the foil. (The library calls it
“surprisingly listenable.”)
The most recent is “The Giant Pool of Money,” the radio show
This American Life’s 2008 episode about the subprime mortgage crisis.
Other nonmusical recordings include Phil Rizzo’s
play-by-play of Roger Maris’ 61st home run on October 1, 1961 (holy cow!), and
a 1945 radio episode of the soap opera “The Guiding Light,” described as the
longest running scripted program in broadcast history, having run on radio and
then television from 1937 to 2009.
The registry also includes lost pop hits like “Nikolina,” a
1917 song by Hjalmar Peterson, a Swedish immigrant who settled in Minnesota and
became hugely popular among Swedish Americans. Peterson recorded the song — described
as recounting “his comical difficulties with his father-in-law” — three times,
selling 100,00 copies total.
The registry includes 575 recordings in total. Some of the
newly selected recordings are already preserved by the copyright holders, the
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.
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