I recently discovered the Victor Victrola Homepagewhile browsing and I want to thank its creator Paul Edie for his selfless love of old phonographs bearing the Victor name and also point out that he is a supporter of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic otherwise known as RFB&D.
In my memoir Eavesdropping I describe my early childhood experiences playing alone in my grandmother’s attic in New Hampshire where I listened to a Victrola and discovered the voice of Enrico Caruso. Later in the book I relate how I made my way to Ocean City in Brooklyn to visit the The Enrico Caruso Museum of America.
There are subrosa worlds of collectors in every sphere of life but I think true lovers of the manual, pre-electric gramophone are more than mere collectors or habitues of private guilds: we are believers in a remarkable sound, the sound of the human voice captured without electric microphones or any kind of sophisticated wizardry. Because all of Enrico Caruso’s recordings were made for the phonograph and were recorded before the invention of the electric microphone there is a three dimensional quality to the sound of Caruso’s voice that no digital or analog recording of later tenors has ever achieved.
For my money the greatest high C ever sung occurs in Caruso’s recording of the aria Salut Demeure chaste et pure from Faust.
Thank you Mr. Edie for your devotion to the Victrola and for supporting Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
Both have made great portions of my inner life possible.
Even if you’re not interested in wind up gramophones I think you will find Mr. Edie’s site well worth visiting.
SK
Planet of the Blind 