Do you know California's official state song? Listen to a 1913 recording and learn about Southern California's recorded sound archives with L.A. as Subject's latest contribution to KCET's SoCal Focus blog:
This week collectors, archivists, audio engineers, and recording historians from across the nation are meeting at the Wilshire Grand Hotel for the 45th-annual Conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC).
Since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, sound recordings have served as an invaluable resource for a variety of scholars, from anthropologists studying a dead language or lost culture to historians sifting through the secret history of the Nixon White House. For those researching our region's history, they also offer a rare echo of sounds from Southern California's past.
Several archives, libraries, and other cultural institutions across the Southland are home to major recorded sound collections.
Keep reading the full post on KCET's website.