Thursday, January 30, 2020

Old cylinder recordings and my grandfather

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The UCSB Library invites you to discover and listen to its online archive of cylinder recordings; donate to help the collection grow; and learn about how these sounds and songs create an audio history of American culture.

The UC Santa Barbara Library has a digital library of a lot of old cylinder recording from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

They have all types of recordings from music, speeches, sermons, vaudeville etc. I love listening to them and can spend hours just browsing the collection.

Then I came upon this recording:  He'd have to get out and get under (to fix up his automobile).

I then recalled an old photo of my Grandfather, Clyde Lee Webb from circa 1915.


 Clyde is the man under the car. The other person is unknown.

According to the site the song was released about 1913, so it may have been fairly popular back then. I wonder if the writing was a reference to the song. It's seems quite likely. Putting a pop-culture reference on a photo is something I would definitely do.

It's kind of  strange. When I knew my grandfather he impatient and seemed humorless and not much fun to be around. Something as simple as this all these years later kind of makes me feel a little closer to him.