Camden, New Jersey, and the History of Recorded Sound

The Victor Talking Machine Company, which went on to become RCA Victor, was the home of Camden's recording industry. 

Audio History-How the LP was Invented
The Birth of the Recording Industry
Douglas Shearer: Originating Sound for Film 1899-1971
Emile Berliner - (1851 - 1929) (Biographies of Canadian Broadcasting)
Emile Berliner, Eldrige Reeves Johnson, and the Gramophone
The History of Recorded Music: 1800's | 1900's-1920's 
Irving Wolff Interview, 1976 (RCA Engineers Collection)
Irving Wolff - Oral History
Leon F. Douglass: Inventor and Victor's First Vice-President
A Quarter Century of Pre-History
Victor In The West: The Oakland Pressing Plant 
Victor orchestra recording in Camden (two photos at Microphones part 2 - The Electrical Era)
Victor's Orthophonic Credenza - the King of Machines?
Victor: Record company and label
Who was Leon Douglass?

V-Discs

During World War II, and during a strike by the American Federation of Musicians, special recordings known as V-Discs were sent from RCA's Camden plant to U.S. troops overseas.  As part of the war effort, the record companies and the unions, including the striking musicians, waived fees and royalties so that the servicemen could receive these sounds from home.

A History of V-Discs
V-Discs: Milestones and Turn Signals 
Victory Music: The Story of the V-Disc Record Label (1943-1949)
The Toscanini V-Discs

Recorded in Camden

Visit the sites below to read about, and often hear, the sounds that filled the air in Victor's Camden recording studios. 

Irving Aaronson and his Commanders
Irving Aaronson and his Commanders (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Samuel Barber
Barber: Dover Beach, Op. 3.

Roy Bargy 
Roy Bargy (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

Benson Orchestra of Chicago
Benson Orchestra of Chicago (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
The Benson Orch (The Great American Big Bands on the Big Bands Database Plus)

Henry Burr
Henry Burr

Busse's Buzzards
Busse's Buzzards (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

The Carter Family
The Carter Family: 50 Years Of Outstanding Contributions
Engine 143 (Anthology of American Folk Music, Supplemental Notes on the Selections) 
Give Me the Roses While I Live: Their Complete Victor Recordings 1932-33 - The Carter Family
John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man (Anthology of American Folk Music, Supplemental Notes on the Selections)
Little Moses (Anthology of American Folk Music, Supplemental Notes on the Selections)
Wildwood Flower (Internet Archive)

Enrico Caruso
Caruso on Stage
Enrico Caruso RIGOLETTO: Bella figlia dell'amore (Verdi).
Ingram v. Bowers (District Court, S.D. New York, 47 F.2d 925; 1931 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1201; 9 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 1034, February 9, 1931)
Over There (Internet Archives)
The Victor Talking Machine Company (includes a recording of "Over There" sung by Enrico Caruso and recorded in Camden).

Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra
Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

Antonio Cortis
Antonio Cortis

Bing Crosby
Malcolm Macfarlane's Bing Crosby Diary 1903-29

The Duncan Sisters
Duncan Sister's: In Sweet Onion Time
Duncan Sister's: Rememb'ring

Mellie Dunham
Mellie Dunham: Maine's Champion Fiddler

Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 
ATS - Sounding Board - Duke Ellington Orchestra

Seger Ellis & His Choir of Brass Orchestra
Seger Ellis & his Choir of Brass Orch (The Great American Big Bands on the Big Bands Database Plus)

Fiechtl's Tyrolean Yodlers
Fiechtl's Tyrolean Yodlers (Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century, University of Iowa Libraries)

Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi

Johanna Gadski
"New CD Label Captures the Vitality of Historical Recordings"

Alma Gluck
"New CD Label Captures the Vitality of Historical Recordings"

Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra
Bix's Fellow Musicians
Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Woody Guthrie
I Ain't Got No Home (Woody Guthrie/tune: "This World Is Not My Home") (1938)
Woody Guthrie: "Dust Bowl Ballads" (RCA Victor) (1940)
Woody Guthrie's "Dust Bowl Ballads" drew the road map for Bob Dylan and Ramblin' Jack. A reissue recaptures the parched glory
Woody Guthrie: The People's Troubadour

Carl Stuart Hamblen
Carl Stuart Hamblen

Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders
Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Kelly Harrell and the Virginia String Band
Charles Giteau (Anthology of American Folk Music, Supplemental Notes on the Selections)
My Name is John Johanna (Anthology of American Folk Music, Supplemental Notes on the Selections)

Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (The New Criterion)
Jascha Heifetz [sound recording] : the early Victor recordings (1917-18) (Catalog record from the Ithaca College Library)

Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

Isham Jones and his Orchestra
Isham Jones and his Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Whitey Kaufman's Original Pennsylvania Serenaders
Whitey Kaufman's Original Pennsylvania Serenaders (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Slim Lamar and his Southerners
Slim Lamar and his Southerners (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Art Landry and His Orchestra
Art Landry and His Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
Art Landry & his Call of the North Orch (The Great American Big Bands on the Big Bands Database Plus) 

The Limeliters
The Original Limeliters:Through Children's Eyes - 1962 Liner Notes

Louisiana Sugar Babes
Louisiana Sugar Babes (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Harry Macdonough
Harry Macdonough (The Virtual Gramophone)

William J. Mullaly
The Green Groves Of Erin/The Ivy Leaf (Internet Archive)

Gregory Matusewitch
Gregory Matusewitch (The Matusewitch Family: Concertina and Accordion Virtuosi--Russia, Europe and the United States)

John McCormack
John McCormack - The Minstrel Boy
John McCormack & Fritz Kreisler in Recital
McCormack Victor Electrical Recordings
McCormack: Victor/HMV Acoustic Recordings

"Rosy" McHargue (see also Seattle Harmony Kings)
"Rosy" McHargue, 1902 - 1999

McKinney's Cotton Pickers
McKinney's Cotton Pickers (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

Jelly Roll Morton
Ferd 'Jelly Roll' Morton, 1890-1941
Jelly Roll Morton and His Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra
Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
Moten, Benjamin "Bennie" (for dates and places of recordings, see Club KayCee Sounds: Kansas City Jazz History)

Oliver Naylor's Orchestra 
Oliver Naylor's Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive) 

King Oliver's Orchestra
King Oliver's Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Philadelphia Orcestra
Leopold Stokowski - The Music Of Richard Wagner

Arthur Pryor
Arthur Pryor: Ragtime Pioneer

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of  Paganini, Op. 43.

Ed Reavy
The Collected Compositions of Ed Reavy

Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers' Biography
Jimmie Rodgers (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum)
Jimmie Rodgers (American Music Archives)
The Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers (iMusic Contemporary Showcase)
The V-Roys & Jimmie Rodgers Tribute

Jesús María Sanromá
Sanromá, Jesús María - Classical

Seattle Harmony Kings (see also "Rosy" McHargue)
Seattle Harmony Kings (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Artie Shaw and His Orchestra
Artie Shaw and his Orchestra

Leroy Smith and his Orchestra
Leroy Smith and his Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Carl T. Sprague
"The Mormon Cowboy"

Arturo Toscanini
Toscanini, The Recorded Legend

Fats Waller
Fats Waller (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
Fats Waller and his Rhythm (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
Melodic Invention (Humanities, July/August 2000)
Resurrecting Fats
Thomas 'Fats' Waller Discography on CD
Thomas Waller with Morris' Hot Babies (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Waring's Pennsylvanians
Waring's Pennsylvanians (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Ted Weems and his Orchestra 
Ted Weems and his Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra
Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)
Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra: Charleston (Rhapsodies In Black: Music And Words From The Harlem Renaissance)

Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra
Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra (Red Hot Jazz Archive)

Various Artists
Dance Tunes from the Pennsylvania Coal Mines 1928-1930
The Fiddler's Companion
The Marion Hess Record Collection
“Polish Village Music”

Audio Engineering Society Historical Committee

Menlo Park in Edison New Jersey

Music (National Library of Canada)

The Music Library (University of California at Berkeley)

Phonograph Library (Nipperhead Antique Phonograph Site)
"A comprehensive list of currently available and out-of-print books relating to the phonograph, its developers, and related items."

The Recorded Sound Reference Center (Library of Congress)

William and Gayle Cook Music Library, (Indiana University Bloomington)
Includes Variations, a digital library project.  Access to recordings is restricted to the Simon Music Library and Recital Center building at Indiana University Bloomington.

Vincent Voice Library (Michigan State University)

Joseph Regenstein Library (University of Chicago)
Includes the Chicago Jazz Archive.

Photographs copyright © 1998-2005 by BJ Swartz. Permission is granted to use the photos as long as it is not for profit and not for reproduction in a publication without credit. If you do use a photo, I'd just like to know and would appreciate it if you would send a donation to St. Paul's Food Basket. Thanks!

BJ Swartz 
kelta@keltaskavern.com
Updated  June 16, 2007