National Recording Registry
2008
Table:
Recording or collection

Performer or agent

Year

National
Archives

"No News, or What Killed the Dog"

Nat M. Wills

1908

Acoustic recordings for Victor Talking Machine Company

Jascha Heifetz

1917–1924

"Night Life"

Mary Lou Williams

1930

Sounds of the ivory-billed woodpecker

Recorded by Arthur Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg

1935

Gang Busters

1935–1957

"Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"

The Andrews Sisters

1938

"O Que É Que A Baiana Tem?"

Carmen Miranda

1939

NBC Radio coverage of Marian Anderson's recital at the Lincoln Memorial

Marian Anderson

April 9, 1939

"Tom Dooley"

Frank Proffitt

1940

Mary Margaret McBride

Mary Margaret McBride and Zora Neale Hurston

January 25, 1943

"Uncle Sam Blues"
(V-Disc)

Oran "Hot Lips" Page, accompanied by Eddie Condon's Jazz Band

1944

"Sinews of Peace" (Iron Curtain) Speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri

Winston Churchill

March 5, 1946

"The Churkendoose"

Ray Bolger

1947

"Boogie Chillen'"

John Lee Hooker

1948

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Dylan Thomas

1952

A Festival of Lessons and Carols as Sung on Christmas Eve in King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

King's College Choir; Boris Ord, director

1954

West Side Story

Original cast

1957

"Tom Dooley"

The Kingston Trio

1958

"Rumble"

Link Wray

1958

The Play of Daniel: A Twelfth-Century Drama

New York Pro Musica under the direction of Noah Greenberg

1958

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Nat M. Wills ( born Louis McGrath Wills ) ( July 11 , 1873 - December 9 , 1917 ) , was a popular stage star , vaudeville entertainer , and recording artist at the beginning of the 20th century . He is best known for his tramp persona and for performing humorous or satirical musical numbers , including parodies of popular songs of the day .
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American record company and phonograph manufacturer headquartered in Camden , New Jersey . The company was founded by engineer Eldridge R. Johnson , who had previously made gramophones to play Emile Berliner 's disc records . After a series of legal wranglings between Berliner , Johnson and their former business partners , the two joined to form the Consolidated Talking Machine Co. in order to combine the patents for the record with Johnson 's patents improving its fidelity . Victor Talking Machine Co. was incorporated officially in 1901 shortly before agreeing to allow Columbia Records use of its disc record patent .
Jascha Heifetz ( /ˈhaɪfɪts/ ; February 2 [ O.S . January 20 ] 1901 - December 10 , 1987 ) was a Russian-American violinist . Many consider him the greatest violinist of all time . [ better source needed ] Born in Vilna ( Vilnius ) , he moved as a teenager to the United States , where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received . He was a virtuoso since childhood - Fritz Kreisler , another leading violinist of the twentieth century , said on hearing Heifetz 's debut , We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees . He had a long and successful performing career . However , after an injury to his right ( bowing ) arm , he switched his focus to teaching . Late in life , Heifetz became a dedicated teacher and a champion of socio-political causes . He publicly advocated to establish 911 as an emergency phone number , and crusaded for clean air . He and his students at the University of Southern California protested smog by wearing gas masks , and in 1967 he converted his Renault passenger car into an electric vehicle .
Mary Lou Williams ( born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs ; May 8 , 1910 - May 28 , 1981 ) was an American jazz pianist , arranger , and composer . She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records ( in 78 , 45 , and LP versions ) . Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman , and she was friend , mentor , and teacher to Thelonious Monk , Charlie Parker , Miles Davis , Tadd Dameron , Bud Powell , and Dizzy Gillespie .
The ivory-billed woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis ) is one of the largest woodpeckers in the world , at roughly 20 inches ( 51 cm ) long and 30 inches ( 76 cm ) in wingspan . It is native to the bottomland hardwood forests and temperate coniferous forests of the southeastern United States and Cuba . Habitat destruction and , to a lesser extent , hunting has reduced populations so thoroughly that the species is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature , and the American Birding Association lists the ivory-billed woodpecker as a class 6 species , a category it defines as definitely or probably extinct . The last universally accepted sighting of an American ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in Louisiana in 1944 . However , sporadic reports of sightings and other evidence of the birds ' persistence have continued ever since . In the 21st century reported sightings and analyses of audio and visual recordings have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals as evidence the species persists in Arkansas , Louisiana , and Florida . Various land purchases and habitat restoration efforts have been initiated in areas where sightings and other evidence have suggested a relatively high probability the species exists , to protect any surviving individuals .
Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories . It premiered on January 15 , 1936 , and was broadcast over 21 years through November 27 , 1957 .
Bei Mir Bistu Shein ( Yiddish : בײַ מיר ביסטו שיין , [ ˌbaj ˈmir ˌbistu ˈʃejn ] , To Me You 're Beautiful ) is a popular Yiddish song written by Jacob Jacobs ( lyricist ) and Sholom Secunda ( composer ) for a 1932 Yiddish language comedy musical , I Would If I Could ( in Yiddish , Men Ken Lebn Nor Men Lost Nisht , You could live , but they do n't let you ) , which closed after one season ( at the Parkway Theatre in Brooklyn , New York City ) . The score for the song transcribed the Yiddish title as Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn . The original Yiddish version of the song ( in C minor ) is a dialogue between two lovers . Five years after its 1932 composition , the song became a worldwide hit when recorded under a Germanized title as Bei Mir Bist Du Schön by The Andrews Sisters in November 1937 . Neil W. Levin , a scholar of Jewish music , has contended that Bei Mir Bistu Shein is the world 's best-known and longest-reigning Yiddish theater song of all time . Echoing these sentiments , writer Stephen J. Whitfield has further posited that the song 's popularity and influence in pre-war America epitomizes how a minority [ immigrant ] culture can transform the popular arts of a large democratic nation .
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras . The group consisted of three sisters : contralto LaVerne Sophia ( July 6 , 1911 - May 8 , 1967 ) , soprano Maxene Anglyn ( January 3 , 1916 - October 21 , 1995 ) , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie Patty ( February 16 , 1918 - January 30 , 2013 ) . It is claimed that the sisters have sold more than 90 million records . Their 1941 hit Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy can be considered an early example of rhythm and blues or jump blues . Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit , Bei Mir Bist Du Schön ( Means That You 're Grand ) ( 1937 ) , Beer Barrel Polka ( Roll Out the Barrel ) ( 1939 ) , Beat Me Daddy , Eight to the Bar ( 1940 ) , Do n't Sit Under the Apple Tree ( With Anyone Else but Me ) ( 1942 ) , and Rum and Coca Cola ( 1945 ) , which helped introduce American audiences to calypso . The Andrews Sisters ' harmonies and songs are still influential today , and have been copied and recorded by entertainers such as Bette Midler , Christina Aguilera , Pentatonix , and others . The group was among the inaugural inductees to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame upon its opening in 1998 . Writing for Bloomberg , Mark Schoifet said the sisters became the most popular female vocal group of the first half of the 20th century . They are still widely acclaimed today for their famous close harmonies . They were inducted into the Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame in May 2006 .
O que é que a baiana tem ? ( English : What does the woman from Bahia have ? ) is a song composed by Dorival Caymmi in 1939 and recorded by Carmen Miranda . The song was immortalized in the voice of the Brazilian artist Carmen Miranda , who played this samba in the film Banana da Terra ( 1939 ) , directed by Ruy Costa . Besides the film Banana da Terra , O que é que a baiana tem ? was presented by Miranda in the Broadway musical revue The Streets of Paris between 1939 and 1940 , and in the movie Greenwich Village ( 1944 ) .
Carmen Miranda GCIH OMC ( Portuguese pronunciation : [ ˈkaɾmẽȷ̃ miˈɾɐ̃dɐ ] ; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha ; February 9 , 1909 - August 5 , 1955 ) , was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer , dancer , Broadway actress , and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s . Nicknamed The Brazilian Bombshell , Miranda is noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in her American films . As a young woman , she designed hats in a boutique before making her first recordings with composer Josué de Barros in 1929 . Miranda 's 1930 recording of Taí ( Pra Você Gostar de Mim ) , written by Joubert de Carvalho , catapulted her to stardom in Brazil as the foremost interpreter of samba . During the 1930s Miranda performed on Brazilian radio and appeared in five Brazilian chanchadas , films celebrating Brazilian music , dance , and the country 's carnival culture . Hello , Hello Brazil ! and Hello , Hello , Carnival ! embodied the spirit of these early Miranda films . The 1939 musical Banana da Terra ( directed by Ruy Costa ) gave the world her Baiana image , inspired by African-Brazilians from the northeastern state of Bahia . In 1939 , Broadway producer Lee Shubert offered Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris after seeing her at Cassino da Urca in Rio de Janeiro . The following year she made her first Hollywood film , Down Argentine Way with Don Ameche and Betty Grable , and her exotic clothing and Lusophone accent became her trademark . That year , she was voted the third-most-popular personality in the United States ; she and her group , Bando da Lua , were invited to sing and dance for President Franklin D. Roosevelt .
The National Broadcasting Company ( NBC ) is an American English-language commercial terrestrial radio and television network that is a flagship property of NBCUniversal , a subsidiary of Comcast . The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City , with additional major offices near Los Angeles ( at 10 Universal City Plaza ) , Chicago ( at the NBC Tower ) and Philadelphia ( at the Comcast Technology Center ) . The network is one of the Big Three television networks . NBC is sometimes referred to as the Peacock Network , in reference to its stylized peacock logo , introduced in 1956 to promote the company 's innovations in early color broadcasting . It became the network 's official emblem in 1979 . Founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America ( RCA ) , NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States . At that time the parent company of RCA was General Electric ( GE ) . In 1932 , GE was forced to sell RCA and NBC as a result of antitrust charges . In 1986 , control of NBC passed back to General Electric ( GE ) through its $ 6.4 billion purchase of RCA . GE immediately began to liquidate RCA 's various divisions , but retained NBC . Following the acquisition by GE , Bob Wright served as chief executive officer of NBC , remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007 , when he was succeeded by Jeff Zucker . In 2003 , French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE , forming NBC Universal .
Marian Anderson ( February 27 , 1897 - April 8 , 1993 ) was an American singer of classical music and spirituals . Music critic Alan Blyth said : Her voice was a rich , vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty . She performed in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965 . Although offered roles with many important European opera companies , Anderson declined , as she had no training in acting . She preferred to perform in concert and recital only . She did , however , perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals . She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire , which ranged from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals . Between 1940 and 1965 the German-American pianist Franz Rupp was her permanent accompanist . Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century . In 1939 , the Daughters of the American Revolution ( DAR ) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington , DC . The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician . With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt , Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday , April 9 , 1939 , on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the capital .
Tom Dooley is a North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County , North Carolina , allegedly by Tom Dula . The song is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio . This version was a multi-format hit , which reached # 1 in Billboard and the Billboard R & B listing , and appeared in the Cashbox Country Music Top 20 . The song was selected as one of the American Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America ( RIAA ) , the National Endowment for the Arts , and Scholastic Inc. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time . Tom Dooley fits within the wider genre of Appalachian sweetheart murder ballads . A local poet named Thomas Land wrote a song about the tragedy , titled Tom Dooley ( which was how Dula 's name was pronounced ) , shortly after Dula was hanged . In the documentary Appalachian Journey ( 1991 ) , folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the original source for the song , which was misleading only in that he did n't write it . There are several earlier known recordings , notably one that Grayson and Whitter made in 1929 , approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording . The Kingston Trio took their version from Frank Warner 's singing . Warner had learned the song from Proffitt , who learned it from his Aunt Nancy Prather , whose parents had known both Laura Foster and Tom Dula . In a 1967 interview , Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio recounts first hearing the song from another performer , and then being criticized and sued for taking credit for the song . Supported by the testimony of Anne and Frank Warner , Frank Proffitt was eventually acknowledged by the courts as the preserver of the original version of the song , and the Kingston Trio were ordered to pay royalties to him for their uncredited use of it .
Frank Noah Proffitt ( June 1 , 1913 - November 24 , 1965 ) was an Appalachian old time banjoist who preserved the song Tom Dooley in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the traditional five-string banjo . He was born in Laurel Bloomery , Tennessee and was raised in the Reese area of Watauga County , North Carolina where he worked in a variety of jobs and lived on a farm with his wife and six children . He grew tobacco , worked as a carpenter , and in a spark plug factory . He was known for his skills as a carpenter and luthier ; Proffitt 's fretless banjos and dulcimers were homemade . In 1937 , Frank Proffitt met folksong collectors Anne and Frank Warner . Frank Warner was searching for a dulcimer builder and thus began a 30-year friendship and song swapping . Warner collected his songs and shared them with Alan Lomax , who included many , including the ballad Tom Dooley that Warner had learned from Proffitt , in his book , Folksong U.S.A. Proffitt had learned the song from his aunt Nancy Prather , who had in turn learnt it from her mother Edy Adeline ( Pardue ) Proffitt , who had known both Dula ( locally pronounced Dooley ) and Laura Foster . The Kingston Trio learned Tom Dooley from a recording by Warner , and were eventually required by court judgement to acknowledge their debt to Proffitt and pay him royalties for the use of the song . Proffitt recorded Tom Dooley and other ballad songs in 1961 , on the album Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs , edited by Warner and issued by Folkways Records . A second set of Proffitt 's recordings , Frank Proffitt of Reece NC : Traditional Songs and Ballads of Appalachia , was released in 1962 , and Proffitt performed at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival . He also performed at the 1964 New York World 's Fair , and recorded several more tracks released on the compilation album High Atmosphere : Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina . Proffitt died in 1965 , aged 52 .
Mary Margaret McBride ( November 16 , 1899 - April 7 , 1976 ) was an American radio interview host and writer . Her popular radio shows spanned more than 40 years . In the 1940s the daily audience for her housewife-oriented program numbered from six to eight million listeners . She was called The First Lady of Radio .
Zora Neale Hurston ( January 7 , 1891 - January 28 , 1960 ) was an American author , anthropologist , and filmmaker . She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1700s- American South and published research on Hoodoo . The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God , published in 1937 . She also wrote more than 50 short stories , plays , and essays . Hurston was born in Notasulga , Alabama , and moved with her family to Eatonville , Florida , in 1894 . She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories . It is now the site of the Zora ! Festival , held each year in her honor . In her early career , Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic research while a student at Barnard College and Columbia University . She had an interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore , and how these contributed to the community 's identity . She also wrote fiction about contemporary issues in the black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance . Her short satires , drawing from the African-American experience and racial division , were published in anthologies such as The New Negro and Fire !
V-Disc ( V for Victory ) was a record label that was formed in 1943 to provide records for U.S. military personnel . Captain Robert Vincent supervised the label from the Special Services division . The label was a morale-boosting initiative involving the production of recordings during World War II by arrangement between the U.S. government and record companies . Many popular singers , big bands , and orchestras recorded V-discs . The name referred to both the label and the discs , which were 12-inch vinyl 78s produced from October 1943 to May 1949 .
Oran Thaddeus Hot Lips Page ( January 27 , 1908 - November 5 , 1954 ) was an American jazz trumpeter , singer , and bandleader . He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist . Page was a member of Walter Page 's Blue Devils , Artie Shaw 's Orchestra and Count Basie 's Orchestra , and he worked with Ma Rainey , Bessie Smith and Ida Cox . He was one of the five musicians who opened Birdland with Charlie Parker in 1949 .
Albert Edwin Eddie Condon ( November 16 , 1905 - August 4 , 1973 ) was an American jazz banjoist , guitarist , and bandleader . A leading figure in Chicago jazz , he also played piano and sang .
The Iron Curtain was initially a non-physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991 . The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union ( USSR ) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states . On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union , while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members or nominally neutral . Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain . It later became a term for the 7,000-kilometre ( 4,300 mi ) long physical barrier of fences , walls , minefields , and watchtowers that divided the east and west . The Berlin Wall was also part of this physical barrier . The nations to the east of the Iron Curtain were Poland , East Germany , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , Bulgaria , Albania , and the USSR ; however , East Germany , Czechoslovakia , and the USSR have since ceased to exist . Countries that made up the USSR were Russia , Belarus , Latvia , Ukraine , Estonia , Moldova , Armenia , Azerbaijan , Georgia , Uzbekistan , Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , Lithuania , Turkmenistan , and Kazakhstan . The events that demolished the Iron Curtain started with peaceful opposition in Poland , and continued into Hungary , East Germany , Bulgaria , and Czechoslovakia . Romania became the only communist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence . The use of the term Iron Curtain as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century . It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters .
Westminster College is a private , residential , undergraduate college with a curriculum based on the liberal arts . Located in Fulton , Missouri , the College was established in 1851 as Fulton College . The National Churchill Museum ( formerly known as the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library ) is a national historic site located on campus .
Fulton is the largest city in and the county seat of Callaway County , Missouri , United States . Approximately 22 miles ( 35 km ) northeast of Jefferson City and the Missouri River and 20 miles ( 32 km ) east of Columbia , the city is part of the Jefferson City , Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area . The population was 12,790 in the 2010 census . The city is home to two universities , Westminster College and William Woods University , the Missouri School for the Deaf , the Fulton State Hospital , and Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center ( state prison ) .
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill ( 30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965 ) was a British politician , army officer , and writer . He was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 , when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War , and again from 1951 to 1955 . Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament ( MP ) . Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist , for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party , which he led from 1940 to 1955 , but from 1904 to 1924 was a member of the Liberal Party . Of mixed English and American parentage , Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy , aristocratic family . He joined the British Army in 1895 , and saw action in British India , the Anglo-Sudan War , and the Second Boer War , gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns . Elected an MP in 1900 , initially as a Conservative , he defected to the Liberals in 1904 . In H. H. Asquith 's Liberal government , Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade , Home Secretary , and First Lord of the Admiralty , championing prison reform and workers ' social security . During the First World War , he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign ; after it proved a disaster , he resigned from government and served in the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front . In 1917 , he returned to government under David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions , then as Secretary of State for War and Air , and finally for the Colonies , overseeing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and Britain 's Middle East policy . After two years out of Parliament , he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin 's Conservative government , returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity , a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy . Out of office during the 1930s , Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat from Nazi Germany .
Raymond Wallace Bolger ( January 10 , 1904 - January 15 , 1987 ) was an American film and television actor , vaudevillian , singer , dancer ( particularly of tap ) and stage performer ( particularly musical theatre ) who started in the silent film era . He was a major Broadway performer in the 1930s and beyond ( see below ) . He is best known for his role as the Scarecrow and his Kansas counterpart farm worker Hunk in MGM 's classic The Wizard of Oz ( 1939 ) and the villainous Barnaby in Walt Disney 's musical fantasy Babes in Toyland . He was also the host of his eponymous television show , The Ray Bolger Show .
Boogie Chillen ' or Boogie Chillun [ c ] is a blues song first recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1948 . It is a solo performance featuring Hooker 's vocal , electric guitar , and rhythmic foot stomps . The lyrics are partly autobiographical and alternate between spoken and sung verses . The song was his debut record release and in 1949 , it became the first down-home electric blues song to reach number one in the R & B records chart . Hooker 's song was part of a trend in the late 1940s to a new style of urban electric blues based on earlier Delta blues idioms . Although it is called a boogie , it resembles early North Mississippi Hill country blues rather than the boogie-woogie piano-derived style of the 1930s and 1940s . Hooker gave credit to his stepfather , Will Moore , who taught him the rhythm of Boogie Chillen ' ( chillen ' is a phonetic approximation of Hooker 's pronunciation of children ) when he was a teenager . Some of the song 's lyrics are derived from earlier blues songs . Hooker 's guitar work on the song inspired several well-known guitarists to take up the instrument . With its driving style and focus on rhythm , it is also considered a forerunner of rock and roll . Music critic Cub Koda calls the guitar figure from Boogie Chillen ' the riff that launched a million songs . Several rock musicians have patterned successful songs either directly or indirectly on Hooker 's many versions of Boogie Chillen ' .
John Lee Hooker ( August 22 , 1917 - June 21 , 2001 ) was an American blues singer , songwriter , and guitarist . The son of a sharecropper , he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues . Hooker often incorporated other elements , including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues . He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style , distinct from the 1930s-1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie . Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stones 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists . Some of his best known songs include Boogie Chillen ' ( 1948 ) , Crawling King Snake ( 1949 ) , Dimples ( 1956 ) , Boom Boom ( 1962 ) , and One Bourbon , One Scotch , One Beer ( 1966 ) . Several of his later albums , including The Healer ( 1989 ) , Mr. Lucky ( 1991 ) , Chill Out ( 1995 ) , and Do n't Look Back ( 1997 ) , were album chart successes in the U.S. and UK . The Healer ( for the song I 'm In The Mood ) and Chill Out ( for the album ) both earned him Grammy wins as well as Do n't Look Back , which went on to earn him a double-Grammy win for Best Traditional Blues Recording and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals ( with Van Morrison ) .
A Child 's Christmas in Wales is a piece of prose by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recorded by Thomas in 1952 . Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio , the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a young boy , portraying a nostalgic and simpler time . It is one of Thomas 's most popular works . As with his poetry , A Child 's Christmas in Wales does not have a tight narrative structure but instead uses descriptive passages in a fictionalised autobiographical style , designed to create an emotive sense of the nostalgia Thomas is intending to evoke , remembering a Christmas from the viewpoint of the author as a young boy . Thomas searches for a nostalgic belief in Christmases past - It was snowing . It was always snowing at Christmas - furthering his idyllic memory of childhood by describing the snow as being better and more exciting than the snow experienced as an adult . The dissertation , with exaggerated characters for comedic effect , show how childhood memories are enlarged through youthful interpretation .
Dylan Marlais Thomas ( 27 October 1914 - 9 November 1953 ) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems Do not go gentle into that good night and And death shall have no dominion ; the 'play for voices ' Under Milk Wood ; and stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child 's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog . He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature death at the age of 39 in New York City . By then he had acquired a reputation , which he had encouraged , as a roistering , drunken and doomed poet . Thomas was born in Swansea , Wales , in 1914 . An undistinguished pupil , he left school at 16 and became a journalist for a short time . Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager , and the publication in 1934 of Light breaks where no sun shines caught the attention of the literary world . While living in London , Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara , whom he married in 1937 . In 1938 , they moved to the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne where from 1949 they settled permanently and brought up their three children . Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime , though he found earning a living as a writer difficult . He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts . His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to the public 's attention , and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene . Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s .
Nine Lessons and Carols , also known as the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols and Service of Nine Lessons and Carols , is a service of Christian worship traditionally celebrated on or near Christmas Eve . The story of the fall of humanity , the promise of the Messiah , and the birth of Jesus is told in nine short Bible readings or lessons from Genesis , the prophetic books and the Gospels , interspersed with the singing of Christmas carols , hymns and choir anthems .
The King 's College Choir is an English choir . It is considered one of today 's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition . It was created by King Henry VI , who founded King 's College , Cambridge , in 1441 , to provide daily singing in his Chapel , which remains the main task of the choir to this day . Today the choir is directed by Daniel Hyde and derives much of its fame from the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols , broadcast worldwide to millions on Christmas Eve every year , and the TV service Carols from King 's which accompanies it . The choir commissions a carol from a contemporary composer for each year 's Festival .
Boris Ord ( born Bernhard Ord ) , CBE ( 9 July 1897 - 30 December 1961 ) was a British organist and choirmaster of King 's College , Cambridge ( 1929-1957 ) . During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force . He is best known for his choral setting of Adam lay ybounden , his only published composition .
West Side Story ( Original Broadway Cast ) is the 1957 recording of a Broadway production of the musical West Side Story . Recorded 3 days after the show opened at the Winter Garden Theatre , the recording was released in October 1957 in both mono and stereo formats . In 1962 , the album reached # 5 on Billboard 's Pop Album chart . It certified gold by the RIAA on January 12 , 1962 . The album was reissued in 1973 and made its first appearance on CD in 1986 . A 1997 remastered edition is coupled with an orchestral suite named Symphonic Dances from West Side Story recomposed and conducted by its original composer Leonard Bernstein and performed by the New York Philharmonic recorded at the Manhattan Center on March 6 , 1961 . It was recorded at the CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City .
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s . The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard , Bob Shane , and Nick Reynolds . It rose to international popularity , fueled by unprecedented sales of LP records , and helped alter the direction of popular music in the U.S . The Kingston Trio was one of the most prominent groups of the era 's pop-folk boom that started in 1958 with the release of their first album and its hit recording of Tom Dooley , which sold over three million copies as a single . The Trio released nineteen albums that made Billboard 's Top 100 , fourteen of which ranked in the top 10 , and five of which hit the number 1 spot . Four of the group 's LPs charted among the 10 top-selling albums for five weeks in November and December 1959 , a record unmatched for more than 50 years , and the group still ranks in the all-time lists of many of Billboard 's cumulative charts , including those for most weeks with a number 1 album , most total weeks charting an album , most number 1 albums , most consecutive number 1 albums , and most top ten albums . In 1961 , the Trio was described as the most envied , the most imitated , and the most successful singing group , folk or otherwise , in all show business and the undisputed kings of the folksinging rage by every yardstick . The Trio 's massive record sales in its early days made acoustic folk music commercially viable , paving the way for singer-songwriter , folk rock , and Americana artists who followed in their wake . The Kingston Trio continues to tour as of 2020 with musicians who licensed the name and trademark in 2017 .
Rumble is an instrumental by American group Link Wray & His Ray Men . Released in the United States on March 31 , 1958 , as a single ( with The Swag as a B-side ) , [ citation needed ] Rumble utilized the techniques of distortion and feedback , then largely unexplored in rock and roll . The single is the only instrumental ever banned from radio in the United States . It is also one of the first tunes to use the power chord , the major modus operandi of the modern rock guitarist . In 2018 , the song was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a new category for singles .
Fred Lincoln Link Wray , Jr. ( May 2 , 1929 - November 5 , 2005 ) was a Shawnee rock and roll guitarist , songwriter , and vocalist who became popular in the late 1950s . Building on the distorted electric guitar sound of early records , his 1958 instrumental hit Rumble by Link Wray & His Ray Men popularized the power chord , the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists , facilitating the emergence of punk and heavy rock . Rolling Stone placed Wray at No . 45 of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time . In 2013 and 2017 he was a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . Though he began in country music , his musical style went on to consist primarily of rock and roll , rockabilly , and instrumental rock .
The Play of Daniel , or Ludus Danielis , is either of two medieval Latin liturgical dramas based on the biblical Book of Daniel , one of which is accompanied by monophonic music . Two medieval plays of Daniel survive . The first is one of the plays in the Fleury Playbook , a 13th-century manuscript containing ten liturgical dramas ; the text is by Hilarius , and no music accompanies it . The play itself dates from c. 1140 . The second is a 13th-century drama with monophonic music , written about 1227 to 1234 by students at the school of Beauvais Cathedral , located in northern France . A large portion of the text is poetic rather than strictly liturgical in origin ; it closely follows the narrative of the biblical story of Daniel at the court of Belshazzar . In the US the latter play was revived in the 1950s by Noah Greenberg , director of the New York Pro Musica ; a commentary in English , written and performed by W. H. Auden , was used in some of their performances . A recorded 1958 performance by the group at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and featuring boy choristers of the Church of the Transfiguration as satraps and soldiers , was released by Decca , with sleeve notes by Paul Henry Lang and Dom Rembert Weakland , O.S.B. , who had discovered the text at the British Library . Since the New York Pro Musica production it has enjoyed many performances among early music troupes . Also important in the history of modern revivals of the Beauvais Cathedral version , Daniel was the 1985 production of the Boston Camerata , staged by Andrea von Ramm , with musical direction by Joel Cohen . In 2008 , The Dufay Collective and William Lyons released their CD , The Play of Daniel on the Harmonia Mundi usa label . A new production of the Play of Daniel by the Boston Camerata , this time under the direction of French-born medievalist Anne Azéma , was presented in Boston in November , 2014 .
New York Pro Musica was a vocal and instrumental ensemble that specialized in medieval and Renaissance music . It was co-founded in 1952 , under the name Pro Musica Antiqua , by Noah Greenberg , a choral director , and Bernard Krainis , a recorder player who studied with Erich Katz . Other prominent musicians who joined included Russell Oberlin ( the first American counter-tenor ) and Martha Blackman ( the first American gambist ) and Frederick Renz , who founded Early Music Foundation after Pro Musica disbanded . The ensemble is perhaps best known for reviving the medieval Play of Daniel in the 1950s , which has since become a popular liturgical drama among early music groups . The group gave its first concert at the New School for Social Research in New York City on April 26 , 1953 . The ensemble performed in 1960 for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston . The group continued after Greenberg 's death in 1966 and disbanded in 1974 . Greenberg 's successor , musicologist John Reeves White , took over the direction of the ensemble in 1966 ; the last director was George Houle , who tried to bring the group more in line with trends in Europe at a time when the United States was not ready for such changes . Houle went on to teach musicology at Stanford University .