MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Let's hear a very, very, very old recording, as in it was first released in 1891 on a wax cylinder.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THOMPSON'S OLD GRAY MULE")

LOUIS VASNIER: (Singing) Oh, Thompson had an old, gray mule. He drove him around in a cart.

KELLY: The audio fidelity is what you might expect for a wax cylinder from more than 130 years ago, but you can clearly hear the song is a version of "Old Gray Mule," which later became a country music standard.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The musician singing was Louis Vasnier, a Black man from New Orleans.

RICHARD MARTIN: We're claiming, rather provocatively, that maybe it could be the oldest country record in existence.

KELLY: That is Richard Martin. He and his wife own Archeophone Records, which is reissuing this song as a single on vinyl. He knows some people will scoff, but he also says that too often country music historians find ways to exclude Black performers.

MARTIN: Either, you know, they're from the wrong part of the country, or they're playing the wrong kind of instrument, or they're too early, or they're too late. And we wanted to push that line all the way to the beginning to where it could include this guy.

CHANG: Louis Vasnier was a stage performer. Archeophone's Richard Martin says minstrel shows and vaudeville were important influences on early country music. And he says Vasnier had talent.

MARTIN: His ability to conjure up the snorting, heehawing of the mule...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THOMPSON'S OLD GRAY MULE")

VASNIER: (Imitating mule).

MARTIN: ...Is just hilarious and a tour de force.

KELLY: The song is "Thompson's Old Gray Mule" by Louis Vasnier. It's also the oldest known recording from New Orleans. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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