A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Here's a story that's tailor-made for radio. Music journalist Jonathan Scott has written a book about the history of audio recording. It's called "Into The Groove: The Story Of Sound From Tin Foil To Vinyl." Scott says that while Thomas Edison is often credited with inventing audio recording, he wasn't the first to do it.
JONATHAN SCOTT: It was a Parisian named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, in the 1850s, invented a thing called a phonautograph. It was this ingenious device that you sort of bellowed into. It had a little diaphragm with a boar's bristle - basically a hair - that would capture the sound waves and then trace them out on lamp-blacked paper. So that's essentially tracing sound waves in soot.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, we have one of those recordings. The quality is not great. This is from 1860, a recording of "Clair De Lune."
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONAUTOGRAPH RECORDING OF SONG "AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE")
MARTÍNEZ: Now, you know, Jonathan, I feel bad by saying that the quality is not great. It's 164 years ago. My goodness, I should have a little bit more compassion that they actually recorded anything at all.
SCOTT: I know. It's just - honestly, I just got goose bumps. There's something amazing about that. Considering it is just on soot from 1860, I think it sounds pretty amazing.
MARTÍNEZ: So we mentioned Thomas Edison. So when did Thomas Edison enter the picture? What were his contributions to recorded sound?
SCOTT: His part in the story starts in 1877. Thomas Edison and his team of engineers managed to imprint sound waves in a strip of tinfoil. And you spoke - well, you really had to shout into a mouthpiece, and it could record sound and play it back. And that was a sensation. The upshot, though, was that the tinfoil phonograph, though brilliant, it was also not very useful because tinfoil doesn't sound great, and once you've played it back once or twice, it would wear out.
MARTÍNEZ: We're going to hear a very historic recording made at the Crystal Palace in London in 1888 then I want to talk about it. Let's listen to it first.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAX CYLINDER RECORDING OF SONG "ISRAEL IN EGYPT")
SCOTT: That is the sound of a choir of several thousand performing Handel's "Israel In Egypt." It was recorded in 1888, 10 years after Edison had first done the tinfoil phonograph, by then recording on hard wax cylinders, and it worked much, much better than the tinfoil. In the late 1880s and early 1890s is really when the music industry starts to kick off because, suddenly, human beings have these cylinders that they can record, and so they start going out and recording all kinds of interesting things and then trying to sell them to people.
MARTÍNEZ: So we have an example of this recording of the song "Mocking Bird" from the 1890s. Let's listen to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN YORKE ATLEE'S "THE MOCKING BIRD")
SCOTT: That was John Yorke AtLee, who was a government clerk by day in Washington, D.C., but, as you heard, a honey-voiced whistler by night. And he sold thousands of records, but there was no way of mass-producing recording. And to make a thousand copies of the song, he had to perform it 1,000 times.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter) Wow.
SCOTT: You know, and so it's just staggering to think of this poor man - and it was something about the fact that his voice and that whistling, that piercing whistling, could translate very well. So it was very popular.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, one of the first big stars to record his music was the opera singer Enrico Caruso. Let's listen to Caruso for a second here.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEFISTOFELES: DAI CAMPI, DAI PRATI")
ENRICO CARUSO: (Singing in non-English language).
MARTÍNEZ: That's Enrico Caruso from 1902. What was his contributions to the recording industry?
SCOTT: Well, by 1902, the disc-shaped records had come along. And Caruso was a huge opera star who had not recorded before that point. He recorded three sessions in 1902, and they were an absolute sensation. They sold thousands and thousands of copies, and it really sort of helped kick off modern music because the public were now excited and would pay to have a voice like that in their home.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M GONNA WASH THAT MAN RIGHT OUTA MY HAIR")
MARY MARTIN: (Singing) I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair. I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair. I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair and send him on his way.
MARTÍNEZ: The original cast recording of the musical "South Pacific" came out in 1949. Why was that important for you?
SCOTT: Well, vinyl first came out successfully in 1948. And "South Pacific" was a huge, huge hit, and having the entire Broadway recording on a single disc was so inspiring. And more than any other single album, that was the record that persuaded a whole generation to think, OK, I need to get myself a new turntable or rather a new stylus that will work with vinyl. Those cast recordings were so huge in the '30s, '40s and '50s.
MARTÍNEZ: What would you say is the most ground-shaking development in sound that shook everything up for good?
SCOTT: I think 1925 when microphones first started being used. Before that, everything was recorded through horns. When you have a microphone, it's like being handed a fine brush that suddenly they could fill the grooves with so much more detail. That was the era that brought in Bing Crosby and the like. It was the crooners because suddenly, with a microphone, you could sing with so much more emotion.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH, MISS HANNAH")
BING CROSBY: (Singing) The roses are a-nodding and swaying in the breeze. Get on your Sunday go-to-meeting clothes and come along, please.
MARTÍNEZ: Jonathan, I mean, you've gone back to pretty much the moment recorded sound became a thing. What would you say the next thing is?
SCOTT: Yeah. Well, I suppose - I mean, we're kind of in the next thing, aren't we? The invention of the LP in 1949, gave us this - sort of the unit of currency of modern band. You know, if you form a band, you want to put out a three-minute song and an hourslong record. It's going to be really interesting to see where we are in, say, another 50 years' time, whether the three-minute pop song and the 50, 60-minute album is still the way we work, but I love thinking about how format has shaped the way we listen to music. And then at the same time, music has shaped the way these formats have developed.
MARTÍNEZ: Jonathan, if we're both around in 50 years, let's make it a date and talk about this again.
SCOTT: (Laughter) Yeah, I'll look forward to that.
MARTÍNEZ: Jonathan Scott is author of "Into The Groove: The Story Of Sound From Tin Foil To Vinyl." Jonathan, thanks.
SCOTT: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN YORKE ATLEE'S "THE MOCKING BIRD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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