Twenty-five recordings made between 1896 and 1994 have been selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry. The selections represent an extraordinary cross-section of American expression, from interviews with early baseball pioneers to speeches by Kwakwaka’wakw Chief Dan Cranmer to the Presidential recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson. But it’s the music that sets the mind reeling. A few highlights:
Both Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee recorded the starkly honest “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime,” in 1932 at the height of the Depression. The song is an improbable, minor-key hit that defined its time. Similarly of its time is the 1940 Roland Hayes reading of the spiritual “Were You There,” an unflinching series of questions about the Crucifixion. Here are two songs, one of the world and one of the spirit, free of sentiment and united by a desolate reality.
The fifteen years between 1945 and 1960 are especially well represented — almost high-spotted, as if crossing a wide river on just a few stepping-stones. We start with the joyous jump blues of Louis Jordan’s “Caldonia,” segueing nicely into Elmore James’ proto-electric version of “Dust My Broom.” If you wanted to find the origins of rock and roll, you couldn’t be guided by two brighter lights: Jordan’s band is preternaturally tight, giddily playing a blues structure with jazz instrumentation. Elmore James had plugged in his guitar by 1951, and the distorted slide work on “Dust My Broom” redefined the song as it provided a blueprint for the next several decades of blues and rock.
Another brilliant pairing: The uncanny high, lonesome harmonies of the Louvin Brothers as heard in “When I Stop Dreaming” from 1955 shows them as the legitimate musical parents of The Everly Brothers, who deliver “Cathy’s Clown” five years later in 1960 with perhaps more density but no less intensity. It’s a musical trip from bluegrass to country to pop in less than seven minutes, and it’s breathtaking.
Before the decade’s end we hear the harder edges of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” a protest song about a corrupt system, made rough by distortion and anger. Though less emotionally contained than “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime,” “Fortunate Son” is also told from the point of view of Everyman, who still remains subject to the whim of the entitled, still struggling against the tide.
The National Recording Registry includes albums as well as songs, and there are treasures in the latest inductees as well: “A Night At Birdland (Volumes 1 and 2)” by Art Blakey shows the Jazz Messengers making a confident leap from swing to bop, led by Blakey’s authoritative style and flawless timing. Another live outing, “Carnegie Hall Concert with Buck Owens and His Buckaroos” (1966) is possibly the best performance this clinically tight Bakersfield country band ever delivered, showing the influence of George Jones and the influence on the Beatles, who covered Owens’ “Act Naturally.”
For studio albums, we get Memphis soul man Isaac Hayes’ 1971 “Theme From Shaft,” included in its entirety — a record better listened to loudly than read about here. The funky bass, wah-wah guitar, playful female background vocals and Hayes’ buttery baritone anticipate every subsequent blaxploitation musical cliché and better them.
The inclusion of Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like A Wheel” from 1974 is made all the more poignant by the singer’s recent retirement due to Parkinson’s disease. This album is nothing less than a gifted singer expanding the Great American Songbook. Ronstadt, with an unerring ear, chose to cover such diverse songwriters as Hank Williams, Chips Moman, Paul Anka and Lowell George. Fittingly, we also get a belting version of The Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved,” making yet another internal connection in this year’s list. If Ronstadt had done nothing else, this album justifies her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10. Few others could make the eclectic so accessible.
“The Joshua Tree,” the monolithic 1987 album by U2, was produced by Brian Eno. With respect to the band and the time it was made, there is a “before and after”quality about this record. It focused the band’s intense energy and musical influences into something unprecedented. “The Joshua Tree” is at once popular and populist and political. It’s also catchy as hell.
The songs, the comedy, the documentarian and anthropological recordings, and the full albums chosen for inclusion in the National Recording Registry this year give each of us a tremendous opportunity to blow a few hours on YouTube. It’s a carefully curated tour of who we were and were becoming. The difference in what we hear is sometimes startling, other times almost imperceptible to our ears as the years rush past. It is a catalog of more than a century - not characterized by the violence and suffering that is so often called history, but instead by an insistent and wondrously creative desire to give voice to the inarticulate. It is a small core sample of the best of who we are.
“These recordings represent an important part of America’s culture and history,” says Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “As technology continually changes and formats become obsolete, we must ensure that our nation’s aural legacy is protected.” Billington was charged with overseeing the selection of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” recordings, and the 2013 inductees bring the total number of recordings in the National Recording Registry only to 400.
The Library of Congress, according to its news release, is “identifying and preserving the best existing versions of each recording on the registry.” They will then be housed in a state-of-the-art facility. Even if this effort proves fruitless in the face of constant technological change, in this case it is truly the thought that counts. It’s time to listen.
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