Why should there be a

Repository of Information
of the Early Recordings of the Music of the World!

The aim of editing these web-pages on early recordings of vernacular music is to make available in electronic form a resource for anyone interested in music in general.

It is my hope however that it will attract also the specialist and that everybody shall feel free to contribute.

It is my hope that the information presented here will grow in co-operation with other people with similar inclinations, other "melomanes", musicologues, 78-rpm enthusiasts, fieldrecording buffs, etc.

No precise starting and finishing dates are given to limit the range as it would differ greatly with region and music style. But it will be evident from the growing material, that the concentration is on including information on any music and although the aim is to be as scientific and precise as possible. I'll rather include as much material as possible even if not all details are clear.

'Worldmusic’ is really no good collective term for the music that will be discussed here and I can think of no other label to stick on this either, and maby that is just aswell! Rather than trying to define here what kind of music should be under investigation I would like this list to grow in a fashion similar to the way the early recording industry itself grew.

I will introduce the information I have available of the music that is closest to my own listening preferences and I hope you will do the same. I would be very unhappy if I was to be excluded from all the music I know little or nothing about and therefore your first thought upon finding skimpy or no information on the music closest to your heart or academic scrutiny, should be to send me as much information you can as fast as possible so I can include it here.

When it comes to the classification of music I will need help from all of you but for starters I will simply do it geographically by artist and chronologically where possible. That simply means that I may arrange the material from a certain nation or region, or of a special artist or musical style together.

For starters there will be material on reissues of this kind of music on more "modern" media such as casettes, vinyl and CD's. I may occasionally include information about early music available on videotapes aswell.

It is unavoidable not to, now and then resort to general and sometimes slightly inaccurate descriptions, such as traditional or classical, that may mean very different things in different cultures, but we will have to bring order to each geographical region and tradition or school as we go along.

As it is impossible for any one person to have an overall picture of the recordings of all the forms of music that could be presented within this frame, it is my hope that many individuals, each with their own set of specialities, along with institutes with special collections, all will find this a worthwhile project to contribute to and draw information from.

I realize that this project is immense and virtually boundless in complexity and I just hope with this preliminary effort that I will be able to get it off the ground and start it on the journey.

I have had the fortune to involve many knowledgeable people that I respect greatly and just to mention a few of them, mr. Paul Vernon, mr. Pekka Gronow and mr. Frederic Lagrange, where among the first to willingly share their material with me. Anyone not familiar with their work will have ample opportunites to acquaint themselves with these here. Scanned versions of several of several of their very informative articles will gradually be made available here and several discographies will be added. Several of the contributors do not yet have access to the net, but have promized to contribute significantly to this ongoing project.

I am also thankful that Ian Anderson editor of FolkRoots, where many of Paul Vernons articles first appeared, thinks this is a good idea and kindly granted me permission to include all of those articles in this collection.

I encourage anyone who like to submit information and links and pointers to other places of interest and reference. Anyone who spot missing information and contributes to help me make amends, anyone that catch errors or other inaccuracies are most welcome to contribute to this project.


I am aware of some but not all of the abundance of similar work in bookform and as time and persistence allowes, I will try to include any such relevant information as well.

I will try to edit and merge all information that gets sent to me over the net or that I can get hold of elsewhere and present it here.

I encourage anyone to contribute more information along the general lines evident from what you can already see in this collection of discographical, bibliographical and musicological data.

[ latest. rev. 970310 L. Fredriksson ]