Listen to Edison: Stream thousands of famed NJ inventor’s recordings

Maybe you can make a new Spotify playlist: thousands of rare recordings by Thomas Edison are now available to stream online.

The project includes 2,400 sound disc recordings that have been digitized and are available through the University of California, Santa Barbara Library Special Research Collections on its Discography of American Historical Recordings website.

According to NorthJersey.com, the collection has been preserved at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange and includes rarities, including test pressings from 1910-1929.

Some of the recordings are music and some are spoken word; some of the titles include “Mr. Edison on the essentialness of music,” “A personal message to the people of New Zealand,” and “Holiday greetings from the bunch at Orange (1924).”

Not all the recordings are of Edison himself; there are also performances of things like the “William Tell Overture.”

“Sharing these historically important recordings with the public perfectly fits the mission of both the University of California and the National Park Service,” David Seubert, curator of the Performing Arts Collection at the California university and director of the recording website, said in a written statement.

The cooperative effort between the school and the national park dates back to 2012; the school subsequently used a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop and curate the complete Edison collection.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.

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