SilentBacchus posted this wonderful rendition of 'Dixie" a couple days ago. I looked it up and it is the New York Military Band, Fife and Drum Corps and Chorus on an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder, recorded in 1913. The Edison system uses a stylus travelling vertically rather than side to side as the Berliner disc system uses, which is what most phonograph records are. Edison cylinders and discs have more grooves per inch, thus they play longer. The Blue Amberol cylinders have 200 groves per inch and play for about four minutes. The sound quality is much different with Edison records, and because the vertical system can have greater travel than side-to-side grooves, the volume can be much louder, and the sound quality much better.
When I heard the fifes and drums I was blown away. I must have heard them in a former life, or connected with an ancestor when this played. It will bolster your spirits and give you the strength you need to make it to the weekend!
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