Sound archivist Jeff Place

DATE December 23, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Filler: By policy of WHYY, this information is restricted and has
been omitted from this transcript

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Interview: Jeff Place discusses efforts under way to preserve some
historically significant sound recordings
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

In the sound archives of the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of
Congress, you can find speeches by every president since Teddy Roosevelt,
oral
histories of ex-slaves, ads, air raid drills, the sounds of typewriters,
locomotives and junk yard machinery, animal howls and Mexican-American
cowboy
songs. These sounds have been recorded on all kinds of technology: Edison
wax cylinders, stainless-steel wire and reel-to-reel tape. Many of the
recordings are decaying.

Our guest, Jeff Place, is head archivist for the Ralph Rinzler folklife
archives and collection. He's part of the Save Our Sounds project, an
effort
to preserve the sounds of the past. Their work is the subject of a new
documentary, "Save Our History: Save Our Sounds." It airs December 26th at
8
PM on The History Channel.

When Terry spoke with Jeff Place last week, he brought along several
recordings from the Smithsonian archives. Let's start with an NBC broadcast
of a 1955 atom bomb test. The network stationed reporters at two
observation
points: one seven miles from ground zero and the other just 3,500 yards
away.

(Soundbite of 1955 NBC broadcast)

Unidentified Man #1: (Over loudspeaker) ...four, three, two, one, zero.

Unidentified Man #2: And the atomic detonation is off. The first
impression
we get is a tremendous glare of white...

Unidentified Man #1: (Over loudspeaker) ...(Unintelligible) in the
controlled
(unintelligible) area...

(Soundbite of explosion)

Unidentified Man #2: A surge of heat comes off ...(unintelligible) be
coming
along in about a half-minute, as you've heard. There was a tremendous flash
of light for just a moment that completely engulfed us, a surge of heat and
no
sound, the eerie feeling because we know the sound is yet to travel across
that seven miles to reach our point here on Media Hill. We cannot see
anything through our glasses at this point. We're waiting for the sound
(unintelligible).

(Soundbite of explosion)

Unidentified Man #2: And there is the sound that just hit Media Hill and is
now reverberating through the mountains behind us. It practically doubled
me
up, frankly. I was very much surprised of the impact of it. And now
it's...

TERRY GROSS, host:

Let's take the atom bomb blast recording that we just heard. What's it
recorded on, and what are the problems that that type of recording is facing
now in terms of preservation?

Mr. JEFF PLACE (Sound Archivist): Well, that's an open-reel tape, and from
the looks of the tape box, the tape itself is early '50s. Magnetic tape
came
on the market in 1948, so you're talking about--towards the beginning of
this
whole media. A lot of the early '50s tapes we have, the oxide--it's a layer
of metal oxide which is sort of on the outside of the inner layers of, you
know, plastics--and the oxide itself is just falling off. It's flaking off.
You play that stuff, and it's like powder. You see the powder sitting on
the
base down below where the tape deck is. And every bit of that powder that
leaves is a little bit of that audio signal. So you know, these things need
to get done.

GROSS: You also have recordings that precede the invention of magnetic
audiotape. You have--What are some of those types of recordings?

Mr. PLACE: Well, a lot of the things right before that were disk recording,
which--some of the things in the '30s and '40s, they had needles that cut
right into aluminum disks. It's a very soft disk, so you know, they can't
be
played forever. But during the '40s especially, where a lot of our
recordings
came from, it's a layer of sort of--what they call acetate, or lacquer, on
top
of glass or metal disks. And, you know, when you have any kind of layered
media like that, eventually over time, if the heat changes and the humidity
changes, those layers'll start breaking apart. So what happens is these old
disks--the acetates are sort of coming off like, you know, sort of old paint
on a wall. And unfortunately, CDs--you know, because they are a layered
media, will eventually have this same problem.

GROSS: Really? So you're worried about the future of CDs?

Mr. PLACE: Absolutely. They're not finite. You know, that's a myth that
they'll last forever. Light is one thing that bothers CDs a lot. It sort
of
breaks them down. But any kind of humidity and vast temperature changes--I
think if you leave your CD boxes in your car during the hot weather and you
leave them there during the winter, those kinds of climactic changes will
eventually speed up the--or these things will start breaking apart.

GROSS: So when you want to preserve something, what do you put it onto so
that you're confident it's going to last a long time?

Mr. PLACE: Well, there really isn't anything out there that's been proven
to
be perfect. So what we do at the Smithsonian is we--we're sort of hedging
our
bets. We take all these recordings we're trying to save--we're actually
saving them as digital WAV files in a giant computer system on some computer
tape and sort of electronic files. But then we're also making copies on CDs
and we're making copies on reel-to-reel tape and hoping that one of the
three,
you know, will still be there.

GROSS: So what is one of your favorite of the very early recordings that
you've preserved, a favorite because of its documentary importance or
because
you just love it for, you know, personal reasons?

Mr. PLACE: One of my favorite things so far is that some years
ago--actually,
I spent a bunch of years producing a bunch of Woody Guthrie reissues and
reading on Woody Guthrie and writing on Woody Guthrie. And there was a
famous
version of "This Land is Your Land," his most famous song where he actually
originally had a couple of extra verses that weren't--they were in the
original manuscript; they were not ever supposed to have been recorded,
which
changed the song's meaning dramatically to something that was more
subversive
and a protest song. And everybody I talked to had said, you know, these
things weren't ever recorded.

So I was dubbing one of these old disks from the early '40s, 1944, one day,
and all of a sudden, you know, here came one of the two subversive verses.
I
was just like--my jaw dropped. I was, like, `Wow,' you know. `This thing
isn't supposed to exist.'

GROSS: Can you play that recording for us, and if so, would you just
introduce it a little bit more--when it was recorded and anything else you
know about it?

Mr. PLACE: The original version when he wrote it in 1940--it was based on
the fact that he was really annoyed with the song "God Bless America" by
Kate
Smith, which was on every kind of jukebox constantly all over the country.
He
didn't feel it really spoke to the common man the way he wanted it to. So
he
wrote a song called "God Bless America for You and Me," which had a couple
extra verses in it which were about people standing in bread lines and there
was an anti-private property verse, which was the song that became "This
Land
is Your Land." And his original manuscript said "God Bless America for You
and Me," and then he crossed it out and put "This Land is Made for You and
Me."

And all the Guthrie historians, years ago when I was sort of talking to
them,
said, `Well, you know, he never recorded that. That was just how he wrote
it,' and you know, once he recorded it, you know, it was the version we hear
nowadays. And so hearing this, you know, this actually--this first version
in
March 1944, which was a day that Woody came in and recorded 75 songs in the
Folkways Studio, this one was kind of, you know, cast and put on the shelf
for
a number of years and nobody thought much of it. And lo and behold, when I
heard this thing there was one of those verses that supposedly he never
recorded.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear this first Woody Guthrie version of "This
Land
is Your Land" with the lost verse.

(Soundbite of "This Land is Your Land")

Mr. WOODY GUTHRIE: (Singing) This land is your land, this land is my land
from California to the New York island. From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf
Stream waters, this land was made for you and me.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. GUTHRIE: (Singing) As I went walking that ribbon of highway and I saw
above me that endless skyway, I saw below me that golden valley. This land
was made for you and me.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. GUTHRIE: (Singing) I roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps to
the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts. And all around me, her voice
was
a-sounding, `This land was made for you and me.'

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me. The sign was
painted,
said, `Private property.' But on the backside, it didn't say nothing. This
land was made for you and me.

When the sun comes shining...

BOGAEV: An early recording of "This Land is Your Land," sung by Woody
Guthrie.

Jeff Place is our guest. He's head archivist for the Ralph Rinzler folklife
archives and collections, and he's part of the Save Our Sounds project, an
effort to preserve the sounds of the past century. Their work is featured
in
the new documentary "Save Our History." It airs December 26th at 8PM on The
History Channel. We'll hear more of Terr Gross's conversation with Jeff
Place
in a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Back with archivist Jeff Place. He's working on the Save Our
Sounds
project, which aims to preserve sounds of the 20th century.

GROSS: I'm going to ask you to play for us another historical recording
that
you've brought with you. And this is a recording of a student being
interrogated by HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. This is
actually a subcommittee of HUAC that was investigating Communist activities
in
San Francisco. Can you say something about this recording before we hear
it?

Mr. PLACE: Yeah, the House Un-American Activities Committee recordings, of
which the Folkways Collection has a lot, are all interesting to me. Now,
you
know, they all could be saved away somewhere else, but you know, this one is
not even one in Washington. So, you know, who knows if it's been saved? So
just to be on the safe side, I want to save all this stuff.

Moses Asch, who ran Folkways, which certainly, you know, came from a
left-wing
background, but he certainly was part of a strong, sort of--he was never a
Communist, but certainly a lot of people he knew were. He was from a very
strong left-wing community in New York. And he was very aware of, you know,
this persecution. They never really came after him, but certainly a
tremendous amount of the people like Pete Seeger and Earl Robinson and
others
who were around him, you know, were persecuted by HUAC. And he also came
from
a background of having grown up in Poland. The family fled Poland in the
'30s
and, you know, dealing with the whole Nazi regime. And this struck him as
being a kind of the same thing happening all over again.

So he would get on the radio or get tapes from other people and try to
gather
as much of this material as possible. But I think, again, it's really
interesting to hear these things firsthand, you know, exactly what went on,
because you can read textbooks all about what happened, but the actual
experience of hearing is something entirely different.

GROSS: OK. So this is a recording from the House Un-American Activities
Committee in May of 1960

(Soundbite from 1960 House Un-American Activities Committee recording)

Unidentified Man #3: Now Mr. Wachter(ph), do you think there might have
been
some other reasons why you are under subpoena to appear before this
committee
other than the reasons which you gave in this press statements that we are
exploring into your liberal ideas and your political beliefs? Is there
something else that you have been doing that you think might be of interest
to
this committee?

(Soundbite of people whispering)

Unidentified Man #4: I respectfully object to the question on the same
grounds. Any question as to my political beliefs, associations, statements
deprive me of the right of free speech, press, assembly and petition. The
House Un-American Activities Committee serves no real legislative or
constitutional purpose. It punishes individuals and...

Unidentified Man #3: You're reading from a prepared statement.

(Soundbite of applause)

Unidentified Man #3: You're reading from a prepared statement?

Unidentified Man #5: That's all right. Let him answer the question. Now
could you...

Unidentified Man #3: Continue reading it, please.

Unidentified Man #4: It punishes individuals and groups for their political
ideas and associations through public exposure...

Unidentified Man #5: Well, now...

Unidentified Man #4: ...and condemnation.

Unidentified Man #5: Now--I'm sorry. You are refusing to answer on the
basis
of the First Amendment. Is that correct?

Unidentified Man #4: I have re--I have objected to the question.

Unidentified Man #3: Well, I don't believe you have completed your answer,
sir, and I'd like to have you complete it, if you please.

Unidentified Man #4: Thank you. It punishes individuals and groups for
their
political ideas and associations through public exposure and condemnation,
often resulting in economic sanction. I cannot cooperate with the committee
in answering any such question. I feel I have an obligation as a citizen of
this country to preserve the Constitution, and I do not feel I can do so in
good conscience by allowing the House Un-American Activities Committee to
inquire into my beliefs or associations.

Unidentified Man #3: Now Mr. Wachter, it is the information of this
committee, from unimpeachable intelligence sources, that you were a
delegate...

(Soundbite of crowd noise)

Unidentified Man #3: ...that you were a delegate to the national convention
of the Communist Party for the northern district of California.

GROSS: That's a recording from San Francisco City Hall in May 1960, as a
student is getting interrogated by a subcommittee of HUAC, the House
Un-American Activities Committee. It's one of the many recordings in the
Smithsonian collection that is in the process of being saved. And my guest,
Jeff Place, is the head archivist.

What are some of the most interesting early music recordings that you have,
very early?

Mr. PLACE: For me, the earliest music stuff we have, which is all sort of
taped copies on reel-to-reels or early cylinders, are, like, American Indian
tribes. The Library of Congress has a lot of this material, American Indian
tribes from around the United States and going back to, like, you know, the
late 1890s, 1900. There's a lot of stuff in there where a lot of these
rituals and traditions had died out. And by the library, which is also one
of
our colleagues on the Save Our Sounds project, having saved this stuff and
made copies, they gave them back to the Indians. And the Indians were able
to
actually sort of regain some of their lost knowledge and their lost language
by these recordings. That's the power of these things.

GROSS: How are the earliest of these recordings made?

Mr. PLACE: Well, the first bunch from the beginning from Edison were made
on
these wax cylinders, which look--they're sort of a cylinder--I don't know if
people can visualize a badminton birdie kind of can or something with a
layer
of wax on the outside, and they're played with a needle--kind of the thing
rotated. And the sonic quality was not great.

And then in the 1890s, there was a German fellow named Berliner, who
invented
the disk, and there was sort of this great media format battle. The first
media format battle went on at the early part of last century, you know,
between cylinders and disks and, you know, disks won out. And they were the
one, you know, for many, many years up until where tapes sort of took over,
you know, for as far as what you record on initially as opposed to
commercial
releases--tapes sort of took over in the late '40s. But, yeah, cylinders
are
the beginning. And cylinders--you know, those things, you know, they're
wax.
It's soft wax, you know. And you heat them up, they melt. You play them
with
a needle, it flakes off to stuff. Those things, you know--the
Smithsonian--we
only have a handful in our collections. The Library of Congress has a lot.
And I know that's a major priority for them to take care of those things.

GROSS: Jeff Place, thank you very much, and good luck with your project.

Mr. PLACE: Thank you.

BOGAEV: Jeff Place, speaking with Terry Gross. He's head archivist of the
Ralph Rinzler folklife archives and collections. Their project, Save Our
Sounds, is the subject of a new documentary on The History Channel. It's
called "Save Our History," and it airs December 26th at 8 PM.

Here's a 1906 wax cylinder recording of a Hopi Indian funeral chant from the
Folkways Collection. For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.

(Soundbite of 1906 Hopi Indian funeral chant)

Group of People: (Chanting in foreign language)
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