Grandmaster Flash and The Furious 5’s 1982 record
"The Message," was one of the first 50 recordings placed in the The
National Recording Registry today (Jan. 27).
The Registry was created by Congress to preserve
recordings of historical and cultural significance.
"The Message" joins Thomas Edison’s
first recordings, President Roosevelt’s "fireside chats," and Scott
Joplin’s early 1900 ragtime records.
The library will be responsible for maintaining
the best available copies of each recording for archiving. The recordings will
be housed in Culpeper, Virginia. In order to make the list, the recordings had
to be at least 10 years old.
Here is the complete list of this year’s registry
choices:
1. Edison Exhibition Recordings (Group of three
cylinders): "Around the World on the Phonograph"; "The Pattison
Waltz"; "Fifth Regiment March" (1888-1889)
2. The Jesse Walter Fewkes field recordings of
the Passamaquoddy Indians (1890)
3. "Stars and Stripes Forever," military
band, Berliner Gramophone disc recording (1897)
4. Lionel Mapleson cylinder recordings of the
Metropolitan Opera (1900-1903)
5. Scott Joplin ragtime compositions on piano
rolls, Scott Joplin, piano (1900s)
6. Booker T. Washington’s 1895 Atlanta Exposition
Speech, (1906 recreation)
7. "Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci,
Enrico Caruso (1907)
8. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," Fisk
Jubilee Singers (1909)
9. Lovey’s Trinidad String Band recordings for
Columbia Records (1912)
10. "Casey at the Bat," DeWolf Hopper,
reciting (1915)
11. "Tiger Rag," Original Dixieland
Jazz Band (1918)
12. "Arkansas Traveler and Sallie Gooden,"
Eck Robertson, fiddle (1922)
13. "Down-Hearted Blues," Bessie Smith
(1923)
14. "Rhapsody in Blue," George Gershwin,
piano; Paul Whiteman Orchestra (1924)
15. Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven
recordings, (1925-1928)
16. Victor Talking Machine Company sessions in
Bristol, Tennessee, Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Stoneman, and others
(1927)
17. Harvard Vocarium record series, T.S. Eliot,
W.H. Auden, others, reciting,(1930-1940s)
18. Highlander Center Field Recording Collection,
Rosa Parks, Esau Jenkins, others (1930s-1980s)
19. Bell Laboratories experimental stereo recordings,
Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor (1931-1932)
20. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio "Fireside
Chats" (1933-1944)
21. New Music Recordings series, Henry Cowell,
producer (1934-1949)
22. Description of the crash of the Hindenburg,
Herbert Morrison, reporting (1937)
23. "Who’s on First," Abbott and Costello’s
first radio broadcast version (1938)
24. "War of the Worlds," Orson Welles
and the Mercury Theater (1938)
25. "God Bless America," Kate Smith,
Radio broadcast premiere (1938)
26. "The Cradle Will Rock." Marc Blitzstein
and the original Broadway cast. (1938)
27. The John and Ruby Lomax Southern States Recording
Trip (1939)
28. Grand Ole Opry, first network radio broadcast,
Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff, and others (1939)
29. "Strange Fruit," Billie Holiday
(1939)
30. Duke Ellington Orchestra "Blanton-Webster"
period recordings (1939-1942)
31. Bela Bartok, piano, and Joseph Szigeti, violin,
in concert at the Library of Congress (1940)
32. "Rite of Spring," Igor Stravinsky
conducting the New York Philharmonic (1940)
33. "White Christmas," Bing Crosby
(1942)
34. "This Land Is Your Land," Woody
Guthrie (1944)
35. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s D-Day radio address
to the Allied Nations (1944)
36. "Koko," Charlie Parker, Miles Davis,
Dizzy Gillespie, and others (1945)
37. "Blue Moon of Kentucky," Bill Monroe
and the Blue Grass Boys (1947)
38. "How High the Moon," Les Paul and
Mary Ford (1951)
39. Elvis Presley’s Sun Records sessions (1954-1955)
40. "Songs for Young Lovers," Frank
Sinatra (1955)
41. "Dance Mania," Tito Puente (1958)
42. "Kind of Blue," Miles Davis, John
Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, and others (1959)
43. "What’d I Say," parts 1 and 2,
Ray Charles (1959)
44. "I Have a Dream," speech by Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1963)
45. "Freewheelin’," Bob Dylan. (1963)
46. "Respect!," Aretha Franklin. (1967)
47. "Philomel," for soprano, recorded
soprano, and synthesized sound, Bethany Beardslee, soprano (1971)
48. "Precious Lord: New Recordings of the
Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey," Thomas Dorsey, Marion Williams,
and others (1973)
49. Crescent City Living Legends Collection (WWOZ
radio, New Orleans) (1973-1990)
50. "The Message" Grandmaster Flash
and the Furious Five (1982)
