It’s bittersweet getting to the end of every Sound Beat episode. Bitter because our time together is nearly over, but made so sweet by that Sound Beat Theme. We’re beyond fortunate to have had David Wolfert compose the piece for us. David is a Grammy and Emmy nominated composer, arranger, songwriter, orchestrator, producer and instrumentalist [...]

It was a big year for the Kentucky Derby, and for thoroughbread racing in general, but it wasn’t because of the triumph of Feetlebaum in Spike Jones’s 1948 William Tell Overture. That year, Citation, ridden by Eddie Arcaro and bred by Calumet Farm, won not only the Kentucky Derby, but also the Preakness Stakes and [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. After experimenting with Irish comic-dramas on stage between 1891 and 1895, and his successful theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz in 1902, L. Frank Baum took the Oz franchise in a wonderful (if ill-fated) direction with [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. Admitting that the craze for the “Harlem Shake” will probably have died down by the time this makes it to print press you, I felt obliged to give a little background info on the burrough that has [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. The ‘Blue Tail Fly’, or ‘Jim Crack Corn’, dates back to Jan. 1846, the heyday of American minstrelsy. It tells a story of a young slave and his master and reflects some nuance of the race dynamics [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. Many historians are content to describe the invention of the phonograph as a flash of inspiration on a single day in Thomas Edison’s New Jersey laboratory in July of 1877. While he may have been the ‘wizard [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. The first record of “Babes in the Wood” is an entry in the the register of the Stationers’ Company in October 1595 titled “The Norfolk Gentleman, his Will and Testament, and howe he commytted the keeping of [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. We at Sound Beat are no strangers to conclusion. Ends of friendships, careers  and lives are all in a day’s work, but the end of the world? That’s a special occasion. Speculation about how and when man [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. Ruth Wallis’ “Dear Mr. Godfrey” riffs on Godfrey’s ironic choice of words in justifying the dismissal as a result of LaRosa’s “lack of humility”. LaRosa primarily sought an agent because his recordings for fellow Godfrey ‘family member’ [...]

Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of  the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs. When Frederick Osius pitched his ‘miracle mixer’ to Fred Waring in 1936, he must have piqued an interest beyond that of a financial investment. When the Pennsylvanians got their start at Penn State University, Fred was working [...]