Whistling did a significant amount of cultural work, as the act itself and the people who performed it were at the center of dramatic changes in how nature sounds were recorded, presented, and consumed in America. Because sound recording technologies were confined to studio spaces and generally immobile through the late 1920s, popular performers adopted a variety of imitative techniques to transport listeners into scenes and settings that the technology itself could not access--places such as farms, forests, fields, zoos, . Among these imitative practices, whistling proved to be both remarkably popular and enduring.

Victoria Spivey is a legendary Blues singer who gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly due to her powerful and emotive voice. She was one of the most successful female Blues singers of her time, and her incredible talent and contribution to the Blues genre have cemented her place in music history. While her career was a remarkable one, there were a lot of ups and downs in Spivey’s life, and the path that led her to greatness is a fascinating one to explore.

Although the stage and screen hit Funny Girl is inspired by the life of singer-actress Fanny Brice, the plot is mostly fiction with an occasional fact thrown in. Both the play and movie were produced by Fanny Brice's son in law, Ray Stark, who had the unenviable task of appeasing Fanny's surviving family and associates -- including Nick Arnstein. With Nick only too eager to initiate a lawsuit, Stark had to reshape history. And as Nick's character was fictionalized, other aspects of the story had to change too. Who was Fanny Brice

A Graphophone was a phonograph made by the Columbia Phonograph Company under one of its many corporate identities. There were Graphophones that played both cylinder and 78rpm records. A Grafonola was an internal horn phonograph made by the Columbia Phonograph Company that played 78rpm records.

Columbia began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their “Toy Graphophone” of 1899, which used small, vertically-cut records. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound.

The firm also introduced the internal-horn “Grafonola” to compete with the extremely popular “Victrola” sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company.

Emerson Records was an American record company and label created by Victor hugo Emerson in 1915.

Victor was the chief recording engineer at Columbia Records. In 1914 he left the company, created the Emerson Phonograph Company, and then Emerson Records the following year. He began producing small records, 5-inch discs that sold for 10 cents and 7-inch discs that sold for 25 cents. under the brand name G Clef, an homage to Emerson's original beginnings ..who would have thought the Emerson Radio Corporation one of the United States' largest volume consumer electronics distributors and has a recognized trademark in continuous use since 1912, all began with a scandal

The first Edison Talking Doll record to benefit from optical scanning was a tin cylinder, The small metal ring had been so severely distorted from its original cylindrical shape decades ago, that the out-of-round record could not be properly played by a traditional stylus-contact based approach. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, used IRENE 3-D to create a digital model of the tin record's modulated surface. Their software analysis revived the voice of a young woman reciting the first stanza of the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

let the nightmare begin

The Sons of the Pioneers were the most successful western harmony group of all time, enjoying a career longevity that began in the early 1930s and still continues today, with, of course the obvious personnel changes. They were formed originally as The Pioneer Trio because of Ohio-born Leonard Slye’s , love of harmony singing and his desire to be part of a vocal group. The name change came about when a radio announcer introduced them as ‘The Sons of the Pioneers,’ because, he argued, they were too young to be pioneers. And the name stuck.

Oh ya .... Leonard Slye ... later changed his name to Roy Rodgers

Among America's greatest treasures is John Philip Sousa, "The March King." The music of this beloved bandleader and composer, whose most prolific period straddled the turn of the 20th century, continues to fill hearts with a wave of national pride and patriotism. Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is, in fact, the national march, and his creative medium, the marching band, has become an American institution.