Page last revised: 6/3/12

It was apparently recorded by Clement Miller, who wrote about and taught music. He used a portable Wilcox-Gay "Recordio" -- a precursor to the tape recorder. It recorded on blank 7" records that played at 78 RPM. Though they looked like regular records, these discs are thin with layers of black lacquer on either side of a thin aluminum core. The labels had space for hand-written description of what had been recorded.

The aluminum core of these discs can be seen
peeking out along the outer edge.

Best estimate, this one of a kind album of 12 songs across 6 discs was recorded in the in 1947 or 1948, several years before Stanley Motta started the Jamaican record industry with mento singles at the start of the 1950s.

Even though they are well preserved and do not appear to have been played much (if at all), as you might expect from 65-year old portably cut acetates, the sound quality is rough. The surface noise is at least as bad as an overplayed 78 from the 1950s. Plus the recording levels were too low and the pitch too slow. Still, this was then the state of the art for personal portable recording. After correcting these problems in the digital domain, lead and backing vocals, banjo, acoustic guitar, and occasional hand drum can be easily discerned. Rumba box is likely part of the band, but is more difficult to make out. Likewise, the ubiquitous maracas are missing, possibly the victim of surface noise and its removal.

But still, this very well may be single earliest recording of rural mento.