A collaboration with Mills Music Library and the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the compilation presents the story of Chicago-based Wallin’s Svenska Records, the first label founded by a Swedish-American immigrant. Features 2 CDs with 56 selections and a 76-page full-color booklet with notes and scholarship by Jim Leary, Richard Martin, and Marcus Cederström. Learn more and order today!
“In the digital age, when liner notes have been reduced to a song name scrolling across a streaming playlist, the husband-and-wife team of [Richard] Martin and Meagan Hennessey are an anomaly. They gather rarities from the earliest era of recordings, research the music and put out entire books of analysis alongside the music.”
Geoff EdgersWashington Post
“Truly epochal reissues, which unearth completely forgotten chapters of musical history. The tiny Illinois-based Archeophone label has been doing that kind of archaeology for several years now, almost single-handedly championing the popular music of the acoustic recording era.”
Guest blog post by Marcus Cederström While transcribing the many songs from Swede Home Chicago: Wallin’s Svenska Records, 1923–1927, I reached out to friends and family for help. After listening to the same song for hours on end, you reach a sort of impasse. You slow things down. You turn things up. You adjust your … Continue reading The Captain and The Jazz Boy→ posted: September 23, 2021
Guest blog post by Jim Leary Old discs serve as singing tombstones. Spinning grooves and printed labels yield voices and virtuosity, names and places, commemoratively situating dead souls. Discs are all we have sometimes, but happily they’re often where we start. Swede Home Chicago started with a search to identify the otherwise anonymous impresario whose … Continue reading Wallin’s Performers...→ posted: September 3, 2021
Guest blog post by Marcus Cederström In the fall of 2018, Jim Leary sent me an email with plans to track down and reissue all of the songs from Wallin’s Svenska Records. It was just an idea at that point and Archeophone hadn’t even signed on to the project, but Jim had already started identifying … Continue reading Transcription, Translation, and Operatic Tenors→ posted: August 13, 2021
