While other projects are ongoing, I want to try and get a few small items onto this site with some regularity. So there are just two items for ths latest update.

Ted Andrews was stepfather to Dame Julie Andrews, and accompanied her on some of her early 78s. This disc was privately recorded at the Star Sound Studios (just off Baker Street in London), on an unknown date, and features “Ted Andrews and his Canadian Singing Sisters.” They perform upbeat renditions of Easthope Martin’s “Come to the Fair” (which Andrews recorded with young Julie in more sedate fashion on a Columbia 78) and “Oh dear, what can the matter be?”

Easthope Martin – Come to the fair
Traditional – Oh dear, what can the matter be

Ted Andrews and his Canadian Singing Sisters

Download – Two Songs – Ted Andrews

(mp3 file – right click the link, then select “Save as” or click the play button)

Star Sound Studios – private recording without catalogue number or matrix number
Recorded 1940s?

Perhaps a more traditional offering for this site is a 10” slightly abridged electrical Zonophone recording of the overture to The Barber of Seville. This was recorded in London in 1929 with the “National Symphony Orchestra”. No conductor is named on the label or in the matrix listings, though George W Byng was the most frequent conductor for other sessions with this group.

Rossini – The Barber of Seville – Overture
National Symphony Orchestra

Download – Rossini – Barber of Seville – Overture – NSO

(mp3 file – right click the link, then select “Save as” or click the play button)

Zonophone 5569
Matrices Yy 16727-II, 16728-II (30-777/8)
Recorded 27th August 1929, Kingsway Hall, London

Side 1: bars 1-5, 11-19, 22-90 + 1st beat of bar 91
Side 2: bars 92-250, 255-264