[music]

Alison Stewart:  This is All Of It from WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you so much for sharing part of your day with us. We have this great series we've started, The Big Picture. We do it every year when we take a look at the creatives behind the camera who are nominated for Academy Awards. We spoke with Jennifer Lame who is nominated for best editor for her work editing Oppenheimer.

Yesterday, we talked to the production designers of Poor Things, Shona Heath and James Price. On tomorrow's show, we will talk to the Oscar-nominated sound designer for The Zone of Interest, that's Johnnie Burn, and the costume designer of Killers of the Flower Moon, Jacqueline West. That'll be happening on tomorrow's show. We're also going to talk to somebody who's nominated for an Academy Award who's in front of the camera, Sandra Hüller, who is nominated for the Anatomy of a Fall in the best actress category will be our guest as well. That is all in the future. Right now in the present, we're going to talk about the Public Song Project.

[music]

Alison Stewart: We bring you another installment of our week-long Public Song Project launch featuring friends of All Of It and WNYC. So far, you've heard from Arturo O'Farrill, Low Cut Connie, Billy Martin, and American Patchwork Quartet. Today, we're going to hear from Valerie June. All these songs are contributions to the 2024 Public Song Project. Listeners, if you think it sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, you really can. Anyone can send in a song.

You do not have to be a professional musician. Just pick a work of music, film, or literature in the public domain from the 1920s, send us a cover or a song adaptation, and you could have a chance to be on the air. For resources and more information on the project, go to wnyc.org/publicsongproject. That is wnyc.org/publicsongproject. Now, to clarify those guidelines about the work being from the 1920s, ideally, we're asking you to pick a work of art published between 1920 and 1928. Work from 1929 doesn't enter the public domain until 2025, so that's off-limits.

However, you can get creative with it. You can pick more than one work. You can even combine something from the 1920s with something from much earlier. It's worth noting, in some cases, a song that had its heyday in the 1920s was actually composed much earlier. That's true of a lot of folk and blues and genres that were passed down through performance and not recorded sound. It also might be true of today's contribution from my next guest. Joining me now is Valerie June. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie June: Hello. So great to speak with you today. Thanks.

Alison Stewart: First of all, thank you for contributing to the Public Song Project.

Valerie June: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for inviting us all, the whole world, to share our songs and our stories with you. It's a really great project.

Alison Stewart: For listeners who are thinking about recording something themselves, can you tell us a little bit about why it appealed to you?

Valerie June: I really, really love and study old music, and it inspires what my work is today and what I hope to do in the future. When this project came up, I was like, "Oh, this will be perfect for my new favorite love," which is Beautiful Dreamer. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Beautiful Dreamer composed by Stephen Foster and published in the 1860s. What drew you to this song?

Valerie June: The idea of dreams has been something that's a theme of my work for quite a while now. The last record that I put out full length was The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. I've been working with the idea of dreams, and I speak a lot about Dr. King and his dream. Also, I think about the ethereal type dreams that we have when we sleep, but I think about dreams as what we can create in the world that we can see.

I always am pushing for positive change and using positivity as my form of activsm, so when I saw these two words side by side on paper and reading the lyrics, Beautiful Dreamer, I was like, "That's perfect for me and for my voice as well." I created a version of the song that is rather haunting. I used a keyboard player and a pianist that I've worked with a lot, Dave Sherman, and his playing is just so haunting and beautiful on there.

Alison Stewart: You talked about using positivity for your activism. Super Bowl viewers may have recognized you in an ad over the weekend for the non-profit Power to the Patients. Why was that a group you wanted to get involved with?

Valerie June: I was diagnosed when I was 27 with type 1.5 diabetes. I had been saving for several years to make a record, and all the money that I had saved to make that record was wiped out with one visit to the ER where I almost died and went into a diabetic coma. I came out and my complete savings was wiped out, and I was like, "I'll never be making a record now, all I can do is just try to do the best to pay these bills off."

When I was approached by Power to the Patients, I was like, "Wow, you mean I'm not the only one who faces these challenges and hopes that our healthcare system can address these issues?" We've all joined forces as artists, musicians, filmmakers to just lift our voice around Power to the Patients and hoping that the hospitals and insurers will start to enforce the laws that are already in place to show the prices and give price transparency so that there'll be a more neutral level as far as the pricing on things when you go to the ER because people can't charge one individual a certain price and a different price to the next individual.

It'll be more like when you go anywhere, to a coffee shop or a store, and you can see the real price, so there's more competition so that prices become more equal and more competitive and balanced. Hopefully, in that case, people won't come out sometimes with these extremely high bills and have their dreams deferred, which mine was for many years. Luckily, I ended up getting signed to a record label that switched the trajectory of my life. If that hadn't happened, then that setback was years worth of saving. It's not just me this happens to, it happens to so many people.

Alison Stewart: Valerie, before we hear your Beautiful Dreamer, your rendition of it, do you have any of the new music in the works? Anything you want to shout out?

Valerie June: Oh, I have so much new music in the works. There is a record coming out with Gary Clark Jr.

Alison Stewart: Stop.

Valerie June: Oh, yes. I'm so excited. It'll be out on March 22nd. Then a record with Alice Randall. There are so many Black female musicians on this record. It was produced by an African American female musician. That record is coming out. Then I have my book, which is Light Beams. It is a workbook for being your best self. I'm doing a whole lot of wellness and mindfulness retreats like one at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck and Kripalu and different places over the course of the year that just works with the dreams in positive activism.

Alison Stewart: I'm all about that, everything you said, top to bottom.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Valerie June, thank you for joining us and contributing to the Public Song Project. We can't wait to hear all of your new work. Now, we'll hear Beautiful Dreamer composed by Stephen Foster and adapted and performed by Valerie June. Thank you, Valerie.

Valerie June: Thank you. Have a great day, Alison.

[MUSIC - Valerie June: Beautiful Dreamer]

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,

Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,

Lull'd by the moonlight have all passed away.

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,

List while I woo thee with soft melody,

Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,

Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelei,

Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,

E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea,

Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me.

Alison Stewart: For the 2024 Public Song Project, that was Valerie June's adaptation of Beautiful Dreamer. The song was written by Stephen Foster, the great American composer of tunes like Oh Susanna and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. Foster wrote Beautiful Dreamer only months before his death, and as a result, it was published posthumously in 1864. Despite the song being published in the mid-19th century, we've checked with some music historians and the earliest known recording appears to have been made decades later in 1928. That seems hard to believe, but it makes a little more sense when you learn that recording technology took a huge leap in the '20s from the acoustic to the electrical era. Here to explain what those terms mean is Jessica Wood, assistant curator of recorded music and sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Jessica, welcome to All of It.

Jessica Wood: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: We just heard Valerie June's version of Beautiful Dreamer, so let's start with that song. Best we can tell, the first recording of that song was made in the late 1920s, decades after it was published in 1864. Is it actually possible to confirm whether something like this, a recording of a composition like this-- Can we figure out exactly when it was recorded?

Jessica Wood: The way we would do that is looking through ledgers from recording companies or from catalogs that were published by record companies to see if there's any dating that those documentary sources contain. My go-to resource is the Discography of American Historical Recordings, which has dating information that is based on those documentary sources. From what I can tell looking on that site, 1928 was the first instance of that song being recorded.

Alison Stewart: What kind of clues do you look for on those ledgers, or is it just pretty evident when you're looking through that kind of paperwork when you're going on a hunt?

Jessica Wood: Sometimes the ledgers will be really helpful and will include the date and the time and who was working in the studio on that day.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Jessica Wood: In a lot of cases, those ledgers don't survive, and so, especially for smaller record labels, I would use the new release catalogs that they issue. Often they'll give the date and the month of the new hot releases from their company. That will be the closest that you can get to a specific date for a recording.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to the earliest recording of Beautiful Dreamer from Victor Salon Group released in 1928.

Jessica Wood: Great.

[MUSIC - Victor Salon Group: Beautiful Dreamer]

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,

Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,

Lull'd by the moonlight have all passed away.

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,

List while I woo thee with soft melody,

Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,

Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelei,

Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,

E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea,

Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, what do you hear in that recording that is interesting to you, something that you hear that maybe we civilians might not hear?

Jessica Wood: To me, he sounds very much like what we would think of as a crooner, which was a style of singing that was made possible by the advent of the microphone. I'm also hearing the way that the instrumentation emphasizes the mood of the song lyrics. I hear a lot of strings, possibly a harp, and I'm also struck by the vocal range of the singer. It sounds like there's at least an octave and a lot of phrasing nuances that I might not have heard in a recording from before 1925.

Alison Stewart: Is that because of the advances in the microphone? Is that what you're saying?

Jessica Wood: That's what I think. Yes, the microphones as opposed to the previous technology could capture more dynamic nuance and a wider range and frequencies than was possible before.

Alison Stewart: Earlier I mentioned the terms acoustic era and electrical era. How is each of those eras defined?

Jessica Wood: With the acoustic era, you would have what we all now recognize as a familiar image of an amplifying horn connected to some sort of recording device, either a cylinder recorder or a disc recorder. You would sing or play into that amplifying horn, and the horn would then direct the sound waves onto a thin, flexible membrane called a diaphragm. This diaphragm would be connected to a cutting needle or a stylus that would cut grooves into a soft recording surface, either a cylinder or a disc.

This mechanism was really limited in terms of dynamics and also the timbres that you could capture. If you were going to sing a song, you'd have to sing quite loudly in order for the grooves to be deep enough that you could hear it when you played the cylinder back. There were certain instruments like string instruments or the piano that were not captured very well. A number of famous pieces were re-orchestrated to include more acoustic technology-friendly instruments, so instead of double basses, you might hear parts written for the tuba which captured better on acoustic technology.

Alison Stewart: When did the electrical era come in?

Jessica Wood: That came about in 1925, and that was really all about the microphone. Microphones also had diaphragms that responded to the fluctuating sound waves. In the case of the microphone, the sound waves were converted into fluctuating voltage. An amplifier inside the microphone would help send that voltage through a cable that connected the recording studio to the room where the recording engineer was. There would be additional amplifiers with the recording engineer that would boost the signal enough to be able to cut grooves into the record using a stylus.

Alison Stewart: This changed the sound. This changed their options, what they could do, what they could record.

Jessica Wood: Yes. You hear the style of singing change, you hear the range of instruments change to include more instruments, and it changed the whole emotional palette that was available to pop singers. You could sing intimate songs more easily with the electric technology.

Alison Stewart: We found a couple of recordings of the same song, After You're Gone. The first was released by Marian Harris in 1918, so that would have been in the acoustic era. The second is by Gene Austin in 1930, which would have been in the electrical era. Let's do a A/B comparison and talk about it on the other side. Here's Marion Harris from 1918.

Jessica Wood: Okay.

[MUSIC - Marian Harris: After You're Gone]

Now won't you listen, honey, while I say,

How could you tell me that you're going away?

Don't say that we must part,

Don't break your baby's heart.

Alison Stewart: Now here's Gene Austin's version from 1930.

[MUSIC - Gene Austin: After You've Gone]

Now won't you listen, dearie, while I say,

How could you tell me that you're going away?

Don't say that we must part,

Don't break my aching heart.

You know I've loved you truly many years

Love you night and day,

How can you leave me,

Can't you see my dear,

Listen while I say.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, based on all that information you gave us earlier, what do you hear are the difference between the recordings?

Jessica Wood: When I hear the 1918 Marion Harris recording, I can almost feel the amount of physical exertion that she's putting into her vocals. I can imagine that if she were sitting next to me and singing like that, I might ask her to take it down a notch-

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Jessica Wood: -or maybe move a little bit away from me. Whereas if I listen to the 1930 Gene Austin recording, I almost breathe a sigh of relief because he sounds so much more relaxed in his delivery. His timbre is more open and less nasal and compressed. If I imagine him sitting next to me and singing like that, it might even feel like a pleasant experience. It feels like he's singing to me as opposed to at me, so at least gives me the illusion of me having a sincere and intimate relationship with the singer.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Jessica Wood, assistant curator of music and recorded sound at the NYPL for the Performing Arts. We're talking about how music was recorded and how the technology changed and how that impacted the kind of music that was made and heard and recorded. How do we find the legacy of the acoustic era and the impact of its limitations even in popular music today?

Jessica Wood: Ah, that's a good question. This is an ironic example, but right now I am feeling myself taken back to the acoustic era as I am having to press my face against the computer screen in order to be heard, probably much in the way that a singer might have to press her face into a gramophone horn in order to get the signal to register. That's an excellent question.

Alison Stewart: We can think about it for a minute.

Jessica Wood: I have to give that some more thought.

Alison Stewart: Sure. What about the length of songs? Did the acoustic era or the electrical era impact how long a song could be because the songs you've been playing have been pretty short.

Jessica Wood: The length of songs, that's been a limitation that has existed since the 1890s and lasted up until the invention of the long-playing record in 1948. That had to do with the number of grooves that you could fit on either a cylinder or a 78 RPM record. The three-minute or four-minute song format just governed consumer listening habits for most of the first half of the 20th century.

Alison Stewart: Part of the reason we're focusing this year's Public Song Project on the 1920s is WNYC will be celebrating its centennial this year for we first broadcast July of 1924, so right before the electrical era. How does radio fit into this history of how music is recorded?

Jessica Wood: Radio was what prompted the recording industry to adopt electric recording. In 1924, there was a big breakthrough in radio receiving technology that really improved sound quality to a degree that really surpassed sound recordings at that time. It set the new gold standard for what people expected to be able to hear from their speakers.

Alison Stewart: We've been talking about what happened 100 years ago. When you think about the era we're in right now in technology and recording technology, how would you describe it?

Jessica Wood: It seems now that we are in a period of infinite possibility, I can't think of limitations that we have now that would affect the artistic decisions that somebody would make in writing a song or a piece of music. You could make a piece of music that's 48 hours long, you could record as loud as you wanted or as quiet as you wanted, and you could use whatever instruments you wanted. Yes, it seems like we're in an era of infinite possibility.

Alison Stewart: If someone wants to learn more about all of this information and the resources available to them at the NYPL for the Performing Arts, where can they go? What is an example of something they can experience?

Jessica Wood: We have probably about 500,000 disc recordings in our collection going back from the 1890s up until yesterday. You can hear acoustic recordings and electric recordings and digital recordings. It just takes us about 10 to 15 minutes to pull the recording from our basement stacks and queue it up on the record player. In addition to that, we have a whole bunch of primary source documents that give you a flavor for what it was like to consume and hear music back starting in the 1890s.

We have a lot of publications designed for the record-buying public, for collectors. We have a number of interesting magazines designed for record dealers that would tell you what were the new fads among record consumers. There are all kinds of things that record players were used for that you would never dream of today that these resources shed light onto.

Alison Stewart: Jessica Wood is an assistant curator of music and recorded sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Jessica, have a great day.

Jessica Wood: You too. Thank you so much.

 

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