Not all discs are pictured; email if you need to see one listed that I couldn't post a pic of.

1.COLUMBIA 36907 Bill Monroe V+ / V+ 2. CONQUEROR 8214 Will OSborne E- / E- 3. MELOTONE 13370 Hoosier Hotshots E- / E- 4. VICTOR 21761 Harry Mac McClintock V+ / V+ 5. VICTOR 20122 Carl Sprague V++ / V++ 6. VICTOR 22588 Bud & Joe Billings E- / V+ (needle dig on Im alone) 7. COLUMBIA 21334 Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs V+ / V (needle dig on end of world) 8. VOCALION 5279 Bob & MOnte V / V plays better but label is trashed 9. VICTOR 20796 Travis B Hale E J Derry V+ / V+ 10. CONQUEROR 7558 Frankie Wallace V / V 11. VICTOR 40088 Bud & JOe Billings E- / E- 12. VOCALION 5279 (copy 2) E- / E- 13. VICTOR 17947 Carl Sprague G/ G basically giving this one away with the lot. Plays good but has a 1/2 crack 14. BRUNSWICK 4100 frank shaw V+ / V+ 15. VICTOR 40143 Bud & Joe Billings V+ / V+ 16. VICTOR 40267 Bud Billings V++ / V++

shipping $15

WIKIPEDIA:

Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "", although each of these terms denote categorically distinct items. When used in conjunction with a as part of a setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an by a , then converted back into sound by a .

Close up of the mechanism of an Edison Amberola, circa 1915

The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the words φωνή (phonē, 'sound' or 'voice') and γραφή (graphē, 'writing'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek γράμμα gramma 'letter' and φωνή phōnē 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings.

In , "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using , which were introduced and popularized in the UK by the . Originally, "gramophone" was a proprietary of that company and any use of the name by competing makers of disc records was vigorously prosecuted in the courts, but in 1910 an English court decision decreed that it had become a generic term;

United States Early phonograph at Deaf Smith County Historical Museum in ,

In , "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to 's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine which played nonrecordable discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs.)

Australia Wood engraving published in , depicting a public demonstration of new technology at the Royal Society of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) on 8 August 1878.

In , "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term; "gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used as in . The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June 1878 to a meeting of the by the Society's Honorary Secretary, who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione, along with a range of other new inventions, including the .

Early history Dictionary illustration of a . This version uses a barrel made of . Phonautograph Main article:

The phonautograph was invented on March 25, 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris. One day while editing Professor Longet's Traité de Physiologie, he happened upon that customer’s engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build a device that could replicate the function of the human ear.

Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of . He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the . At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimeter long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As the glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures that were scratched into the lampblack. On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph. The earliest known surviving recorded sound of a human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860 when Scott recorded someone singing the song "" ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device. However, the device was not designed to play back sounds, as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings, which he called phonautograms. This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as had been used in this way by English physicist in 1807. By late 1857, with support from the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott’s phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics.

The device’s true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make the earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by . The phonautograph would play a role in the development of the , whose inventor, Emile Berliner, worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device.

Paleophone

, a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the , a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.

An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised a more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a phonographe, but Cros himself favored the word paleophone, sometimes rendered in French as voix du passé ('voice of the past').[]

Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception.

Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at the age of 45.

The early phonographs for Edison's phonograph, May 18, 1880

conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by . His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in and several newspapers in the beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a 'talking-machine' can be found in the on May 9), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was on February 19, 1878, as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American, and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..."

The music critic attended an early demonstration (1881–2) of a similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he writes "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."

newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at the , writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. "Rule Britannia" was distinctly repeated, but great laughter was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of "He's a jolly good fellow," which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a very cracked voice."

Early machines Phonograph cabinet built with , 1912. The clockwork portion of the phonograph is concealed in the base beneath the statue; the amplifying horn is the shell behind the human figure.

Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally , which was temporarily wrapped around a grooved mounted on a correspondingly supported by plain and threaded . While the cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its , the airborne vibrated a connected to a that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation.

Introduction of the disc record 2:24 This 1906 recording (with the character being voiced by ) enticed store customers with the wonders of the invention.
2 minutes, 23 seconds. Problems playing this file? See .

By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced -based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's first major African-American star was obliged to perform his "The Laughing Song" (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") literally thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.)[]

Oldest surviving recordings

's cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording, although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial. Wax recordings of 's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a recording of made on April 9, 1860.

The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.

A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one which is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President , but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned.[] These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, not preserved, has been called the first instance of .

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording. Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th century media legends such as and Shakespearean actor are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.

Improvements at the Volta Laboratory Main article:

and his two associates took Edison's phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.

Although Edison had in 1877, the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of . However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend the next five years developing the system.

Volta's early challenge

Meanwhile, Bell, a and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after having patented the . According to , it was through that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married in 1879 while Hubbard was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine which seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate.

Volta Graphophone See also: A 'G' (Graham Bell) model Graphophone being played back by a typist after its cylinder had recorded dictation.

The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables.

One interesting exception was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by . Tainter was granted on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch.

The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus.

Graphophone commercialization A later-model Columbia Graphophone of 1901 3:52 Edison-Phonograph playing: Iola by the Edison Military Band (video, 3 min 51 s)

In 1885, when the Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed applications and began to seek out investors. The of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886, and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became the first .

After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from created the on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into .

A coin-operated version of the Graphophone, , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company.

The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of in business, because their wax recording process was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of and many others, before the became a major factor in .

Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium

Discs (that aren't re-recordable) are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped, and the matrixes to stamp disc can be shipped to other printing plants for a global distribution of recordings; cylinders could not be stamped until 1901–1902, when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison.

A Victor V phonograph, circa 1907

Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records, and "gramophones". His "" was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced the hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had very poor sound quality, however. Work by eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder.

He was born in , United States. Sprague grew up on a farm near , and learned traditional songs as a child. During his college years at , he played in a band and, later on, worked as an athletic trainer. He also found time to conduct a weekly radio program on campus. Sprague served in . Sprague served in the . He graduated from college in 1922 and was offered occasional work performing on radio. He received a recording contract by in 1925. In August, the same year, he went to to record his first ten songs. His debut sides were "When the Work's All Done This Fall" and "Bad Companions"; the former would go on to sell over 900,000 copies. His recording of "The Dying Cowboy" became a hit in 1926. Other successful recordings were "The Mormon Cowboy," "" and "The Two Soldiers." He recorded with until 1929, releasing 33 songs. In the 1930s he moved to and ceased recording, though he would return to play during the genre's resurgence in the 1950s and 1960s.

He died in 1979 in Bryan, Texas.

Flatt was born in Duncan's Chapel, , United States, to Nannie Mae Haney and Isaac Columbus Flatt. In 1943, he played and sang in The Kentucky Pardners, the band of 's older brother . He first came to prominence as a member of 's Blue Grass Boys in 1945 and played a thumb-and-index guitar style that was in part derived from the playing of Charlie Monroe and Clyde Moody. In 1948, he started a band with fellow Monroe alumnus , and for the next 20 years, and the Foggy Mountain Boys were one of the most successful bands in bluegrass. When they parted ways in 1969, Flatt formed a new group, the , hiring many of the Foggy Mountain Boys. He continued to record and perform with that group until his death in 1979. His role as rhythm guitarist and vocalist in each of these seminal ensembles helped define the sound of traditional bluegrass music. His solid guitar playing and rich lead voice are unmistakable in hundreds of bluegrass standards. He is also remembered for his library of compositions.

Death and legacy

Flatt died of heart failure in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 64.

He was posthumously inducted into the in 1985 along with Scruggs. Flatt was also posthumously inducted as an inaugural member of the in 1991.

Lester's hometown of , held a bluegrass festival in his honor for a number of years, before being discontinued a few years prior to the death of the traditional host, resident Everette Paul England; Lester Flatt Memorial Bluegrass Day remains part of the annual Liberty Square Celebration held in Sparta.

Flatt and Scruggs were ranked No. 24 on 's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. llbilly music was at one time considered an acceptable label for what is now known as . The label, coined in 1925 by country pianist , persisted until the 1950s.

The "hillbilly music" categorization covers a wide variety of musical genres including bluegrass, country, western, and gospel. Appalachian folk song existed long before the "hillbilly" label. When the commercial industry was combined with "traditional Appalachian folksong", "hillbilly music" was formed. Some argue this is a "High Culture" issue where sophisticated individuals may see something considered "unsophisticated" as "trash".

In the early-20th century, artists began to utilize the "hillbilly" label. The term gained momentum due to , the recording director of , who heard it being used among Southerners when he went down to Virginia to record the music and labeled all Southern country music as so from then on. entitled one of their songs "Hillbilly Rose" and followed with their song "Hillbilly Boogie". In 1927, the studios in , made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker. The recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files and were marketed to a white audience. Columbia Records had much success with the "Hill Billies" featuring and .

By the late-1940s, radio stations started to use the "hillbilly music" label. Originally, "hillbilly" was used to describe fiddlers and string bands, but now it was used to describe traditional Appalachian music. Appalachians had never used this term to describe their own music. Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both hillbilly and music were referred to as and . was a prominent player of rockabilly and was known early in his career as the "Hillbilly Cat".

When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term hillbilly music gradually fell out of use. The music industry merged hillbilly music, , and , to form the current category C&W, .

Some artists (notably ) and fans were offended by the "hillbilly music" label. While the term is not used as frequently today, it is still used on occasion to refer to or . For example, broadcasts a popular weekly radio show entitled "Hillbilly at Harvard". The show is devoted to playing a mix of , , and traditional .

Cultural implications

The hillbilly stereotype is considered to have had a traumatizing effect on some in the Appalachian region. Feelings of shame, self-hatred, and detachment are cited as a result of "culturally transmitted traumatic stress syndrome". Appalachian scholars say that the large-scale stereotyping has rewritten Appalachian history, making Appalachians feel particularly vulnerable. "Hillbilly" has now become part of Appalachian identity and some Appalachians feel they are constantly defending themselves against this image.

The stereotyping also has political implications for the region. There is a sense of "perceived history" that prevents many political issues from receiving adequate attention. Appalachians are often blamed for economic struggles. "Moonshiners, welfare cheats, and coal miners" are stereotypes stemming from the greater hillbilly stereotype in the region. This has been said to serve as a barrier for addressing some serious issues such as the economy and the environment.

Despite the political and social difficulties associated with stereotyping, Appalachians have organized to enact change. The is sometimes considered to be an example of one effort that allowed for Appalachian community organization. movements, protests, and strikes are common in the area, though not always successful.

Intragroup versus intergroup usage

The Chamber of Commerce once presented dignitaries visiting the city with an "Ozark Hillbilly Medallion" and a certificate proclaiming the honoree a "hillbilly of the Ozarks". On June 7, 1952, President received the medallion after a breakfast speech at the Shrine Mosque for the Association. Other recipients included generals and , , , and .

is an annual festival held in mid-April in celebrating the best of Appalachian culture. The event began by local Shriners as a fundraiser to support the Shriners Children's Hospital. It has grown since its beginning in 1976 and now is the second largest festival held in the state of Kentucky. Artists and craftspeople showcase their talents and sell their works on display. Nationally renowned musicians as well as the best of the regional mountain musicians share six different stages located throughout the downtown area of Pikeville. Aspiring hillbillies from across the nation compete to come up with the wildest Hillbilly outfit. The event has earned its name as the Mardi Gras of the Mountains. Fans of "mountain music" come from around the United States to hear this annual concentrated gathering of talent. Some refer to this event as the equivalent of a "Woodstock" for mountain music.

The term "Hillbilly" is used with pride by a number of people within the region as well as famous persons, such as singer , chef , and was used by actress . Positive self-identification with the term generally includes identification with a set of "hillbilly values" including love and respect for nature, strong work ethic, generosity toward neighbors and those in need, family ties, self-reliance, resiliency, and a simple lifestyle.