Celebrate Canada Day And Listen to Two Digitized Historic Recordings Available Online

From a Tweet and Web Page  by Heritage Vancouver Society:

The Heritage Vancouver Society wishes everyone a happy Canada Day. To help celebrate in vintage air, we’ve digitised two Edison phonograph cylinder recordings, dating from 1909 and 1914:

• The Maple Leaf Forever (1909 recording)

The Maple Leaf Forever, written by Alexander Muir (1830-1906) in 1867, the year of Canada’s Confederation

• Canada (1914 recording, 1908 Weir lyrics)

This version, sung by Irving Gillette in 1914, was issued by the Edison Company in the same year, on an Edison Blue Amberol record (record number 2287). The original 1908 lyrics are sung.

It’s interesting to note that Vancouver has a connection to another version of lyrics for O Canada, the Buchan version, and the story can be read here: www.vancouverhistory.ca/archives_ocanada.htm. The 1897 Buchan house still exists in Vancouver’s West End, at 1114 Barclay, saved from demolition in 1995, then fully restored and aptly known as “O Canada House“.

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Resources