Preserving Old Slovenian Recorded Music

By: Rich Terselic

A century has passed since the first 78 rpm Slovenian music recordings became available in America.

During the first decades of the past century, Slovenian-Americans provided a good market for sale of phonograph records. Several hundred polka, waltz and choral selections of  “our” music were recorded over the next half century in America. These were supplemented by recordings brought over from Slovenia. The work of dozens of Slovenian-American and European Slovenian artists were captured on 78 rpm discs under several different labels. Long playing 33-1/3 rpm discs eventually displaced the 78s.

My colleague in this effort, Chuck Debevec, and I feared that the old Slovenian recorded music might be lost forever, and undertook a project to collect and preserve it on compact discs (CDs). With the generous support of dozens of holders of the old 78 rpm records, we have been able to develop a collection including the majority of the oldest selections. Our primary reference for measuring is a listing (discography) compiled by folk music expert, Richard Spottswood. However, we have also gained access to selections not listed by Spottswood.

We continue to invite persons who have old 78 rpm records to contact us. While we are happy to accept donations of old records, we also wish to simply borrow them long enough to make transfers to the CD format. Should the donors or loaners wish, we will provide a CD back containing the selections.

We are also pleased to receive old Croatian and Serbian music selections.

A good way to start for persons who have the old records is to provide us a listing of the selections and artists. From this we can determine if selections are included not already in our collection.

Contact: Rich Terselic, 9003 Harris Street, Frederick, MD 21704-7827; 301-874-2446 or rat@tidalwave.net.