Autograph Records
1924-1926
Orlando R. Marsh, an electrical engineer working on a way to record sound electrically, launched Autograph Records in 1924. He had incorporated the Marsh Laboratories in Chicago two years earlier to provide masters for custom labels and was the first studio to start out with electric recording, never having used the acoustic process. Mobile units were also easier to construct and gave an advantage to this new format. A&R included a range of artists and styles and even a few historically important acts like King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. Marsh had a special interest in recording the pipe organ, an instrument impossible to record with the acoustic process given its low and delicate frequency responses. His best-selling records were actually that of Jesse Crawford at the Chicago Theatre's organ in 1924. Though a wider frequency response captured previously impossible sounds, overall audio quality was still poor, low-volume and quite tinny even when compared to acoustically-recorded discs. An insanely high 1000 Hz turnover rate to keep bass sounds from over-modulating the groove didn't help. The New York Recording Laboratories actually cancelled their contract with Marsh over this and he had to hand over Autograph to them in 1926 for payment of debt. NYRL re-issued some of the pipe organ recordings on Autograph before shutting it down soon after.
Encoded Speed: 192 Kbps

The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise	Humoresque
Jesse Crawford	Jesse Crawford
Autograph	Autograph
Matrix# 439	Matrix# 441
1924	1924
Chicago Theatre. Chicago, Illinois	Chicago Theatre. Chicago, Illinois
Note: Worn. 60 Hz electrical hum present.	Note: Worn.

Säg har du Funnit yila?	Vad Gör det väl?
A. J. Freeman and Esther Freeman Holmer	A. J. Freeman
Autograph	Autograph
Matrix# 643	Matrix# 648
1924	1924
Chicago, Illinois	Chicago, Illinois

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