• Richard Rennie says the state library doesn’t pay enough attention to the state’s recorded history, echoing concerns by historian John Dowson that it pays scant attention to media other than written documents. Photo by Steve Grant
Another local history buff has joined award-winning author John Dowson in criticising the state library for being too focussed on written material (“Photo snobs fail history: Dowson”, Herald, October 19, 2013).
Richard Rennie founded his own Museum of WA’s recorded sound after the library gave away the bulk of its 50,000-strong record collection a couple of years ago.
The Melville resident says while most of the collection is trivial pop music which took up valuable space, he’d seen about 100 rare recordings he thought should have been kept and made available to researchers and the public.
“For example there were recordings of coronations, voice of King George V, voice of the aviator Amy Johnson (who came to WA on one of her record-breaking flights),” Mr Rennie told the Herald.
“These records are now safe in the hand of collectors, but no longer available to the public.”
He says since starting the Museum of Early Western Australian Recorded Sound he’s tracked down a significant number of rare WA recordings he says should be in the hands of the state.
One includes a 1928 recording of a promising young Perth cornetist who’d taken a South Australian music competition by storm and was whisked away by record producers.
The vagaries of recording loud instruments back in the ‘20s resulted in a patchy performance that earned the young horn player the wrath of his music teacher who wanted all copies destroyed. Some survived to pay testament to the fleeting musical stardom of one Charles Court, later premier of the state and knighted for his services to the state, if not the cornet.
Mr Rennie also has a wax cylinder of the earliest known surviving recording in WA, of Albany Salvation Army officer and cornetist Ensign Suridge in January 1907. He was able to date the recording after a chance discovery; when the music finished he’d let the wax cylinder continue to play, only to hear a voice a few moments later noting Suridge had died a month after the recording.
But state librarian Margaret Allen says only recordings directly relevant to WA are now kept.
“Our focus is on all Western Australian recordings in all formats, particularly on limited lifespan works such as those recorded privately and/or not commercially published,” Ms Allen told the Herald.
“We collect all current formats, print and digital. Vinyl, 78 rpm and cassette recordings will only be collected if they have Western Australian relevance.”
Ms Allen said new legal deposits regulations are due to be rolled out from January 2014, which will see record companies required to lodge new recordings with the library, boosting its music catalogue.
by STEVE GRANT