"It all started on March 15, 1890 when a guy name Jesse Walter Fewkes stepped into a field and rolled a wax cylinder of a Passamaquoddy Indian harvest song. That's where it all started. That was the first recording ever made in the field," says percussionist Mickey Hart of what is ground zero for recorded music.

The significance of Fewkes' recording is that it's something of a metaphorical cornerstone for a new law that is arguably the most significant piece of music-related legislation ever passed in this country. On Nov. 9, President Bill Clinton signed a bill passed by the Senate on Nov. 1 enacting the National Recording Preservation Act. The bill was introduced by Congressman Bill Thomas, and sponsored by Senator John Breaux in the Senate. The bill echoes the National Film Preservation Act, which was enacted by Congress in 1988, as a means of preserving the motion-picture industry. As with other national registers -- for historic places, buildings, films, etc. -- the Recording Preservation Act will preserve and register worldwide recordings as part of the Library of Congress.

"It has a focus on preserving song and recordings," says the former Grateful Dead percussionist, who is also a trustee of the Library of Congress. "We all have our own registry in our heads, but this goes a step further. It says that songs and recorded collections are important, to us and to the nation, and it makes preservation a national priority. It's not a perfect bill, but it's a start. It's also a partnership between government and the music industry."

In addition to recognizing a national music registry, the legislation calls for the creation of a board to aid the Library of Congress in selecting which recordings should be preserved. According to Hart, the board will feature a wide-ranging group of musicians, NARAS, record industry officials, ASCAP, members of Congress, ethnomusicologists and others whose work is related to music production and preservation.

The Act also provides up to $250,000 each year for preservation, but Hart says that amount is only the beginning, and that the preservation will ultimately depend on private funding, as the mission is a service to music listeners, rather than a way to make money. "Of course, the librarian [James Billington] will be a driving figure," Hart says. "He's a visionary, and that vision is the digitization of the library of congress. So a lot of this music will be available at www.loc.gov. The Library is the Oz of libraries. It's Alexandria, it's the Vatican all rolled into one. We have over a million and a half hours just in the American Folklife Center. It's huge, man. And the great gift of all this is that we don't have to stockpile vast amounts of data. It's a great chance to give the world the music that was taken from it. This is a terrific opportunity because once we digitize it, we can give it away. This isn't a business, it's about recognizing national heritage."

ANDREW DANSBY
(November 16, 2000)