Universal Donates Enormous Music Archive to Library of Congress

Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday

JP Jazz Archive/Redferns

Universal Music Group, the largest music conglomerate in the United States, has donated a collection of approximately 200,000 metal, glass and lacquer master discs dating between 1926 and 1948 to the Library of Congress.

Photos: Random Notes

The bequest includes a wide range of music recorded during that era, representing jazz, country, blues, spoken word, classical and pre-rock pop music. The collection features major works by greats such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garlard and Bing Crosby. One of the Crosby recordings included in the archive is his version of "White Christmas," which is the top selling single of all time, according to the Guiness Book of World Records.

Universal has struck an agreement in which the Library will be granted ownership of the physical master discs while the company retains copyright for the music itself. The Library of Congress will soon begin the process of digitizing the music directly from the master discs, which Universal may eventually issue as commercial releases.

Library of Congress Gets a Mile of Music [NY Times]

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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