iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

I'm seeking a set of discs which were released under name of C.P. Mountford (actual recording was done by Colin Simpson) and contain material recorded during the 1948 Australian-American Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. This is a set of nine or ten 78 rpm discs on shellac. I don't have a lot of information on these but I believe they were released by the ABC sometime around 1950. I imagine the bulk of these sets were sold in Australia and did not sell much beyond that-- except possibly among musicologists.

Hi,

I think this is the material you are referring to;

http://www.manikay.com/albums/american- ... tion.shtml

Strangley I was contacted in January by a guy in the Netherlands who has one of the missing discs (he also tried to contact John Burrows - I haven't been able to get hold of John - anybody know if he's OK ?). He wanted the disc to go to an Australian institution as he regards it as cultural heritage - which it is. I gave him details of the Australian Film and Sound Archive.

Hi Peter. Thank you for your reply and I apologize for the belated acknowledgment-- I forgot to check back until now! I believe there is always the chance that a collector like myself could stumble upon a set of these discs in an unlikely place. I also believe that it's possible to find them cheaply at a yard sale or used record store, so I just keep looking. To comment on your post above-- it would seem that the ABC archives should still have the original (master) copy of these recordings since Colin Simpson was representing the ABC and made many of the recordings for airplay on national radio. There are still a few folks around the globe who are knowledgable regarding the use of "wire" recording devices-- so it shouldn't be too difficult, nor that expensive to transfer the original wire into a digital format. Then, everyone could enjoy and learn from these recordings. I've heard Manikay's sampling of the album set and what surprises me is that tracks on the discs are only a small sampling of a large body of wire recordings. There is a webpage dedicated to the AASEA 1948 which contains two streaming radio programs-- one is from the original ABC feature which aired around the time of the broadcast, the other is a recent revisitation. These are much, much better audio than the Manikay mp3's. Below are links to cut and paste into browser--most likely everyone on here has already heard the show, but here they are again.

http://www.nma.gov.au/av/audio/Expediti ... m_Land.mp3

http://www.nma.gov.au/av/audio/Return_t ... m_Land.mp3

Ah yes, I think I recall these programmes - they would have been made in 2008 to commemorate 60 years I think ? Yep, maybe the ABC do have the originals - I'd like to think so. There is something about those early recordings -they capture an atmosphere that seems so distant and romantic - other-worldy. I love the old scratchy sound of them - it speaks to me of a true expedition and hardship to obtain what have always been and forever will be, jewels.