Recorded music history: British Bell Records on Shellac & Vinyl
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British Bell Records on Shellac & Vinyl
This is the winner of Best Discography in the 2025 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence (Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical Music category)
British Bell Records on Shellac and Vinyl
This book focusses on British-pressed records that include the sounds of church bells, other tower bells, carillons, and handbell ensembles.
The first known records of "church scenes" with bells were issued in 1899 by the company that later became "His Master's Voice" though there is doubt as to whether the sounds heard were real or studio-based 'recreations'.
Few records known to include tower bells were released in the UK prior to the introduction of electric recording in 1926, probably because this required taking cumbersome recording and disc cutting machinery on location (that each company kept its own recording technology a closely guarded secret only added to the problems of location recording).
Electrical recording meant needing only a microphone and amplifier on site, and the resultant sounds could be recorded in the studio via dedicated phone line. The five years from 1926 saw more church bell, carillon, and handbell ensemble records released than in the previous twenty-six years combined. Thereafter, major label interest in bell records dropped away significantly.
Once tape recording caught on in the post-WW2 period, the major labels ignored bells for the most part (other than as sound effects) and it was left to enterprising ringing teams to get their own records to market, 78 rpm records to begin, though in 1957 a Kent-based ringing team issued the first LP of church bells and the 78 rpm record dropped out of favour.
Since then, it has been a combination of independent record labels, with Saydisc at the forefront, and ringers themselves that have satisfied a small but enthusiastic market segment.
There is a support website for additions and updates, which also includes links to digitised 78s as documented in the book, plus supporting tables.
The first known records of "church scenes" with bells were issued in 1899 by the company that later became "His Master's Voice" though there is doubt as to whether the sounds heard were real or studio-based 'recreations'.
Few records known to include tower bells were released in the UK prior to the introduction of electric recording in 1926, probably because this required taking cumbersome recording and disc cutting machinery on location (that each company kept its own recording technology a closely guarded secret only added to the problems of location recording).
Electrical recording meant needing only a microphone and amplifier on site, and the resultant sounds could be recorded in the studio via dedicated phone line. The five years from 1926 saw more church bell, carillon, and handbell ensemble records released than in the previous twenty-six years combined. Thereafter, major label interest in bell records dropped away significantly.
Once tape recording caught on in the post-WW2 period, the major labels ignored bells for the most part (other than as sound effects) and it was left to enterprising ringing teams to get their own records to market, 78 rpm records to begin, though in 1957 a Kent-based ringing team issued the first LP of church bells and the 78 rpm record dropped out of favour.
Since then, it has been a combination of independent record labels, with Saydisc at the forefront, and ringers themselves that have satisfied a small but enthusiastic market segment.
There is a support website for additions and updates, which also includes links to digitised 78s as documented in the book, plus supporting tables.
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© 2009 - 2024, M. C. Jones, trading as Bristol Folk Publications. The Record Press, Diogenes Academic Press and Burnham Priory are imprints of Bristol Folk Publications.
