LOC National Audio-Visual Conservation Center

It's #NatRecRegistry reveal day! 🎙️🎶This year's 25 recordings inducted into the National Recording Registry have been announced: blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2… See the whole list, plus video and audio clips, at the LC's main account!: x.com/librarycongres…

A tongue-twister for #MusicMonday! Before direct dial, you had to ask the telephone operator to connect you--as in the song recorded #OnThisDay in 1916, "Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?" Sing along with the #NationalJukebox, if you can!: loc.gov/item/jukebox-1…

Labelle’s 1974 single "Lady Marmalade" was added to the #NatRecRegistry in 2020. The 2001 cover version for the film "Moulin Rouge" featured Christina Aguilera, Mýa, Pink and Lil’ Kim--read Mýa's thoughts on the song and its place in history on our blog!: blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

TONIGHT! (Thurs. 3/13 7pm) In the Pickford Theater in DC, come see our beautiful 35mm film print of the Warner crime drama MARKED WOMAN, starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart!

Tomorrow (Thurs. 3/13 7pm), in DC's Pickford Theater: come see our 35mm film print of MARKED WOMAN (1937), a Warner Bros. crime drama starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, loosely based on the case of mobster Lucky Luciano! blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

For #MusicMonday, it's "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", recorded #OnThisDay in 1919! The lyrics were credited to "Jaan Kenbrovin"--actually a pseudonym mashing together 3 writers: KENdis, BROckman, & VINcent. Song: loc.gov/item/jukebox-3… Sheet music: loc.gov/item/201675654…

#OnThisDay in 1910, tenor Nicola Zerola recorded "Vesti la Giubba" (Put on the Costume), from the opera "Pagliacci"--the famous depiction of someone forced to laugh on the outside while weeping on the inside. Hear it in the #NationalJukebox: loc.gov/item/jukebox-1… #MusicMonday

We recently screened our lovely & rare 35mm print of "Countdown at Kusini" (1976) in the Pickford Theater for #BlackHistoryMonth . Learn more about this film's grassroots origins in our blog post, by Zoran Sinobad of the Moving Image Research Center! blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

Today's #MusicMonday for #BlackHistoryMonth is "Red, Red Rose", by the groundbreaking Black American composer Will Marion Cook! Hear this 1909 recording in the #NationalJukebox: loc.gov/item/jukebox-1… And read more about Will Marion Cook here!: loc.gov/item/n88663576…

"St. Louis Rag", recorded in March 1904, is a fine and rare example of authentic orchestral ragtime! It was written by Black pianist & composer Tom Turpin, a major presence in St. Louis, ragtime's historical hotbed: loc.gov/item/jukebox-2… #BlackHistoryMonth

TONIGHT! (Thurs. 2/13, 7pm) in DC's Pickford Theater: we're screening our rare 35mm film print of "COUNTDOWN AT KUSINI" (1976)! blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

Tomorrow (Thurs. 2/13, 7pm) in DC's Pickford Theater: a 35mm film screening of the rarely-seen "COUNTDOWN AT KUSINI" (1976)--an international action-drama made to challenge stereotypes in the "blaxploitation" genre at the time!

For #MusicMonday, it's "Triflin' Blues", recorded in 1923 by classic blues singer Viola McCoy (recording as Amanda Brown)! It was written by the famous team of Porter Grainger & Bob Ricketts, with Grainger himself on the piano: loc.gov/item/jukebox-6… #BlackHistoryMonth

Recorded #OnThisDay in 1909, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was the 1st commercial recording of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who brought Black American spirituals to the wider public. It was added to the #NatRecRegistry in 2002! loc.gov/item/jukebox-1… #BlackHistoryMonth

In the wake of the passing of the great and incomparable David Lynch, we've been thinking about his spectacular debut film "Eraserhead" (1977), added to the #NatFilmRegistry in 2004: "utterly original, hugely audacious, and fearlessly strange": blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

For #MusicMonday, "Everybody Loves a Chicken", recorded #OnThisDay in 1913! Not quite the🐔kind of chicken...this song potentially adds some data to the historical development of the slang term "chick". Hear it in the #NationalJukebox!: loc.gov/item/jukebox-6…

TONIGHT! (Thursday Jan. 23, 7pm) in the Mary Pickford Theater in DC, come see our 35mm film print of "I WAS MONTY'S DOUBLE" (1958), based on a true WWII story of an actor hired to impersonate General Montgomery--starring that actor himself! blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

This Thursday (1/23 7pm) at the Pickford Theater in DC: "I WAS MONTY'S DOUBLE" (1958), a tense, tightly paced espionage drama based on true events during WWII! blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

Just honored by the Kennedy Center for her contributions to music, the legendary Bonnie Raitt saw her seminal album “Nick of Time” (1989) added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2022. She recently sat down with us to discuss it: blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…

For #MusicMonday, an anti-war song written by Irving Berlin, recorded #OnThisDay in 1915: In "Stay Down Here Where You Belong," the Devil sings that due to the war, "You’ll find more Hell up there than there is down below." It's in the #NationalJukebox: loc.gov/item/jukebox-1…