The First North American Guitar Recordings

Guitarchaeology 101

Octaviano Yañes with 7-string guitar.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the guitar was mainly used as a “parlor” instrument suitable for home entertainment and serenading. The instrument could also be heard in saloons, poolrooms, Grange halls, barbershops, and some churches. Like today, the guitar’s popularity extended beyond social, class, and gender boundaries. While guitars were readily obtainable through music stores and mail-order catalogs, few recordings of guitar music were available in the early 1900s, when most players learned from teachers and sheet music.

The first North American guitar recordings were likely made in Mexico City in 1904, when tenor Rafael Herrera Robinson was accompanied by a guitarist on Edison cylinder recordings of popular corridos (i.e., folk songs). The example presented here, “Mañanitas,” tells of bandit leader Heraclio Bernal, a.k.a. the “Thunderbolt of Sinaloa.” The guitarist makes notable use of muscular bass-string passages:

By year’s end, the Victor and Columbia companies had also made forays into Mexico and recorded singers accompanied by guitar.

Recordings of guitarists in the United States began in earnest circa 1905. The Edison Phonograph Monthly credited “An Autumn Evening,” a mandolin-guitar instrumental played by Samuel Siegel and M. Lloyd Wolfe, as “the first record ever made by this combination of instruments. It is one that, we think, will please all admirers of both instruments. The music is of a serenade character.” Promotional materials declared Siegel “America’s Greatest Mandolin Virtuoso” and “The King of the Mandolin.” No such accolades were applied to M. Lloyd Wolfe.

During the winter of 1905-1906, the Edison Company set up a temporary recording studio in a building at 146 Industria in Havana, Cuba. Among the many musicians who made field recordings in that makeshift studio was classical guitarist Sebastián Hidalgo, who cut cylinders of two selections: the popular “Miserere” from Verdi’s Il Trovatore, and “Polka Selva Negra.” Dick Spottswood, an expert on early recorded music, observes that “these are likely the first recordings of solo guitar made in North America.”