Arthur S. Alberts Collection

BIO

Based at the American Folklife Centre in Washington, in the U.S., the Arthur S. Alberts Collection is a collection of West Africa recordings which feature 24 seven inch tapes of music recorded in French Guinea, French Sudan, Gold Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, and Upper Volta by Arthur S. Alberts from 1949to 1950. The collection includes a three page concordance. One tape contains battle, hunting, religious, and other songs sung by Ashanti and Ibo (Nigeria) performers, and Moslem prayers recorded in Kumasi and elsewhere, Gold Coast. Another tape contains songs sung by Ibo (Nigeria) performers recorded in Accra, Gold Coast. The other feature drums, an ‘Anansi song’, songs sung by Mano (Liberia) performers, and songs sung by Ibo (Nigeria) performers recorded in Accra, Gold Coast.

In total, the collection has 19 tracks that make up this archive from the Library of Congress' Endangered Music Project.

The collection also features an invaluable document in the history of African musical traditions. Celebrated archivist Arthur S. Alberts was to African folk music what Harry Smith was to American folk music, and the tracks documented on this collection rank among the most complete overviews of African music of the mid-1900s available. Although the unpolished nature of these recordings is sure to limit their appeal to all but the most serious world music collectors, the album should be considered as a must-have historical document for fans of African music in general and syncopated percussion in particular.