"The Bells Of St. Mary's" Bing Crosby With John Scott Trotter Orchestra Matrix Label 18721 A 1946
None of these songs were radio releases. For most, what you are listing to on this video you may have never heard. This album is almost 70 years old and in great condition. The records themselves are like new. If 78 records are stored correctly, they can last hundreds of years. The records are NOT made of vinyl but shellac and ground slate.
"Album," when applied to recordings of music, goes all the way back to these old sets of two or more 78s, which were
sold in a book-like bound set of protective paper sleeves. These "souvenir albums" were similar in size and shape to the photo albums of the day, in which people stored their family photographs. Decades later, when the record industry changed over to the 33 rpm Long Playing (LP) record, people were so used to talking about records as "albums" that the name stuck, even though there was no longer much resemblance to the bulky album of wedding photos the earlier sets of 78s had been named after.
