Researching my new book, Into the Groove, was a daunting task. My subject was the entire history of sound, which has a lot of rabbit holes. One I can recommend is the bejeweled curiosities of the fledgling recording industry.
To set the scene: in 1877, Thomas Edison became the first person to record and play back sound. That first phonograph looked like a lathe with a hand-cranked, pre-grooved mandrel that was wrapped in tinfoil. This was both a wonder of the age and a complete pain to operate. When Edison turned his energies toward the light bulb, in 1878, the phonograph went into hibernation.
