The History of The Salvation Army is inextricably associated with Music. The Salvation Army Museum Basel has therefore many records in connection with The Salvation Army.
There are many different variants: Cylinder rolls for phonographs, piano rolls for pianolas, shellac records (e.g. Regal) and more modern vinyl records, and tapes as well as Compact Discs (CDs). These include not only songs or texts that are played or spoken by The Salvation Army itself. There are also songs about The Salvation Army or recordings of the voices of several Generals of The Salvation Army. Compositions that are not played by The Salvation Army but related to, e.g. from movies or even mocking songs should, of course, not be missing from the collection.
Regal Zonophone
Between 1927 and 1958, The Salvation Army in conjunction with The Columbia Gramophone Company Ltd. (latterly a component subsidiary of EMI Ltd.), issued two hundred and twenty 78 rpm records.
These records are featuring various Headquarters and Corps musical sections, instrumental and vocal soloists and the voices of three Generals.
The William Booth Columbia Recordings - February 1907
William Booth, founder and first general of The Salvation Army was considered to be one of the most up-to-date men of his generation, who used all available means to spread the Gospel and publicise the aims of the Army.
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Cylinder Recordings
In 1878, Thomas Edison conceived and demonstrated a machine capable of storing and reproducing sound. This mechanism, which he called the Phonograph, or Speaking Machine used a tinfoil covered cylinder as the recording medium onto which the sound was impressed using a steel stylus.
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Live at the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace, designed and erected in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 and subsequently re-sited at Sydenham Hill in South London, was first used as a venue for Salvation Army gatherings and congresses in 1890.
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Don't Forget The Salvation Army
There are various records and phonograph cylinder rolls of songs about the Doughnut Girls. "Doughnut Girls" was the name given to the Salvation Army Officers who ministered to the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) in France during the First World War.
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