Archiving Yultide Tunes
Tosa Irish center collects 16-inch records, V-discs, Crosby albums
December 21, 2000 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinal | Photo/David Joles

Wauwatosa - We got your "White Christmas" right here. Same for the soundtrack from the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" television show. And the sheet music for "Christmas in Killarney."

Archivist Barry Stapleton is flanked by the Christmas music display at the Irish Fest Center in Wauwatosa on Wednesday. The collection includes traditional and contemporary Irish and American Christmas albums.
Here being the John J. Ward Irish Music Archives at the Irish Fest Center, 1532 Wauwatosa Ave.

"White Christmas," of course, is a Bing Crosby specialty. And this time of year at the archives, it's practically all Bing all the time. Bing ornaments to decorate the tree. Bing games lighting up the shelves in a room already washed in warm-colored wood trim. Hey, that's a Bing decanter, and that ceramic bust looks just like Bing.

The Christmas theme is not limited to all things Bing. Archivist Barry Stapleton has on display albums from James Galway ("Christmas Carol"), John Gary ("John Gary Christmas Album"), Dennis Day ("Christmas Is for the Family"), along with the classic Golden Records "Rudolph" soundtrack. There are no dates on the album covers, but Stapleton figures the "Rudolph" album to be from the 1960s (the show first aired in 1964).

All told, there are more than 100 Christmas albums, by artists from Enrico Caruso and John McCormack to the Chieftains, although most of what Stapleton and others are archiving is old material. Information is being stored on the archives' computer as volunteers and Stapleton go through stacks of recordings, including jigs recorded on wax cylinders.

Most of which are being prepared to be available to the public in the next two or three years.

"The big thing now are the old radio shows and putting them on CD," Stapleton said.

He pulled out a 16-inch recording made for the Armed Forces Radio and TV Service, probably in the late 1940s. The record features a variety of entertainers, and host Crosby, recorded for soldiers as a Christmas Eve treat.

At the archives, they can play it. There are also V-discs - records, known as "victory discs," that were designed to be sent to soldiers at the front lines during World War II. The discs were supposed to be destroyed, but "there's a lot of them out there," Stapleton said.

The archives also hold radio shows by Milwaukee native Pat O'Brien, made in the 1950s and sent overseas by Broadcasters Program Syndicate. The archives have about 60 of the O'Brien recordings.

Right now, however, the emphasis is Christmas. Christmas albums, Irish and American, are laid out on a table in the center's sitting area. Stapleton might have on hand popular Irish music, even the Celtic Christmas selections that typically feature Irish pop stars, but the emphasis at the archives is on old 78s and other long-playing albums.

And Stapleton can go back even further. He points to a box filled with Christmas songs on player-piano rolls.

For information about the center, or to see the center's display of Christmas records, call the offices at (414) 476-3378.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Dec. 21, 2000.