Archeophone Records, LLC, based in Champaign, Illinois

Champaign, Illinois

Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...

, specializes in preserving recordings of the acoustic

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

 era of the recording industry by remastering phonograph cylinders and gramophone records from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and releasing them on compact disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

. The company has released recordings by soloists such as Billy Murray

Billy Murray (singer)

William Thomas "Billy" Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century...

, Bert Williams

Bert Williams

Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams was one of the preeminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920...

, Guido Deiro

Guido Deiro

Count Guido Pietro Deiro was a famous vaudeville star, international recording artist, composer and teacher. He was the first piano-accordionist to appear on big-time vaudeville, records, radio and the screen. Guido usually performed under the stage-name "Deiro"...

, Nora Bayes

Nora Bayes

Nora Bayes was a popular American singer, comedienne and actress of the early 20th century.-Early life and career:...

, Jack Norworth

Jack Norworth

Jack Norworth was a U.S. songwriter, singer and vaudeville performer.Norworth is credited as co-writer of a number of Tin Pan Alley hits. He wrote the lyrics of the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in 1908, his most long lasting hit. But it wasn't until 1940 that he actually witnessed a Major...

, Eddie Morton, and of dance/jazz ensembles such as the Six Brown Brothers

Six Brown Brothers

The Six Brown Brothers were a Canadian vaudeville era saxophone sextet consisting of six brothers. The brothers were, William, Tom , Alec, Percy, Fred and Vern Brown. The Brown Brothers lived in Lindsay, Ontario until 1893. The first instrumentation consisted of a saxophone quintet The Six Brown...

, the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, and Art Hickman's

Art Hickman

Arthur G. Hickman was a drummer, pianist, and band leader whose orchestra is sometimes seen as an ancestor to Big band music. It fits into what are termed "sweet bands", something like that of Paul Whiteman. His orchestra is also credited, perhaps dubiously, with being among the first jazz bands....

 Orchestra. Compilations feature Vess Ossman

Vess Ossman

Vess Ossman was a leading 5-string banjoist and popular recording artist of the early 20th century.-Biography:...

, Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan

Byron G. Harlan

Byron G. Harlan was an American singer from Kansas, a comic minstrel singer and balladeer who often recorded with Arthur Collins. The two together were often billed as "Collins & Harlan".-Solo recordings:1899...

, Henry Burr

Henry Burr

Henry Burr was a Canadian singer of popular songs from the early 20th century, an early radio performer and producer...

, Bob Roberts

Bob Roberts (folksinger)

Bob Roberts was a British folk singer, songwriter, storyteller, bargeman, author, and journalist. He was the last captain of a British commercial vessel operating under sail, and brought to an end a centuries old tradition.- Life :...

, Ada Jones

Ada Jones

Ada Jones was a popular mezzo-soprano who recorded from 1905 to the early 1920s. She was born in Lancashire, England but moved with her family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of six in 1879...

, Fred Van Eps

Fred Van Eps

Fred Van Eps was a noted banjoist and banjo maker. The "Van Eps Recording Banjo" was a well-known model until 1930.-Biography:...

, Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century...

, Harry Lauder

Harry Lauder

Sir Henry Lauder , known professionally as Harry Lauder, was an international Scottish entertainer, described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador!"-Early life:...

, and the American

American Quartet (ensemble)

The American Quartet was a quartet of singers that recorded for various companies from 1899 to 1925. The lineup varied over the years, but the most famous lineup recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company from 1909 to 1913.*John Bieling - first tenor...

, Peerless

Peerless Quartet

The Peerless Quartet, , was a vocal group from the acoustic era . It was organised in 1904 as the Columbia Quartet. It remained active until 1928 and had many changes of personnel during that time, the one constant being Henry Burr...

, and Haydn Quartets

The Haydn Quartet

The Haydn Quartet was one of the most popular recording close harmony quartets in the early twentieth century.Originally Samuel Holland Rous formed a vocal quartet in 1896 to record for Edison’s studios...

.

Archeophone Record's 2005 release, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922 won the 2006 Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 in the category of Best Historical Album. Its 2007 release, Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s

Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s

Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s is a compilation of jokes and stories recorded to wax cylinders during the 1890s. At the time the recordings were made, they were considered indecent, and nearly all similar recordings from this era have been destroyed, often by law...

, received two Grammy nominations. The company is owned and operated by Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey. It is not affiliated with the Archéophone

Archéophone

The Archéophone is a modern, electric version of the phonographs and ediphones from the early 20th century. It is specifically designed to transfer phonograph cylinders and other cylinder formats to modern recording media....

manufacturer Henri Chamoux.