This week the Library of Congress National Recording Registry announced this year’s additions to the archive of recordings considered culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
Which is a fancy way of saying these sounds mattered enough to preserve for future generations.
Tonight’s Night Owl pulls from this year’s inductees. Some are songs. Some are albums. Some are broadcasts. Some are the kind of recordings that shaped music whether people realized it at the time or not.
Not every selection tonight gets a video because honestly we’d be here until Tuesday.
Singles
- Cocktails for Two – Spike Jones and His City Slickers (1944)
- Mambo No. 5 – Pérez Prado and His Orchestra (1950)
- Teardrops from My Eyes – Ruth Brown (1950)
- Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words) – Kaye Ballard (1954)
- Put Your Head On My Shoulder – Paul Anka (1959)
- Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) – The Byrds (1965)
- Amen, Brother – The Winstons (1969)
- Feliz Navidad – José Feliciano (1970)
- Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight and the Pips (1973)
- The Devil Went Down to Georgia – The Charlie Daniels Band (1979)
- I Feel For You – Chaka Khan (1984)
- Your Love – Jamie Principle / Frankie Knuckles (1986/1987)
- Go Rest High On That Mountain – Vince Gill (1994)
- Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) – Beyoncé (2008)
Albums
- The Blues and the Abstract Truth – Oliver Nelson (1961)
- Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music – Ray Charles (1962)
- Chicago Original Cast Album – Chicago Original Broadway Cast (1975)
- Beauty and the Beat – The Go-Go’s (1981)
- Texas Flood – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (1983)
- Rumor Has It – Reba McEntire (1990)
- The Wheel – Rosanne Cash (1993)
- Weezer (The Blue Album) – Weezer (1994)
- 1989 – Taylor Swift (2014)
Other
- The Fight of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier – Fight of the Century (broadcast, March 8, 1971)
- Doom Soundtrack – Doom soundtrack by Bobby Prince (1993)
My Video Picks:
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) – The Byrds (1965):
Put Your Head On My Shoulder – Paul Anka (1959):
Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight and the Pips (1973):
I Feel For You – Chaka Khan (1984):
Go Rest High On That Mountain – Vince Gill (1994):
This is an Open Thread
