Back in 1940, a gallon of gas cost 11 cents, a new car to put it in cost $850 and a big house to drive it to would run you right around $3,000. So we’re guessing the music you could have played in your giant $3K house was super cheap too. But not nearly as inexpensive as it is today.
Today, thanks to Kiddie Records Weekly, it’s free.
Kiddie Records Weekly has digitized one great dime-store 1940s-1960s children’s 78 album each and every week since 2005. Starting with Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood and ending, so far, with Sleep Baby Sleep, they have three whole years’ worth of tuneage available from decades ago. It’s all there to turn today’s kids on to past-tense treasures of classic goodness. For free.
All the tracks are available for free downloads, or you can go all big bank hank and order all 150+ albums on an mp3 disc for just $35, which of course was the cost of a washing machine when the songs were recorded. But whatevs.
This year they’re pledging to keep it going, but there’s already plenty of music from the days that Pecos Bill, Woody Woodpecker and The Lone Ranger ruled entertainment. You know, back when you could have afforded that diamond horse. –Laura
[via junior society]
