|
|
 |
 Music Players and Jukeboxes Simple instruments like the wind-blown Aeolian harp suggest an ancient history of automatic music originating with the discovery of music in nature, in conch shells for example. The golden mechanical age of the 19th century brought coin-operated machines that reproduced musical performances with clarity unequalled by modern hi-fi. Digitally programmed by pinned barrels, punched disks, cards or rolls, they re-played tunes not through a speaker, but on real instruments. The reedy sounds emanating from the ear tubes of Edison's Phonographs (1877) were no match in vibrancy or volume but included a vital new ingredient that was to prove decisive - the human voice. As such, they were the true forerunners of the jukebox which became the public purveyor of popular music from the late 1920s onwards. |
"He Who Pays the Minstrel Calls the Tune" reads the motto above this quirky Manchester-made jukebox which offered 32 selections by playing both sides of sixteen 78 rpm records via a modified Wurlitzer Simplex mechanism and an even more dated amplifier. It had all the ugly-duckling charm of a Citroen 2CV. Arcadia Acoustic Automatics, 1952
|
This unpretentious looking jukebox is actually a Wurlitzer Lyric imported from Germany and dressed up by Ditchburn (based near Blackpool) to look like a British product. Ditchburn, 1960s |
Click image to enlarge