Recording of the week: Elvis on our minds for half a century

This week’s selection comes from Sarah Kirk-Browne, Cataloguer (Digital Multimedia Collections). ’45 RPM Elvis Presley Separate Ways b/w Always On My Mind’ by A.Currell. Creative Commons attribution CC BY-NC 2.0. Fifty years ago, on 29 March 1972, Elvis Presley recorded the single Always On My Mind. Despite only reaching number…

Recording of the week: Virginia Woolf’s voice

This week’s selection comes from Sarah O’Reilly, oral historian and interviewer for National Life Stories on the Authors’ Lives project. Enter the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery on the upper ground floor of the British Library in London and on your left you’ll find a pair of headphones. Through it…

Recording of the week: George V in 1933

This week’s selection comes from Steve Cleary, Lead Curator, Literary and Creative Recordings. As a curator in the British Library’s sound archive, members of the public often contact me about records or tapes that they might want to donate to the national collection. Often, we will already have a copy…

Recording of the week: A time for nursery rhymes

This week’s selection comes from Giulia Baldorilli, Sound and Vision Reference Specialist. If you could choose to go back in time, where would you go? Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash. Nursery rhymes are something we never forget over the years. They hold memories of our school games and playful…

Recording of the Week: Filling in the gaps of the feminist movement in the 1980s – Southall Black Sisters

This week’s selection comes from Amal Malik, Community Research Intern for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Content warning: this blog contains references to domestic violence. This Recording of the Week for International Women’s Day looks at the work of Southall Black Sisters activist and case worker Pragna Patel. ‘Let’s put race…