At the time Tim Brooks published Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press) in 2004, he was aware of three extant cylinders made by the Unique Quartette. First was “Mamma’s Black Baby Boy,” made ca. 1893 for the North American Phonograph Company. Two others were made ca. 1895-96 for an unknown company: “Who Broke the Lock” and “Down on the Old Camp Ground.”
The first two, “Mamma’s Black Baby Boy” and “Who Broke the Lock,” we included on our Grammy-winning companion CD to Tim’s book, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922. The third was far too rough to be included on the set.
Since the 2005 appearance of Lost Sounds two collaborators have unearthed several additional cylinders by the Unique Quartette that date to this 1895-96 period, again made by unknown companies, but very likely by Walcutt and Leeds or the United States Phonograph Company. Five one-of-a-kind recordings by the Unique are heard on Celebrated by the public for the first time.
Archeophone Outtakes 