On April 12, 2023, these 25 recordings were added to the National Recording Registry.

Library of Congress press release announcing the 2023 Registry.

Note: This is a national list and many of the items listed are housed in collections across the country. The Library of Congress does not currently hold copies of all the recordings listed.

Recordings are listed in chronological order:

The Very First Mariachi Recordings. Cuarteto Coculense. (1907-1909) (album)

Mariachi music and its imagery are now emblematic of Mexican national identity, but it was once a rural style of music played mainly in the state of Jalisco. In 1907, four musicians from the town of Cocula, Jalisco, led by the vihuela player Justo Villa, made the first recordings of it in Mexico City, where two years earlier they had introduced the style to the capitol when they performed for the Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. These performances lack the trumpet now inextricably associated with mariachi, but even the early recording technology of the time could not fail to capture the group’s drive and spirit, and the recordings remained in print for many years. Thanks to the efforts of scholars and record collectors, the group’s work was collected and reissued in 1998 by Arhoolie Records, revisiting and reviving an otherwise lost chapter in mariachi’s history and paying overdue homage to these recording pioneers.

Listen – “The Parakeet” (MP3)

“St. Louis Blues” (single). Handy’s Memphis Blues Band. (1922)

Even during his lifetime, W.C. Handy was often called—sometime self-referentially—the “Father of the Blues.”  And while he might not be responsible for an entire genre of music, there is little question that it was largely Handy’s creative output that ennobled the blues to cross America’s race and cultural lines. One of the songs he did it with was “St. Louis Blues,” which Handy both wrote and played. It was one of the first blues songs to enjoy success as a pop song. Later, the tune would be incorporated into the repertoire of numerous other legends including Bessie Smith, Bing Crosby, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Benny Goodman. Meanwhile, Handy, beyond his own composition and performing prowess, created detailed, written exegeses of blues music (including his own compositions) which have long served to educate others about the artistry of blues and aid in their appreciation for this American artform.

Listen (MP3)

“Sugar Foot Stomp.” Fletcher Henderson. (1925)

“Sugar Foot Stomp” was a milestone recording that incorporated jazz into a dance band setting. Henderson was one of the most successful African American bandleaders of his time. From its inception, in 1921, his band played rather polite dance music, laced with a well-intended yet ponderous style of jazz, typically found in New York during the early 1920s. This changed suddenly upon the October 1924 arrival of New Orleans cornetist Louis Armstrong into the Henderson ensemble. Based on Armstrong’s collaboration with Joe Oliver’s “Dipper Mouth Blues,” “Sugar Foot Stomp”–in a smart, forward-looking arrangement by Don Redman–becomes streamlined and timelessly hip. Its most salient feature was the 36-bar solo by Armstrong, based on Oliver’s own “Dipper Mouth Blues” solo. 

Listen (MP3)

Dorothy Thompson: Commentary and Analysis of the European Situation for NBC Radio. (August 23rd -September 6, 1939)

Dorothy Thompson spent most of the 1920s and early 1930s in Europe, covering politics and culture throughout the continent as a print journalist, and interviewing subjects as varied as Sigmund Freud and Adolph Hitler. From 1936 on, she wrote a thrice-weekly column, “On The Record,” in which she drew on her unique experience and knowledge of the issues and people in the news in the US and Europe. She also became a frequent presence on network radio, and in late August, 1939, as the European situation worsened and war was imminent, she made daily broadcasts on NBC analyzing developments during the last days of peace and the first days of war in Europe, which form a unique broadcast record of this complex period.

Listen (MP3)

“Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around” (single). The Fairfield Four. (1947)

The Fairfield Four has represented the Jubilee style of a cappella quartet singing in the African-American Church since their early days in Nashville, TN, in the 1920s, a legacy carried on by the present incarnation of the group. At their second session for Nashville’s Bullet Records label in 1947, they recorded “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around,” a signature song that they would perform and re-record throughout their career. The Reverend Sam McCrary had been their lead tenor since 1940, powerfully sustaining words and syllables while the other members intoned their accompaniment. The song had been in the repertoire of others since the 1920s, but at a time when African-American religious music was changing rapidly, adding instruments and amplification in service of the message, the Fairfield Four broke through as the accomplished and passionate embodiment of the older Jubilee style, making their mark in the louder and faster postwar world of America. 

Listen (MP3)

“Sherry” (single). The Four Seasons. (1962)

The Four Seasons was one of the most popular groups of the early and mid-1960s with more than 25 hits over a five-year period, and it all began in 1962 with their first single, “Sherry,” a crossover hit that topped the industry pop and R&B charts.  With it, Seasons members Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, and Nick Massi established their signature harmony sound, led by Valli’s three-octave range and soaring falsetto. Tenor Bob Gaudio said that it took him about 15 minutes to write the song, initially as a tribute to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy titled “Jackie Baby,” before it was renamed “Sherry” after the daughter of Gaudio’s close friend, New York radio DJ, Jack Spector. The Four Seasons are still one of the best-selling musical groups of all time, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide. The song, “Sherry,” continues to be used in popular culture in films, television and theater, including the Tony Award-winning musical “Jersey Boys,” which chronicled the life and career of Frank Valli and The Four Seasons. 

Listen (MP3)

“What the World Needs Now is Love” (single). Jackie DeShannon. (1965)

Even among the galaxy of beautiful, timeless songs co-written by the great songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, this lovely 1965 creation sparkles. But its lightness belies its very serious, timeless and (still) timely message. Bacharach—recipient of the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Award in 2012—had the then raging Vietnam War in his mind during the song’s composition. Originally offered to the team’s frequent collaborator Dionne Warwick (who turned it down) they later made it available to singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon who used it to kick off her fourth album. For that recording, Bacharach arranged the song, conducted the orchestra and produced the session. Released as a single in March of 1965, it became one of DeShannon’s signature hits. DeShannon would win the Grammy that year for Female Vocal Performance and the song evolved into a standard, not only for her treatment of it but for later cover versions by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Sergio Mendes, Barry Manilow and, eventually, even Dionne Warwick. 

Listen (MP3)

“Wang Dang Doodle” (single). Koko Taylor. (1966)

The hard-charging authentic Chicago blues sounds of “Wang Dang Doodle” made for an unlikely hit in the Spring of 1966, when poppier sounds from both the US and England dominated the charts. But when Koko Taylor, born Cora Walton in Tennessee in 1935, teamed up with blues composer, bassist and producer Willie Dixon to record it, they hit pay dirt and made a blues standard of a song that had not clicked with audiences even when the great Howlin’ Wolf released a version five years earlier. Taylor sang the lyrics with gusto, backed by a crack team of players that included Buddy Guy on guitar, and the song’s rogues’ gallery of party guests that included “Automatic Slim” and “Razor Totin’ Jim” rocked jukeboxes and radios around the country. Taylor went on to become one of the great voices of Chicago Blues, recording more than a dozen albums and performing around the world until her death in 2009.

Listen (MP3)

“Ode to Billie Joe” (single). Bobbie Gentry. (1967)

Imagery, as vivid as any Southern Gothic novel, meets superlative storytelling and musicianship in this 1967 country classic. It was not, necessarily, a local death that singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry wanted to explore with the writing of this song but, rather, the banality with which many of us greet and process news regarding the tragedy of others:  “Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the b

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