Gift of Donald Day
The collection is comprised of 2,362 sound recordings on 78 rpm discs and 47 radio transcription disc recordings primarily consisting of popular and country and western music performances ranging from the 1920s to 1950s. The performances on the 78 rpm discs cover a wide range of popular American culture including such performers as Roy Acuff, Gene Autry, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Hank Snow, Jimmy Rodgers, Mel Blanc, Victor Borge, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, the Weavers, and Bill Haley among many others. The radio transcription discs are primarily on the Armed Forces Radio Service label and include performances by Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Richard Crooks and Marion Anderson, Fred Waring, George Szell conducting the New York Philharmonic, the Tuskegee Institute Choir, Risë Stevens, Fred Waring, and others.