[484] MTSU ARCHIVIST HELPS PRESERVE MEMPHIS MINISTER’S LEGACY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 8, 2009
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

MTSU ARCHIVIST HELPS PRESERVE MEMPHIS MINISTER’S LEGACY
Martin Fisher Digitizes Historic Recordings of Amateur Audio and Video Buff

(MURFREESBORO) – Martin Fisher, Manager of Recorded Music Collections at MTSU’s Center for Popular Music, will be among those making presentations on the legacy of Rev. Lonzie Odie Taylor at a reception for invited guests from 5-8 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9, at the Center for Southern Folklore, 119 S. Main at Peabody Place Trolley Stop, in Memphis.
The reception is a prelude to the launch of the new online exhibit “TAYLOR MADE: The Life and Work of the Rev. L.O. Taylor.” The minister was a Renaissance man whose talents as a photographer, filmmaker, writer, recording artist and producer—all from his home “studio”—made him an invaluable chronicler of life in the African-American community of Memphis.
Taylor, who lived from 1900-1977, “purchased the newest available cameras and recording equipment from the 1920s to the 1950s to document his neighbors and friends who opened their homes, churches, business(es) and events to him,” according to www.southernfolklore.com. “His heart is evident in his choice of subjects: graduations, opening(s) of businesses, travels to National Baptist Conventions and numerous church services and religious musical recordings.”
Fisher’s hobby is making contemporary recordings with original Edison phonograph equipment onto cylinders that have a chemical composition similar to those of the Edison era. He displays this talent at arts and crafts festivals and folk festivals throughout the South. Fisher’s role in the preservation of artifacts in the exhibit was to transfer 90 audio lacquer disc recordings produced by Taylor to a digital format.
Taylor made his recordings of people, music and church services with a portable unit like a Presto Recording Machine, speculates Fisher. The stylus of the Presto was heated by a coil of wire wrapped around it.
“The heated stylus was gently lowered onto the spinning lacquer disc and the recording would begin,” Fisher writes for the exhibit. The masters would be recorded at speeds of either 33-and-a-third or 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) and placed on a



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Webster Model 60 record player, which would feed the recording unit for production of a 12-inch, 78 rpm copy.
“Taylor’s recording skills were extremely good,” Fisher writes. “His ‘master’ recordings probably sounded wonderful before all the wear they received from playing and copying.”
The Taylor exhibit will go online to the general public on Wednesday, June 10, at www.southernfolklore.com. It will include not only audio recordings of music, speeches and intimate moments but also photographs and films. For more information on the exhibit, call 901-525-3655.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For black-and-white jpeg photos of Rev. L.O. Taylor, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.