For nearly three decades, Ian Nagoski has been collecting old 78 RPM records made by people who immigrated to the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Since 2009, he’s restored, digitized and shared those records on his independent Baltimore, Maryland based label Canary Records. Over the years, he has built a discography of over 100 digital compilation albums of what he bills as “early 20th century masterpieces mostly in languages other than English.” Through his research on the stories of these musicians, Nagoski explores the place of the immigrant in America as well as the place of music in the human experience. On a morning in early February, I spoke with Nagoski over the phone; he told me about buying cassettes in grocery stores, what ideas about assimilation mean for music, and why he does this essential archival work.
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