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NOT On Pins + Needles

Just discovered here at the ARC. As we were sorting Broadway albums we found this rare 12” 78rpm disc of  “The Red Mikado” (Labor Stage Inc, R-2147, 1939) from the stage production of Pins and Needles. It’s a song written by Harold Rome and Joe Schrank for the play, appropriating Gilbert and Sullivan, but not included on the album.  Too hot to handle?  Censors seeing Red(s)?  Timely, as we have just been sorting a large donation of labor songs and thinking of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire’s recent 108th anniversary.

Well no library on WordCat has a copy, nor the Library of the Performing Arts @ Lincoln Center.

And that’s WHY you should support ARC! +  contribute to our GoFundMe campaign 

  We’re independent and America’s largest pop music archive with more than 3 million recordings. See a few of our great albums in our film below.  Read the latest story about this project in Rolling Stone Magazine!

In the past few months we’ve gotten 40,000 CDs from the estate of Richard Zirinsky; 987 CDs from Kurt Carrington; hundreds of LPs from The New School Libraries; 1,127 LPs from Sarah Weingarten; and 5,099 country LPs from the estate of Lloyd Oliver Pierson. We received 6,884 LPs from Sheila Langan and 16,836 CDs from Jeff Daniel. Ira Berger’s Jazz Archive donated so many things, including more than 500 jazz books and magazines and 2,000 oral history tapes. In the pipeline that we need to pick up and make room for are 32,000 LPs from the estate of Saul Nowitz, about 7,000 discs yearning for us in LA , and a great(?) collection of who-knows-what from Indiana University.

That simple goal is to guarantee that the world’s musical heritage is preserved for future generations to study and enjoy.

Contribute here and help us reach this goal!

Big thanks to Mitch Gallob for sorting our Broadway Cast albums and Mr. + Ms. Finkelstein for donating their Red Scare collection. 


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