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MICHAEL H. GRAY(EDITOR)
By Rainer E. Lotz. Bonn: Birgit Lotz Verlag, 1997. 398 pp. Includes CD. ISBN: 3-9803461-8-8. Price: 100 deutschmark plus 10 dm postage. Birgit Lotz Verlag, Jean Paul Strasse 6, 53173 Bonn, Germany (ph: 49-228-352808).
The profusion of artist profiles and discographies pouring out of Germany, courtesy of Dr. Rainer Lotz, a banker whose real passion seems to be early recording history, is nothing short of remarkable. From The Banjo on Record to Hitler's Airwaves to the multi-volume ''German National Discography'' (gulp!), he is documenting some of the most obscure corners of recording history with assiduousness and precision.
Like any good researcher, Lotz seems to realize that a historical investigation is never really finished. New information turns up, and new insights are gained with the passage of time. The present volume consists of 15 articles by Dr. Lotz. All but one have been previously published, but many are so thoroughly revised or augmented with new information as to make this essentially a new book. The earlier versions of these articles are in any event hard to find; several are from the early 1980s, and/or in obscure publications such as The Black Perspective in Music, South African Theatre Journal, The International Discographer (one issue published, in 1992) and the German-language Fox auf 78. All text here is in English.
The subjects covered are primarily American black entertainers who performed (and recorded) in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Earliest are the Bohee Brothers, U.S. minstrels who moved to...