Biography
Born in 1903 to British parents, South African ethnomusicologist Hush Tracey discovered a passion for African song traditions while managing a farm in present-day Zimbabwe during his early adulthood. The discovery prompted him, in 1929, to begin capturing indigenous sub-Saharan performances on high-quality equipment and compiling detailed documentation, after he realized how little systematic preservation existed. With Carnegie Scholarship backing a few years afterward, he expanded into radio production and committed fully to documenting the region’s traditional repertories. Tracey established the International Library of African Music in 1954, simultaneously assembling extensive holdings of instruments and field recordings gathered during his own research trips. Although certain ethnomusicologists later faulted him for staging supposedly authentic renditions, trimming pieces to suit tape duration, and adjusting microphone placement to favor instruments he preferred, his archive nevertheless comprises recordings of outstanding fidelity; he also supervised more than two hundred commercial editions that safeguard the musical heritage of numerous cultures now vanished. The recent compilation Historical Recordings by Hugh Tracey restores an impressive selection of these performances to compact disc.
Albums
