Lummis’ legacy keeps ‘em spinning

The legacy of Gene Autry, singing cowboy, stands behind the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Griffith Park, and just about everybody knows it. But who ever considers the remarkable recording career of Charles F. Lummis?

Lummis founded the Autry’s elder sibling, the Southwest Museum, in 1907. In addition to his labors as a journalist, librarian, civic booster and occasional presidential advisor, he was a compulsive collector of native Southwestern art, artifacts and folkways, from textiles to songs.

In fact, Lummis was an early multimedia maven: Apart from writing books and taking photographs, he used phonograph technology, then in its infancy, he recorded himself and Native Americans talking and performing indigenous music and early Spanish folk songs. The resulting wax cylinders, about 800 of them, remain in the collection of the museum’s Braun Research Library on Mt. Washington. And now a volunteer team of latter-day technology specialists has stepped in to tidy up some of those recordings, digitize them and present them to the public at an illustrated lecture Saturday.

The collaborators, all members of the California Antique Phonographic Society, include Dan Reed (a historian), Mark Ulano (a professional film sound technician) and Michael Khanchalian (a dentist and expert in the restoration of wax cylinders), who worked with others over 12 years on the project. The recordings date from 1897 to 1907.

The event, co-sponsored by the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition, is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Southwest Museum. For more information, call (323) 221-2164 or www.southwestmuseum.org.

The merger of the Autry and Southwest museums, in the works since last year, was formalized May 27, placing both under the umbrella of the newly created Autry National Center of the American West.

-- Christopher Reynolds