What’s that tune? Imagining a 1905 Mixtape from L.A.

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What’s that tune? Imagining a 1905 Mixtape from L.A.

January 13, 2012

As we have previously reported, KCET in Los Angeles has been up to some seriously awesome (as in serious subject matter AND ALSO awesome) stuff for their Departures series about L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood.

They have struck again by imagining what a 1905 mixtape from that ‘hood would sound like. Can we get some Spanish and Native American folk song beats, por favor?

El Alisal (via KCET).

As it turns out, many of these turn-of-the-last-century jams would have been recorded at El Alisal, which was constructed between 1898-1910 by journalist and Native Americans rights advocate Charles Fletcher Lummis, who walked across the continent from the east coast (or Ohio, depending on who you ask) to Los Angeles, where he became the City Librarian. Adorable!

Today El Alisal is, quite fittingly, the headquarters of the Southern California Historical Society, which is open to the public on weekends. Fieldtrip!