
On October 23 1926, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Columbia Company had released the first record pressed and recorded at their Homebush studio and factory. The 10” shellac disc recording consisted of two items played by Sydney Simpson and his Wentworth Cafe Orchestra, the popular After the Dawn waltz by Jack O’Hagan, and a foxtrot, Freshie, by Jesse Greer and Harold Berg. This was the first entirely Australian recording, being composed, performed, recorded and pressed by Australians. The Homebush studio and factory went on to record and press many thousands of Australian performers up to 1992, when the factory closed with the cessation of production of vinyl records.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.