
On 23 October 1926, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Columbia Company had released the first record pressed and recorded at their Homebush studio and factory – and made the first entirely Australian recording.
The 10” shellac disc 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. ‘After the Dawn’ was the first entirely Australian recording, being composed, performed, recorded and pressed by Australians.
Many thousands of Australian performances were later recorded and pressed at the Homebush facility up until 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.