Victor's Trinity Church Recording Studio, Camden, NJ 1918-1935

Any discussion of American recorded music is incomplete without mention of Victor and the Trinity Church.

 In 1896, Eldridge R Johnson, founded a machine shop in Camden, NJ. The same year a church was built a few blocks away on North 5th St in Camden. These two totally separate circumstances would eventually combine and result in some of the most important events in the history of recorded music.

 Johnson went on to invent a spring loaded mechanism for playing the new Gramophone record disc. The invention revolutionized the industry and within a few years his business  became one of the most successful in the US - The Victor Talking Machine Co - later to become RCA.

Johnson's Machine Shop, Camden NJ 1890's

 Meanwhile, a few blocks away, The Trinity Baptist Church was struggling. A shrinking congregation and financial problems, resulted in the closing of the church. In steps Mr. Johnson! The Victor Co purchased the church in 1918. It was first used for storage, but soon became a recording studio equipped with some of most technological advanced recording devices.

Early recording studios were placed on upper floors of buildings because the turntable lathe on the recording machine was powered by the means of a descending weight that required at least twelve feet.

The Trinity Church, Camden, NJ

 Most of Victor's records during its early years were classical or opera. Enrico Caruso, Valdimir Horowitz, Arturo Toscanni, Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded here. By the l920's Victor was losing market share and began to seek out alternative artist. Victor hired the famous talent scout Ralph Peer who crossed the country looking for Jazz, Blues and Country artist. His finds? - Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton. Between 1927 and 1935 they came to Camden's Trinity Church and recorded scores of songs including some of the most famous in American Music history. The Carters recorded Wildwood Flower,  Keep On The Sunny Side and Will The Circle Be Unbroken . Rodgers cut the first of the Blue Yodels, T for Texas and In the Jailhouse Now. Waller recorded Ain't Misbehavin’. Duke Ellington also did some early recording here. For about 25 years hundreds of artist recorded thousands of songs there. In addition, the church studio recorded musical scores and sound effects of hundreds of Hollywood films.
 

Mr & Mrs Jimmy Rodgers & Ralph Peer with Jimmie's daughter Carrie

Trinity Church Studio Organ

Fats Waller 

Jelly Roll Morton and this Red Hot Peppers at Trinity
 

By the mid 1930's, the Camden-Philadelphia subway was built and ran almost directly under the church. The resulting noise made the space impractical for sound recording. By then the RCA Corp owned Victor and abandoned the studio and afterwards it was used as an employee recreation space and company store.
Years later it was demolished is now a parking lot. Not even a sign to note one of the most significant sites in the history of American music.

Click here for a youtube link to some music recorded at the Trinity Church

                        
                            

Camden NJ 1927

              

Former site of Trinity Church

                                                                                                    

                  

           

Beginning in 1927, equipment for recording motion picture sound tracks on disks synchronized with film was added to the Camden Church Studio as described in this 1928 article