Al [Alphonse] Bastian

Civil Rights March / Americans United [78 RPM vinyl record]

Item #5056

Self-published, 1960. 10’’ 78 rpm shellac record. Sleeve and record both good.

From an otherwise unknown artist, a likely self-recorded and self-published record containing
two songs exhorting Americans to unite and join the civil rights movement.

The ragtime-influenced folk songs are registered in the American 1960 Catalog of Copyright
Entries under the name Alphonse Bastian, who also composed and performed the music. The
sleeve is from Presto Recording Corporation, suggesting that the record was self-recorded with
a Presto machine, which was the popular instantaneous recording technology of the time.

Other than sporadic appearances in the Catalog of Copyright Entries through the 1950s and
60s, we could locate no other records of Alphonse Bastian.

Another great example of the convergence of art and politics in American Black freedom
struggles, from the most famous artists, writers, and musicians down to the casual or vernacular
artists, whose work may otherwise be lost to history.

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