David Giovannoni has been playing old records ever since he could climb a chair and peer into a Victrola. His lifelong interest in sound has led to a modest yet significant collection of early cylinder and disc records—each compulsively cleaned, catalogued, and shelved—which he strives to make available to historians, researchers, producers, and others with far-reaching applications. The Library of Congress, for instance, is incorporating his collection of Victor Pre-Matrix Recordings into its National Jukebox.

He has contributed to numerous CD reissues and several major discographies including the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings. His historical reissue work with Archeophone Records has garnered five personal Grammy nominations and one Grammy. He is a founder and principal of First Sounds, a collaboration of experts dedicated to making the earliest sound recordings available to all people for all time. First Sounds gained international attention in 2008 when it discovered and played back humanity's first recordings of its own voice—recordings placed on the National Recording Registry by the Librarian of Congress in 2011.

Compact Disc and Vinyl Productions

• Au Clair de la Lune.  Parlortone Records, 2009.
  Press release.
• Debate '08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph.  Archeophone Records; 2008.
  Press release.
  Grammy Nominated: Best Historical Album
  Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes
  Featured in the Wall Street Journal — October 11, 2008.
• Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s.  Archeophone Records; 2007.
  Press release.
  Grammy Nominated: Best Historical Album
  Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes
  Reviewed in Playboy — March 2010.
  Featured in the New York Times, Arts & Leisure — July 8, 2007.
  Featured on NPR's Weekend Edition — June 16, 2007.
• Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922.  Archeophone Records; 2005.
  
  Press release.
  Grammy Winner: Best Historical Album
  Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes

Giovannoni has contributed recordings, images, and research to numerous CD reissues, most recently:

• Clarice Vance & May Irwin: The High Priestess of Jollity & The Southern Singer.  Archeophone Records; 2011.
• The Phonographic Yearbook: 1920 - Even Water's Getting Weaker.  Archeophone Records; 2011.
• The Phonographic Yearbook: 1916 - The Country Found Them Ready.  Archeophone Records; 2011.
• The Phonographic Yearbook: 1914 - Her Memory Haunts You.  Archeophone Records; 2011.
• There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and his Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909-1916.  Archeophone Records; 2010.
Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes
• Sophie Tucker: Origins of the Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922.  Archeophone Records; 2009.
Grammy Nominated: Best Historical Album
Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes
• The Phonographic Yearbook: 1906 - When Things Was Lookin' Bright.  Archeophone Records; 2009.
• Ain't Gonna Settle Down: The Pioneering Blues of Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson.  Archeophone Records; 2008.
• Before Radio.  Archeophone Records; 2008.
• Nat M. Wills: The Famous Tramp Comedian.  Archeophone Records; 2007.
• The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy.  Archeophone Records; 2007.
• You Ain't Talkin' To Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music.  Columbia Legacy (Sony); 2005.
  
  Grammy Nominated: Best Historical Album
  Grammy Nominated: Best Album Notes
  Grammy Nominated: Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package
• Henry Burr, Anthology: The Original King of Pop.  Archeophone Records; 2005.
• Bert Williams: The Early Years, 1901-1909.  Archeophone Records; 2004.
  The Williams and Walker cakewalk postcards co-released with this CD are from the originals in the Giovannoni collection.
• Eddie Morton: The Sound of Vaudeville, Volume 1.  Archeophone Records; 2003.
• Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot.  Archeophone Records; 2003.

His audio restoration work can be heard on:

• Goodnight Ladies and Gents: The Creole Music of Lionel Belasco.  Rounder Records; 1999.
  See Linton Corbie's review in the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange.
  See Stacy Phillips's review in Roots World.
• Peter Was A Fisherman: The 1939 Trinidad Field Recordings of Melville and Frances Herskovits, Volume 1. Rounder Records; 1998.
• Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad.  Rounder Records; 1993.
  Together with the book of the same name, winner of the 1994 Chicago Folklore Prize.

Other Audio Activities

Giovannoni's archives are available to select researchers and producers. Notable productions on which he's been consulted include:

• 101 Gadgets That Changed the World  (The History Channel, 2011),
• Leonard Bernstein: An American Life  (WFMT, 2004),
• A World in Your Ear  (BBC Radio 4, 2001),
• Marcus Garvey: Look For Me in the Whirlwind  The American Experience (PBS, 2001),
• America 1900  The American Experience (PBS, 1999),
• I'll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts  (PBS, 1999),
• and NPR’s Lost and Found Sound: A Radio Anthology for the Millennium  (NPR, 1999-2001).

Requests for specific recordings or information will be considered.

• Giovannoni is a founder of the First Sounds initiative.
• Since 2007 he has served on the board of The Association for Recorded Sound Collections.
• He is a voting member of The Recording Academy.
• The preservation work of the Smolian-Giovannoni Foundation continues at the Library of Congress.