A 175 mm (7-inch) single-sided Berliner Gramophone disc record, stamped with the date September 16, 1897. The artist is George W. Johnson, the first prominent African-American recording artist, singing and whistling one of his specialties, “The Whistling Coon”, with piano accompaniment. The disc has no label per se; the informational text is impressed into the surface of the disc. Berliner catalog # 196Z. From a disc in Infrogmation’s collection; plays at about 55 rpm, poor balance in the original recording, with piano louder than voice.
