Thomas Edison never envisioned that the phonograph that he invented would ever be used for entertainment. He saw it as a business dictation machine or as a telephone answering machine, not as a music player. However, when he made the first acoustic music recordings on wax cylinders in 1877, Edison unwittingly unleashed the entertainment potential of prerecorded music. The possibility of a library of music recordings being available for personal use sparked a frenzy of recording that has continued unabated.

Many of the early electrical recording studios were essentially radio station facilities. The equipment that was so vital to the broadcasting industry was quickly adopted by the entertainment industry to record music as well as soundtracks for motion pictures. Whether broadcasting or making a record, the sequence of events was the same—performers and musicians created sounds that were gathered by microphones and...