‘Beautiful artifacts’ and the stories behind them: Phonosphere launches at Bankers Hall

The new 'Phonosphere' exhibit shows off Canadian-made record players and recorded music from 1948 to 1978.

A Calgary collector is opening his private archive to the public with a new exhibit tracing the rise of recorded sound and Canada’s emergence as a music powerhouse.

Ken Murphy, curator of the Vinyl Centric Gallery and Archive, has launched Phonosphere at Bankers Hall, transforming decades of personal collecting into a public gallery experience.

“Well, they’re going to see some beautiful artifacts from Canada’s musical heritage. But more than anything, they’re going to hear stories,” Murphy said.

“Because things are very interesting, but the stories behind them bring them to life and the people to life.”

Murphy began collecting as a child after his father brought home a Beatles record when he was seven.

Over the next 50 years, he built an extensive archive of artifacts documenting the evolution of recorded sound and charting Canada’s rise in the global music industry.

“In this particular exhibit, they’re going to get a sense of record players and the role they had as a central piece in our living rooms for 40 years,” Murphy said.

Phonosphere covers the period from 1948, when the vinyl long-playing record debuted, to 1978, when record players shifted from furniture-style consoles to standalone audio components.

“In 1948, that’s when the vinyl record that’s still with us today was invented,” Murphy said.

The exhibit places that technological shift alongside Canada’s cultural transformation.

In the late 1950s, Canadians listened to little Canadian-made music, and the country lacked a developed recording industry.

Within two decades, Canada had become one of the world’s leading English-language music producers.

“When you talk about the recording industry, we couldn’t have used that phrase through the 1940s, 50s,” Murphy said.

“Really, the bulk of the 1960s, we didn’t have an industry. We had a few small labels.

“It was really the result of Canadian content regulations coming in in 1970 that gave the impetus to radio stations to play Canadian music,” he said.

“Which gave the opportunity for new labels and new performers to record here in Canada.”

The exhibit also examines activism in the 1960s that pushed for Canadian access to domestic airwaves, culminating in Canadian content regulations introduced in 1970 under broadcasting regulator Pierre Juneau.

The Juno Awards later took his name.

“And here we are, a dominant music producer, a producing nation, all these years later,” Murphy said.

“And we should all be really, really proud.”

Murphy showcases record players and phonographs designed and manufactured in Canada, including pieces by Toronto-based Clairtone and Kitchener-based Electrohome.

“They were baked into wooden pieces of furniture,” he said.

“Most record players were purchased during this era in appliance and furniture stores, not stereo stores or audio stores.”

Murphy says the exhibit also reflects broader social change.

“Recorded music has changed our culture. It’s changed how we see ourselves, how we see the future, our dreams,” he said.

“It’s so intimately tied into our emotional state and our relationship with others.”

Murphy says he created the gallery to preserve artifacts and share what he sees as one of Canada’s most significant cultural success stories.

“About 15 years ago, I realized that I had reached a critical mass in my collection,” he said.

“There were patterns in my collection that needed to be explored.”

Working alongside Murphy is Gerry Miskolczi, a longtime friend who is helping digitize thousands of albums for the museum’s growing digital archive.

“I think the younger people are finding it very interesting, because they had no idea where recorded sound came from in the beginning, the evolution of the record and the record players and all that,” Miskolczi said.

“The older people come for the nostalgia, right? They say, ‘Oh, yeah, I had that,’ or ‘I know that.’”

Phonosphere runs at Bankers Hall, 315 8 Ave. S.W., until late summer.