The chocolate tape was sliding off the reels and across the silver recording heads, while the needles on the two meters jumped to the beat on the face of the big Ampex. This was 1959 and I finally had German mics and a Cadillac of a recorder and was doing stereo - the first stereo field recordings made in the South. You should hear the recordings - for me a life's dream realized - Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began