Man Giving New Life To Newly Discovered Musical Recordings Made By His Grandfather During World War II
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — You can find a lot of forgotten things in an attic. Jason Burt's entire family had been searching for the treasure found in the attic of his grandfather's West Sacramento garage last October.
"They came across my grandpa's World War II records. He was in an army band and they recorded an album during the war in the Philippines," Jaso said.
Jason and his family hadn't seen the records since the '80s but knew they had to be somewhere. This history buff and teacher used a friend's record player to see if the decades-old records still worked. When the needle touched the vinyl, the unbelievable happened.
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"It was the most amazing feeling because it's just a piece of history. It's 75 years old. You don't expect it to work 75 years later," Burt said. "These guys were in a war zone when they were recording themselves in a performance tent."
His grandfather, Richard Burt, who also attended Julliard, recorded two of his own songs on to tape years ago. Now, Burt is doing the same thing for all of the records that were lost to time.
"I started contacting Grammy-winning sound engineers to see if they were
interested in updating and modernizing it and digitalizing it," Burt said.
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Burt told CBS13 he's working with a studio in Burbank to record the album at the end of the month.
"Everyone likes to talk about the battles and stuff like that during the war. But you never hear about the band during the war and what those guys did," Jason said. "Their role in the war was to make people feel like they were a little closer to home. They played a big role for moral."
This grandson's goal is hitting all of the right notes; preserving history for all to hear and something else that's major for this family.
"To be able to take that family legacy and do something with it makes me really proud that he's taken the initiative to pull all of this together," Janna Burt, Jason's mother, said.
"He would probably be pretty amused that anyone found anything he did interested. He was just a really humble guy," Jason Burt said.
After the war, Richard settled down in West Sacramento where he would spend decades as a school band teacher.
"But, he'd be pretty excited about everything and I think proud of his music," Jason said.
Burt said it'll take three days to record the album. He's working with the National World War II Museum in New Orleans to release it on Veteran's Day.
You can follow Jason on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/746thFEAFband