French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville recorded himself singing the French folk song "Au Claire De La Lune" into his "phonautograph." This was the earliest sound recording of music or the human voice, predating Thomas Edison's successful playback of sound by twenty-eight years. Scott died largely unrecognized and his pioneer recording was not discovered until 2008 when modern scientific methods were used to effect a playback. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Jeffrey Lindsay, Cheryl A. Perkins, Mukund Karanjikar, Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 41-42.