In 1877, Edison took a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. When he spoke into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations made grooves in the foil. Edison reversed this and a needle followed the grooves ... making a speaker vibrate.

He tried out his machine  by speaking a nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him.

The tin foil didn't last very long ... only two or three playbacks before it tore. People were very interested in this invention. Over the next twenty years the machine was made better, until in 1898 you could buy one for just 20 dollars.

So what did the phonograph sound like?

The very early recordings have been lost. So it is not until the early 1900's that we have any real examples.

Here are two from the American Library of Congress. They are both in RealAudio format .....

Onward Christian Soldiers ( by Arthur Sullivan )
sung by The Calvary Choir and the Choir Boys of St. Andrew's Church, New York, 1919

The Story of the Three Bears (1919)