The Very First Tape
It has long been thought that the earliest recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his breakthrough poem “Howl” was made in Berkeley in March 1956—but in 2008 a tape was discovered in the archives at Reed College in Portland, Oregon that was made a few months earlier, in the Reed dorms when Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg hitchhiked north to give two readings in mid-February, 1956.

from OregonLive:
“Books news: Earliest ‘Howl’ tape uncovered at Reed,” by Jeff Baker
“Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg hitchhiked to Portland in the winter of 1956.

The two friends were poets, unknown outside the San Francisco area, and were on the front edge of the cultural movement that became known as the Beat Generation.... a box marked ‘Snyder Ginsberg 1956.’ In it was a 35-minute tape of Ginsberg reading the first section of ‘Howl’ and seven other poems.... This isn’t just any tape. Not only is it the earliest known recording of one of the most famous poems of the 20th century, but also the sound quality is excellent, and Ginsberg gives a strong, clear reading with enough textual variations in ‘Howl’ and the other poems to keep literary scholars busy for years.”

Reed College has made the tape available for online listening (if you have Quicktime) at its Multimedia site. There’s the complete raw recording, which includes a hiccup where the reel-to-reel tape broke or ended and Ginsberg stopped and backed up a few lines after it was restarted, as well as separate edited recordings of:

• “Howl,” Part I only
• “Epithalamion”
• “Wild Orphan”
• “Over Kansas”
• “Dream Record: June 8, 1955”

• “Blessed be the Muses”
• “A Supermarket in California”
• “The Trembling of the Veil”

“Howl”ing Later Forbidden on the Radio
You can read “Howl” in print or listen to it on the Internet—but you won’t hear it on the radio. Lawrence Ferlinghetti published that poem in 1956, and 50 years later, poets all over marked the anniversary of “the poem that changed the world” by gathering to read it aloud and to recall the impact of its first public performance at the famous Six Gallery reading. Another important 50th anniversary for “Howl” came in 2007—it was October 3, 1957 that Judge Clayton Horn ended the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti and City Lights by declaring that “Howl” possessed redeeming social importance and literary merit and should not be censored. How sad and ironic it was, then, to learn that even after 50 years, “Howl” was kept off the radio airwaves for fear of FCC sanctions—censorship all over again.

from The San Francisco Chronicle:
“‘Howl’ Too Hot to Hear, 50 years after poem ruled not obscene, radio fears to air it,” by Joe Garafoli
“Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg’s Beat-era poem ‘Howl’ was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines. Free-speech advocates see tremendous irony in how Ginsberg’s epic poem—which lambastes the consumerism and conformism of the 1950s and heralds a budding American counterculture—is, half a century later, chilled by a federal government crackdown on the broadcasting of provocative language.”

from The New York Times:
“‘Howl’ in an Era That Fears Indecency,” by Patricia Cohen
“Those who happened to click on Pacifica.org yesterday could hear Allen Ginsberg intoning, ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,’ along with the rest of his classic poem ‘Howl.’”

from Pacifica Radio on the Web:
Howl Against Censorship
Rather than risk FCC fines that would bankrupt the station, WBAI (the public radio station in New York) and the Pacific Radio Network are commemorating Judge Horn’s ruling 50 years ago, by posting a recording of Allen Ginsberg reading “Howl” himself, and by hosting a discussion of media censorship, forbidden words and poetry’s place in the culture of repression with Ferlinghetti, Bob Holman, first amendment lawyer Ron Collins, Beat Generation scholar and filmmaker Regina Weinreich, and WBAI programming staff.

Listening to Ginsberg’s Voice Today
There’s a large collection of Ginsberg recordings online at PennSound, dating from 1956 up to 1995, just a couple of years before his death. And from the 2010 archives of Jack Foley’s Cover to Cover radio show at KPFA, you can stream a program discussing the film Howl that includes some early Ginsberg recordings and the following week’s selection of 1995 readings by Ginsberg.