Making its third appearance is Kelly Harrell's 1925 recording of Rovin' Gambler. My copy is pretty beat, but I recall that I got a very good file from it (if I don't boast so, myself):
Rovin' Gambler, Kelly Harrell, 1925. From Victor label 78.
If not for my 31-band equalizer, that would have been a study in high-freq. hiss only. So, really, most of the credit must go to Soundstage, the makers of my unit. I just moved the slides, is all....
(What is this, an awards ceremony? Sorry. I'm not tracking right now.)
Actually, this is true. I've got a bit of a fever, and I just ain't feeling good at all. And I JUST got over the dang stomach flu. This isn't fair.
(See "Life")
Yeah, this sounds great. I'm listening to the file now.
Is it possible Jenkins swiped his whole song? Of course, but I don't think it's likely. Two reasons, mainly: if Gordon had taken a bunch of older blues cliches and constructed a text from same, the result would have been a hodepodge. Plus, Crescent departs from the blues-lyrical tradition in a dramatic way--i.e., it makes its points, not through repetition, but with a flowing narrative. Instead of chronicling all of the ways that Crescent City sucks, for instance, the text instead artfully describes the frustration and longing of the singer. No list of complaints; instead, a lonely lament.
Also, traditional blues lyrics focus on less than poetic or abstract details, as a rule--such as, gathering up my clothes, throwing out that woman/man, grabbing my 44, etc. And they typically center around relationships--the need for sex, the unfaithfulness of a partner, the reasons one just murdered one's "baby," etc., etc. So, I think Crescent City Blues is primarily Jenkins.
And, of course, we know now that Folsom Prison Blues, too, is primarily Jenkins. The rock press doesn't give a hang about that, but we do, don't we? (Folsom Prison Blues II? No, no. Too.)
While I'm bitching, let me say that I don't know why every source, it seems, gives 1954 as the year for Jenkins' Seven Dreams LP. I'm guessing that's a mistake that's been repeated, Net-style, over and over. (In fact, I think Cash gave 1954 as the year in an interview.) The LP came out in 1953. Furthermore, the song in question was copyrighted in 1952.
So, there, Internet. Take that!
Hm. I think I hear the Taurus a'comin'. Could my foster mom be pulling in? I just took the Windstar out for a quick trip to get a John Deere battery. I installed it, and the riding mower is back in action! So nice to turn the key and have the thing start.
What a shame. No more two and half hours' worth of lawn-mowing. Dang it all.
(Wow--Spell Check wants "a'comin'" to become "acumen." Cool.)
Lee
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Some Johnny Cash for Thursday morning
You're expecting some kind of trick here, I suppose. Geesh. Is that all the faith you have in me?
(Dang, I can't get away with anything any more!)
O.K., it's a trick. In fact, the first selection is the very song that Johnny Cash ripped off when he "wrote" Folsom Prison Blues. Crescent City Blues, it's called, and it appeared on the 1953 Gordon Jenkins LP, Seven Dreams, of which Cash owned a copy. This is my third time posting this, I believe, but it will be new to many. This kind of music history needs to be kept in circulation:
Crescent City Blues (Gordon Jenkins), Beverly Mahr, from Seven Dreams LP on the Decca label, 1953. (Song penned in 1952)
Gordon Jenkins, of course, arranged for a host of pop singers, from Peggy Lee to Frank Sinatra, and penned Benny Goodman's theme song, Goodbye. He also gave us P.S. I Love You, Blue Prelude, This Is All I Ask. The Space Age Pop website gives Jenkins a mixed review: "Gordon Jenkins' taste for lush string orchestrations was a big factor in the development of the easy listening style, but today's listeners may find it hard to understand the attraction. Taken straight, without the benefit of a great vocal by Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole or the dated dramatic narrative of Manhattan Tower, its saccharine shock is tough to digest."
Right. We've all been introduced, over and over, to the idea that lush strings are wrong. Not manly enough, you know. (That's the idea, no?)
Not to worry. Our next selection is robust and not the least bit lush:
I Walk the Line Polka, Ed Podolak and His Orch., from 45 RPM.
As we speak, at least two collections of late-in-his-career Cash are about to be released. Exploitation? Why, no--tributes to his legacy, of course. MY(P)WHAE says, Yeah, right.
Lee
(Dang, I can't get away with anything any more!)
O.K., it's a trick. In fact, the first selection is the very song that Johnny Cash ripped off when he "wrote" Folsom Prison Blues. Crescent City Blues, it's called, and it appeared on the 1953 Gordon Jenkins LP, Seven Dreams, of which Cash owned a copy. This is my third time posting this, I believe, but it will be new to many. This kind of music history needs to be kept in circulation:
Crescent City Blues (Gordon Jenkins), Beverly Mahr, from Seven Dreams LP on the Decca label, 1953. (Song penned in 1952)
Gordon Jenkins, of course, arranged for a host of pop singers, from Peggy Lee to Frank Sinatra, and penned Benny Goodman's theme song, Goodbye. He also gave us P.S. I Love You, Blue Prelude, This Is All I Ask. The Space Age Pop website gives Jenkins a mixed review: "Gordon Jenkins' taste for lush string orchestrations was a big factor in the development of the easy listening style, but today's listeners may find it hard to understand the attraction. Taken straight, without the benefit of a great vocal by Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole or the dated dramatic narrative of Manhattan Tower, its saccharine shock is tough to digest."
Right. We've all been introduced, over and over, to the idea that lush strings are wrong. Not manly enough, you know. (That's the idea, no?)
Not to worry. Our next selection is robust and not the least bit lush:
I Walk the Line Polka, Ed Podolak and His Orch., from 45 RPM.
As we speak, at least two collections of late-in-his-career Cash are about to be released. Exploitation? Why, no--tributes to his legacy, of course. MY(P)WHAE says, Yeah, right.
Lee
Love My Train
I've featured this first file a couple times already--here it is, again. Here's my original (June, 2005) introduction:
"Not too long ago, on NPR's Fresh Air, journalist Peter Guralnick gushed over the way that Elvis, at Sun studios, had transformed Little Junior Parker's Mystery Train into a faster, more vibrant record. Peter's point: Elvis was no mere copycat. He was an artist with an uncanny ability to take any source material and make it his own.
Only problem is, Elvis' record was swiped from Love My Baby, the flip side of Little Junior Parker's Mystery Train. Nothing uncanny about that, I'm afraid. (Tip for aspiring pop-musicologists: when researching, always listen to both sides of a record.)
And, here, I've interspersed the two recordings--Elvis' 1955 Mystery Train, recorded at Sun, and its, um, inspiration: Little Junior Parker's 1953 Love My Baby, recorded at Sun. If the result is rock-sacrilegious... oh, well."
Love My Train, Elvis Presley and Little Junior Parker, 1953 and 1955.
The fact that both are twelve-bar blues in the same key isn't enough, imo, to account for the nearly seamless way they fit together. You decide, dear listener.
I pulled the same stunt with Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land and the record that very obviously served as the model for same. Again, the two arrangements are WAY TOO close for the similarity to be coincidental. It's well-known, anyway, that Guthrie used the Fire melody for Land, though there seems to be some odd received belief that "folk" artists never listened to records or the radio. They did. Here's my original intro:
"This (next) selection is hard to explain. I can only guess that a glitch in time and/or space produced it. Somehow, somewhere, and at some point, The Carter Family's 1930 recording of When the World's on Fire met up with Woody Guthrie's 1944 (I think) recording of This Land Is Your Land. This is the document of that strange meeting and the resultant interspersing of verses and vocals. I guess we could call it When This Land's on Fire:
When This Land's on Fire, Woody Guthrie and the Carter Family.
I think Guthrie was listening to the Carter 78 when he penned his famous song....
Lee
"Not too long ago, on NPR's Fresh Air, journalist Peter Guralnick gushed over the way that Elvis, at Sun studios, had transformed Little Junior Parker's Mystery Train into a faster, more vibrant record. Peter's point: Elvis was no mere copycat. He was an artist with an uncanny ability to take any source material and make it his own.
Only problem is, Elvis' record was swiped from Love My Baby, the flip side of Little Junior Parker's Mystery Train. Nothing uncanny about that, I'm afraid. (Tip for aspiring pop-musicologists: when researching, always listen to both sides of a record.)
And, here, I've interspersed the two recordings--Elvis' 1955 Mystery Train, recorded at Sun, and its, um, inspiration: Little Junior Parker's 1953 Love My Baby, recorded at Sun. If the result is rock-sacrilegious... oh, well."
Love My Train, Elvis Presley and Little Junior Parker, 1953 and 1955.
The fact that both are twelve-bar blues in the same key isn't enough, imo, to account for the nearly seamless way they fit together. You decide, dear listener.
I pulled the same stunt with Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land and the record that very obviously served as the model for same. Again, the two arrangements are WAY TOO close for the similarity to be coincidental. It's well-known, anyway, that Guthrie used the Fire melody for Land, though there seems to be some odd received belief that "folk" artists never listened to records or the radio. They did. Here's my original intro:
"This (next) selection is hard to explain. I can only guess that a glitch in time and/or space produced it. Somehow, somewhere, and at some point, The Carter Family's 1930 recording of When the World's on Fire met up with Woody Guthrie's 1944 (I think) recording of This Land Is Your Land. This is the document of that strange meeting and the resultant interspersing of verses and vocals. I guess we could call it When This Land's on Fire:
When This Land's on Fire, Woody Guthrie and the Carter Family.
I think Guthrie was listening to the Carter 78 when he penned his famous song....
Lee
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Music by Merv; big chance squandered
We'll start with the big chance: a few years ago, I found a copy of Harold Arlen and His Songs, a Capitol LP from 1955 that, until recently, wasn't so much as mentioned anywhere on the Internet. During the year that this blog has been up, I'd thought about posting some of the tracks. A MYP(W)HAE exclusive. And it would have been.
Well, not now. It was reissued on CD in February, I found out last night. I was finally getting around to ripping some of the bands, but I thought I'd check first. And it's out there: http://www.playbill.com/features/article/97738.html
All I can say is, wahhhh!!! Wahhhh!! (One more time) Wahhhhh!
I have only myself to blame, yet I choose to blame society. It always feels better to blame someone, or something, else. Anyway, I sure blew that chance. Thanks a lot, DRG label.
The exclusive that never was. Arlen's singing, by the way, is the ultimate acquired taste--to my ears, at least. He had a very weird way of singing his songs, as if rushing ahead of the beat and waiting for the meter to catch up were... jazzy. I don't know. I realize that beating around the beat is hip and all, but too much of a good thing can be hilarious. Plus, his sense of pitch is iffy enough to make Tony Bennett sound like a human tuning fork. Personally, I think that pitch-bending works best when the reference tone shows up from time to time. A lot of people listen to Erroll Garner and wonder where the melody is. They never heard Harold Arlen sing, I'm guessing.
By the way, I have nothing against musical embellishment, jazz-style or otherwise. I am, after all, the composer of Stairway to Laredo. And I love Bach, a genius who based one of his more complicated Inventions on the tonic triad of F Major. So, embellish away, I say. However, there has to be a point and purpose to improvisation, and too often in popular music there isn't. I consider jazz worship the leading cause of idiotic over-embellishment. You know what I'm talking about--the NPR-style "jazz good, all other music bad" attitude. I love, by the way, Terry Gross' way of saying "jazz": "jaaaaazzzzzzzz." Rosemary Clooney recorded "jaaaaaazzzzz" later in her career, reported Terry on one occasion. You have to semi-hiss it in that soft, pretentious manner that I find so, well, gross.
Jaaaaaazzzzzzz.
My late father, who played jaaaaaazzzzz bass, told me he admired spare bass lines. Me, too. I love it when I can get a single note thumping away in support of two or three chord changes. A real musical burn, that. On the other hand, I also like funk and/or rock bass that goes all over the place, so I guess I'm conflicted. I'm a flip-flopper. (Aieeeee!! ((Crash! Slam!!)))
No wonder this room is such a mess.
On to Merv, who knows how to write a good song, one in which every note counts. A great song, even:
Jeopardy Theme (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984. From Escape cassette.
Sounds pretty good for a cassette dub, no? I won't note that my player is a Radio Shack brand. (Oops.)
I love this one, too--always have. Titled Changing Keys, it's actually the Wheel of Fortune theme. Dumb show, great theme:
Changing Keys (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
This next one might show up as background music on Fortune--not sure. I don't watch it enough to know. It's ingenious:
Nightwalk (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
And here's Merv's Theme, which is equally cool. I guess this was used for syndicated show of 15-20 years ago? I should be more up on my Merv details, but I'm not:
Merv's Theme (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
The cassette (Escape) has a slower version of this that works better, but it looks like I didn't upload it. Shame on me.
One of these posts, I should put up everything I have in the way of Merv-composed music. We're talking quite a few tracks. He co-wrote at least two songs during the Fifties, wrote a bunch of stuff for his Sixties show, and so on. Griffin has always played down his musical side, but he started out as a musician and never stopped pouring himself into that area. Personally, I'm glad for that.
Lee
Well, not now. It was reissued on CD in February, I found out last night. I was finally getting around to ripping some of the bands, but I thought I'd check first. And it's out there: http://www.playbill.com/features/article/97738.html
All I can say is, wahhhh!!! Wahhhh!! (One more time) Wahhhhh!
I have only myself to blame, yet I choose to blame society. It always feels better to blame someone, or something, else. Anyway, I sure blew that chance. Thanks a lot, DRG label.
The exclusive that never was. Arlen's singing, by the way, is the ultimate acquired taste--to my ears, at least. He had a very weird way of singing his songs, as if rushing ahead of the beat and waiting for the meter to catch up were... jazzy. I don't know. I realize that beating around the beat is hip and all, but too much of a good thing can be hilarious. Plus, his sense of pitch is iffy enough to make Tony Bennett sound like a human tuning fork. Personally, I think that pitch-bending works best when the reference tone shows up from time to time. A lot of people listen to Erroll Garner and wonder where the melody is. They never heard Harold Arlen sing, I'm guessing.
By the way, I have nothing against musical embellishment, jazz-style or otherwise. I am, after all, the composer of Stairway to Laredo. And I love Bach, a genius who based one of his more complicated Inventions on the tonic triad of F Major. So, embellish away, I say. However, there has to be a point and purpose to improvisation, and too often in popular music there isn't. I consider jazz worship the leading cause of idiotic over-embellishment. You know what I'm talking about--the NPR-style "jazz good, all other music bad" attitude. I love, by the way, Terry Gross' way of saying "jazz": "jaaaaazzzzzzzz." Rosemary Clooney recorded "jaaaaaazzzzz" later in her career, reported Terry on one occasion. You have to semi-hiss it in that soft, pretentious manner that I find so, well, gross.
Jaaaaaazzzzzzz.
My late father, who played jaaaaaazzzzz bass, told me he admired spare bass lines. Me, too. I love it when I can get a single note thumping away in support of two or three chord changes. A real musical burn, that. On the other hand, I also like funk and/or rock bass that goes all over the place, so I guess I'm conflicted. I'm a flip-flopper. (Aieeeee!! ((Crash! Slam!!)))
No wonder this room is such a mess.
On to Merv, who knows how to write a good song, one in which every note counts. A great song, even:
Jeopardy Theme (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984. From Escape cassette.
Sounds pretty good for a cassette dub, no? I won't note that my player is a Radio Shack brand. (Oops.)
I love this one, too--always have. Titled Changing Keys, it's actually the Wheel of Fortune theme. Dumb show, great theme:
Changing Keys (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
This next one might show up as background music on Fortune--not sure. I don't watch it enough to know. It's ingenious:
Nightwalk (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
And here's Merv's Theme, which is equally cool. I guess this was used for syndicated show of 15-20 years ago? I should be more up on my Merv details, but I'm not:
Merv's Theme (Griffin), Mort Lindsey and His Orchestra, 1984.
The cassette (Escape) has a slower version of this that works better, but it looks like I didn't upload it. Shame on me.
One of these posts, I should put up everything I have in the way of Merv-composed music. We're talking quite a few tracks. He co-wrote at least two songs during the Fifties, wrote a bunch of stuff for his Sixties show, and so on. Griffin has always played down his musical side, but he started out as a musician and never stopped pouring himself into that area. Personally, I'm glad for that.
Lee
There comes a time to lay down the law, and this are it.
Oh, well. (Sigh) Please take a look at my new blog introduction, which lays out the law. Hate to do it, but I have to. It's pretty simple. If a post is old and the MP3 link doesn't work, it means the file is no longer being shared. No repost requests. None. No researching artists and/or songs. I've done a lot of the latter, and nothing annoys me more than going out for someone and not even getting the courtesy of a thank you. Which has happened 60 to 70 percent of the time, so we're not talking about a few folks raised in a barn. We're talking about a number of them. To those who have taken advantage of my kindness, the party's over.
By all indications, most of my readers are intelligent human beings. But how to explain the e-mails and comments from people who, apparently, can't even grasp the fact that this is a BLOG? If you've been on the Internet for ten minutes, folks, you know that no blog noplace features files for months on end. So why would my files be up forever? For one thing, there's a downloading limit on my Box.net account. If I kept everything up that I ever posted, my storage site bandwidth would be used up within a few days, and it'd be 25 to 28 days before any file-sharing could happen again. Do you want that to happen? I hope not.
You know the drill--I'm not posting this for the majority of mature, reality-centered readers. I'm posting it for the inconsiderate nitwits who think I'm here for their convenience. Are any of them reading this? Probably not. However, when I ignore and/or tell them where to take their requests, it won't be as if I hadn't laid down the law. It's not my problem if they can't, or won't, read.
As for the courteous and gracious folks for whom I've done favors, it's been a joy and a privilege. If only everyone were as thoughtful and kind. But that's not the world we live in.
I guess if reality didn't suck, it wouldn't be reality.
Lee
By all indications, most of my readers are intelligent human beings. But how to explain the e-mails and comments from people who, apparently, can't even grasp the fact that this is a BLOG? If you've been on the Internet for ten minutes, folks, you know that no blog noplace features files for months on end. So why would my files be up forever? For one thing, there's a downloading limit on my Box.net account. If I kept everything up that I ever posted, my storage site bandwidth would be used up within a few days, and it'd be 25 to 28 days before any file-sharing could happen again. Do you want that to happen? I hope not.
You know the drill--I'm not posting this for the majority of mature, reality-centered readers. I'm posting it for the inconsiderate nitwits who think I'm here for their convenience. Are any of them reading this? Probably not. However, when I ignore and/or tell them where to take their requests, it won't be as if I hadn't laid down the law. It's not my problem if they can't, or won't, read.
As for the courteous and gracious folks for whom I've done favors, it's been a joy and a privilege. If only everyone were as thoughtful and kind. But that's not the world we live in.
I guess if reality didn't suck, it wouldn't be reality.
Lee
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
78 transfers that almost weren't
There's a danger to EQing 78s for too long a period of time--namely, everything starts sounding like mush. That's what happened in regard to the following files, which I deemed to be so badly-doctored, I deleted them.
So, how did they survive, you ask? Either they (somehow) remained on my hard drive after I thought I'd deep-sixed them, or else I'd put them on disc and had forgotten about them. I don't remember which. Anyway, I found them weeks after the fact, listened to them, and decided they're just fine.
Eight or nine other tracks (in another project) weren't so lucky. Oh, well. The moral of the story is: don't put all your birds in one basket, because that makes it too easy for the cat.
I'm sorry--that wasn't nice.
All of these are in average to slightly below-average condition, so they sound good, considering. As always, I tried for crisp and clear fidelity. All but the first two numbers have a degree of shhhhh at the start that quickly subsides. Gramophone tonearm tracking error, I'm told, is the cause for that. The Fuller sides are especially interesting. Extraordinarily so, to me:
Hot Aire (Elmer Schoebel), George Olsen and His Music, 1925. From Victor 78.
I'm Knee Deep in Daisies, George Olsen and His Music, 1925. From Victor 78.
Graveyard Blues, Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918. From Columbia 78.
Sweet Emalina, My Gal (One-Step)--Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918. From Columbia 78.
Oh! By Jingo (One-Step), Lanin's Roseland Orch., 1920. Columbia 78.
Rose of Chile (Tango--Fox-Trot), Lanin's Roseland Orch., 1920. Columbia 78.
Somebody (One-Step) All Star Trio, 1920. Columbia 78.
Lee
So, how did they survive, you ask? Either they (somehow) remained on my hard drive after I thought I'd deep-sixed them, or else I'd put them on disc and had forgotten about them. I don't remember which. Anyway, I found them weeks after the fact, listened to them, and decided they're just fine.
Eight or nine other tracks (in another project) weren't so lucky. Oh, well. The moral of the story is: don't put all your birds in one basket, because that makes it too easy for the cat.
I'm sorry--that wasn't nice.
All of these are in average to slightly below-average condition, so they sound good, considering. As always, I tried for crisp and clear fidelity. All but the first two numbers have a degree of shhhhh at the start that quickly subsides. Gramophone tonearm tracking error, I'm told, is the cause for that. The Fuller sides are especially interesting. Extraordinarily so, to me:
Hot Aire (Elmer Schoebel), George Olsen and His Music, 1925. From Victor 78.
I'm Knee Deep in Daisies, George Olsen and His Music, 1925. From Victor 78.
Graveyard Blues, Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918. From Columbia 78.
Sweet Emalina, My Gal (One-Step)--Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918. From Columbia 78.
Oh! By Jingo (One-Step), Lanin's Roseland Orch., 1920. Columbia 78.
Rose of Chile (Tango--Fox-Trot), Lanin's Roseland Orch., 1920. Columbia 78.
Somebody (One-Step) All Star Trio, 1920. Columbia 78.
Lee
Monday, May 29, 2006
To those who "gave the last full measure of devotion"
Memorial Day began as Decoration Day--a day on which the graves of Civil War soldiers were decorated with flowers. Eventually, it became a time for honoring all who have died in military service.
Today, we honor the holiday's roots with two classics from the 1860s, and we pay tribute to the armed services by way of their magnificent songs. All tracks were taken from the Follet Publishing Company's two-LP set Patriotic Songs, which features a host of superb vocalists, as well as members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I'm guessing it's from the late 1960s, but that's only a guess. Travel back to a time before such honorable choral fare was replaced by musical refuse like Neil Diamond's America and Lee Greenwood's I'm Proud to Be an American. I once had to learn the piano accompaniments to both, and I felt like setting fire to the music.
Once, sounds like these were everywhere. I barely remember those days, but I miss them anyway:
Battle Hymn of the Republic
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Reveille, Bugle call; Bruce Foote, Baritone
The Army Goes Rolling Along, Bruce Foote, Baritone
Anchors Aweigh, Earl Wilke, Tenor
Off We Go, Richard Rivers, Baritone
U.S. Air Force Blue, Mixed voices
The Marines' Hymn, Bruce Foote, Baritone
Semper Paratus, James Bailey, Tenor
Eternal Father (Navy Hymn), Bruce Foote, Baritone
Air Force Hymn
Taps, Female Trio; Bugle call
"That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."--Abraham Lincoln, 1863.
Lee
Today, we honor the holiday's roots with two classics from the 1860s, and we pay tribute to the armed services by way of their magnificent songs. All tracks were taken from the Follet Publishing Company's two-LP set Patriotic Songs, which features a host of superb vocalists, as well as members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I'm guessing it's from the late 1960s, but that's only a guess. Travel back to a time before such honorable choral fare was replaced by musical refuse like Neil Diamond's America and Lee Greenwood's I'm Proud to Be an American. I once had to learn the piano accompaniments to both, and I felt like setting fire to the music.
Once, sounds like these were everywhere. I barely remember those days, but I miss them anyway:
Battle Hymn of the Republic
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Reveille, Bugle call; Bruce Foote, Baritone
The Army Goes Rolling Along, Bruce Foote, Baritone
Anchors Aweigh, Earl Wilke, Tenor
Off We Go, Richard Rivers, Baritone
U.S. Air Force Blue, Mixed voices
The Marines' Hymn, Bruce Foote, Baritone
Semper Paratus, James Bailey, Tenor
Eternal Father (Navy Hymn), Bruce Foote, Baritone
Air Force Hymn
Taps, Female Trio; Bugle call
"That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."--Abraham Lincoln, 1863.
Lee
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Two early country recordings that don't exist, and that we're about to hear.
This blog is one year old today. Happy Birthday, blog! ("Aw, shucks."--Blog.) Such a humble blog, this.
Here are two files I've been wanting to re-feature-- in fact, I think these two might be on their third go-round. Not sure. Anyway, they are Arkansas Traveler as recorded by Len Spencer in 1908 (not sure who's on the fiddle--Charles D'Almaine?), and Arkansas Traveler as recorded by North Carolinian fiddler Don Richardson in 1916.
Of course, you can't believe a note you are hearing in this post. Why not, you ask? Because the Library of Congress identifies Eck Robertson as "the first performer to make country music recordings," and Eck didn't make his first recording until 1922. Check out the 2002 National Recording Registry choices . We can only conclude that these two 78s--both from my collection--do not exist.
Arkansas Traveler, Len Spencer, 1908. From Victor 78.
Arkansas Traveler, Don Richardson, 1916. From Columbia 78.
That's odd. These guys dressed in black just came into the house and demanded my two copies of Arkansas Traveler. I lied and said I didn't have them--to my surprise, they said "O.K." and left.
I didn't know the Library of Congress employed MIB (Men in Black). Maybe those guys work for a bunch of institutions. One wonders.
(Oops. They're back. Gotta hide.)
Lee
Here are two files I've been wanting to re-feature-- in fact, I think these two might be on their third go-round. Not sure. Anyway, they are Arkansas Traveler as recorded by Len Spencer in 1908 (not sure who's on the fiddle--Charles D'Almaine?), and Arkansas Traveler as recorded by North Carolinian fiddler Don Richardson in 1916.
Of course, you can't believe a note you are hearing in this post. Why not, you ask? Because the Library of Congress identifies Eck Robertson as "the first performer to make country music recordings," and Eck didn't make his first recording until 1922. Check out the 2002 National Recording Registry choices . We can only conclude that these two 78s--both from my collection--do not exist.
Arkansas Traveler, Len Spencer, 1908. From Victor 78.
Arkansas Traveler, Don Richardson, 1916. From Columbia 78.
That's odd. These guys dressed in black just came into the house and demanded my two copies of Arkansas Traveler. I lied and said I didn't have them--to my surprise, they said "O.K." and left.
I didn't know the Library of Congress employed MIB (Men in Black). Maybe those guys work for a bunch of institutions. One wonders.
(Oops. They're back. Gotta hide.)
Lee
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)