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The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2013 : Issue 101
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
re: Mercury Theater recordings [ rand@[removed] ]
Isham Jones and Gus Kahn [ "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed]; ]
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:00:21 -0400
From: rand@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: re: Mercury Theater recordings
Michael noted:
It's also possible that CBS instigated a practice during that time of
early
recording procedures of making copies for the cast.
Maybe. All I'm seeing so far indicates that around the time of "War of
the Worlds" would have been when CBS had recording equipment installed and
started doing recording "in house".
The sound on the set is really clear. If it's an original "live" version,
and not a dub, it could have been done at CBS or at another facility with
close access to the CBS line - Mercury might have hired another firm to do
the recording.
I knew Paul Stewart and worked with him a few times. He was a wonderful
and
very generous man so I can understand his giving this item away during the
days when early radio was being rediscovered here in Hollywood.
How wonderland that it has fallen into your hands.
Might we see some photos?
There's a couple of pics at my site - [removed]
The set's really curious.
The blanks are Presto Q, manufactured up until 1941. The labels are
handwritten, saying "War of the Worlds - Original Broadcast" and the part
number. The labels were applied after the discs were recorded and go
right up to the grooves on most of the sides.
The discs were in standard Audiodisc "Glass Base" sleeves, which would
date from World War II, and each has a part number written on the sleeve.
The whole set was in a standard cardboard album mailer from the "Book of
the Month" club. There's no mailing label on the cardboard mailer, but it
does have the Book of the Month club return address printed on it with a
zip code.
The mailer has "War of the Worlds - Original Acetates - Paul Stewart"
written on it in the same handwriting as the labels.
The labels probably aren't original and were applied whenever a previous
owner assembled it into the "Book of the Month" club cardboard mailer
since the handwriting is the same.
I've seen one sample on the web of Stewart's handwriting - it doesn't look
like it was written by him.
rand
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:00:27 -0400
From: "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Isham Jones and Gus Kahn
Re the question of who wrote the "songs" in a music-and-words collaboration,
let's set the record straight about something here. Strictly speaking, a
song is any work of music, sung or otherwise, that has a three-part (ABA)
form. I loved the movie "I'll See You In My Dreams" and it made me a
life-long fan of Doris Day-- what a beauty, and what a singer! But why not
be clear and simply say that in a collaboration like Kahn's or Ira
Gershwin's, one partner wrote the music, one wrote the words, and leave it
at that. I cringe to hear that "Kahn wrote the songs" which could be very
misleading. Remember in the movie that Gus took an already existing jazz
tune he heard in a nightclub, slowed it down and added words to make it
"Pretty Baby"? And remember another movie called "Words and Music," a biopic
about the collaborations between Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart? The movie
wasn't called simply "Songs." Someone like Paul Simon truly writes "songs"
because he writes both the words and the music.
yOurs TRuly,
Jan Bach
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End of [removed] Digest V2013 Issue #101
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