Subject: [removed] Digest V2013 #101
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 9/24/2013 10:18 AM

To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to: [removed]@[removed]

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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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