Bing Crosby on Harmony (1949 repressing of '30s items).

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Viva-Tonal
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Bing Crosby on Harmony (1949 repressing of '30s items).

Post by Viva-Tonal »

Something I found at Salvation Army last week, one of the items on the short-lived revival of the Harmony name on 78 rpm singles, in 1949.

The labels are the same colour as the CBS Okeh labels, a light purple, with all printing in gold.

The record came in its original sleeve; at the bottom it states, 'Wright Record Corporation, Meriden, Conn. Exclusive distributors.'

Most all the material came from ARC era Brunswick or early CBS Columbia, although toward the label's end there were new recordings from such as Pearl Bailey.

Here's the two sides of 1007, one of the three Bing Crosby singles listed on the sleeve.

'Paradise' is from matrix B.11480-B, recorded 15 March 1932 and originally released on Brunswick 6285.

'(She walks like you--she talks like you) She reminds me of you', backed by Jimmie Grier and his orchestra, is a Hollywood recording, matrix LA.146-A, recorded 13 March 1934 and originally released on Brunswick 6853.

It seems like Columbia's shellac pressing quality didn't much recover from the shortages and problems caused by World War II, as they often seem rougher than the records they made in the early 1940s. It wasn't until the change from the 'knife-edge' pressings to the rounded-edge discs around 1953 or 1954 that the quality jumped up again.

And in keeping with this, this is not only a knife-edge disc, the surfaces of both sides possess a 'smoky' character, with a higher hiss level. The records also sound as though the stampers were very worn out, the grooves widened and distorted out of shape, and thus sounding quite poor played with a 3 mil stylus (which is all I have). I wonder what the record would sound like played back with a truncated tip or perhaps a 3.5 to 4 mil stylus....

richardh

Re: Bing Crosby on Harmony (1949 repressing of '30s items).

Post by richardh »

Two great recordings by Bing - have to say I am a great fan of the eary Bing. The second disk "She reminds me of you" is very catchy. I agree that you probably need a larger TE stylus to get a better transfer. I had the same difficulty when transferring the Brunswick recording of Bing singing "Thanks". To start with I used a standard 78 stylus tip and the sound was distorted with lots of hiss. I'd guess this is because the tip was too small and was basically skating along the bottom of the groove. I upped the size of the stylus and the sound improved dramtically. If you are able to invest in a larger tipped stylus then you might be surprised at the improvement of sound from disks like this.

I am definately going to add this Bing / Grear disk to my wanted disks list - its very catchy! Thanks for sharing it.

RJ 8-)

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