The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Beaumonde,

By the time Billie recorded this one with Artie record sales had picked up again. In 1933 less records were sold in a year than in 1927 in an average month. Due to the depression and the advent of radio. In Europe radio was still in in its infancy compared with the U.S. And the crisis hit later here too.

I'm aware of all that, of course. The 1933 recording is quite rare state-side. OrthoSean found an English Columbia pressing at the Union Show some years ago, and that was the only one I've seen. I'm sure there are more copies of this Bluebird floating around, but I'm not sure it was a big seller, relative to their other records. This is the only (worn) copy I've found, but I should be on the look-out for a better one.

beaumonde wrote:I'm sure there are more copies of this Bluebird floating around, but I'm not sure it was a big seller, relative to their other records. This is the only (worn) copy I've found, but I should be on the look-out for a better one.

I probably have an extra of "Any Old Time" someplace in the stacks in the basement. I've had several over the years, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for you!

Sean

beaumonde wrote:I'm aware of all that, of course. The 1933 recording is quite rare state-side. OrthoSean found an English Columbia pressing at the Union Show some years ago, and that was the only one I've seen. I'm sure there are more copies of this Bluebird floating around, but I'm not sure it was a big seller, relative to their other records. This is the only (worn) copy I've found, but I should be on the look-out for a better one.

I've passed over quite a number of Any Old Time sifting through Artie Shaw Bluebirds, which also are generally common in my neck of the woods. I have one nice copy, and never felt compelled to buy another, on that basis.

I remember seeing a modern version of this song in the big band style on youtube..I found it again and here it is. Its quite a faithful reconstruction of the Artie Shaw arrangement I think. Makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbdIIlMq5yI[/youtube]

Bit O/T.

But one shouldn't pass up her record made with another famous band leader, Paul Whiteman on Travelin' Light (Capitol, ca. 1942.)

Great performance, with an arrangement to match. It's a fairly common record (I think) and shouldn't cost too much. Sounds best via the original 78 and not some futzed with transfer, like on the Capitol From The Vaults CD, where it's buried in reverb.

They did a lot of stupid things with 78s in the 60s. Making them fake stereo, filtering them dead, adding reverb, to let them sound a least a little bit and so on. Every company did it.
The worst ones are the Nimbus re-issues of 'The great singers', where they placed an EMG in an echo chamber an recorded from there. The voices are completely drowned in an awful echo.

I never liked those Nimbus CD's either. Worst was when they played electrical 78's on that setup, and it came out sounding like all the bass below 200 Hz was completely missing as a result.

I tend to agree about most 60's and 70's reissues and the practices carried out that ruined the sound. But there can be exceptions. The Billie Holiday The Golden Years Columbia box set from 1962 is tolerable, a bit over filtered, but otherwise pretty true to the original records.

French RCA started their Black and White series of re-issues of jazz in chronological order around 1974 and it was an eyeopener to hear for the first time how good transfers really could sound. They did only a minimal amount of filtering, only the tiniest bit of noise suppression. I hears for the first time how much bass and treble there actually was on a 78. These records are now quite sought after.

One superb LP from the early 1950s is BUNNY BERIGAN PLAYS AGAIN (RCA Victor LPT 1003). Eight songs on a 12" LP including the famous version of 'I can't get started'. If you were ever looking for this on an LP that has all the sonic attributes of the original 78 with none of the drawbacks, your search ends here. NO screwball EQ, overcompression/limiting, OTT reverb or other sins. And all eight tracks sound that good!