Anyone have original Florence Foster Jenkins Melotone 78's ?

[De Soto Frank]

I found three 12" Melotone records by Florence Foster Jenkins when I was in college...

Don't remember every selection, but they include:

Bell Song from Lakme`

Queen of the Night's aria from "The Magic Flute"

The Laughing Song from "Die Fledermaus"

Serenata Mexicana ( by her accompanist Cosme` McMoon )

( I forget what the other two titles are...)


I'm pretty sure mine all have type-written labels, Black with red over-type, which are supposed to be earlier pressings.


Anybody else have 78's by Mme. Jenkins ?


The movie with Meryl Streep is delightful, perhaps slightly romanticized, and Meryl Streep and pianist Simon Helberg (Big Bang Theory) actually do their own performing... no post-production dubbing.

[TinfoilPhono]

I have one, Charmant Oiseau. It's on eBay right now, at my wife's urging. I suppose it's true that the value is likely to peak in conjunction with the movie. It certainly isn't any fun to listen to.

[Victrolacollector]

People were probably giving them away until the movie came out. Now watch the record price soar...but hold up....wait another couple of years and the prices will fall.

[De Soto Frank]

I don't think I could bear to part with my copies... even though their price probably will peak with the current buzz about the movie. I found my copies in an album at a thrift store in Wilkes-Barre about 30 years ago...


Is there any extant documentation indicating how many copies were produced ?

I don't find much about Melotone Recording Studios on the internet... most searches lead me to info about the circa 1930 label that was part of the ARC concern.

[victorIIvictor]

For what it's worth, Melotone also recorded and cut the lacquers for the Asch/Stinson 78 RPM album by Richard Dyer-Bennett (The 20th Century Minstrel). Of course, those recordings were released as conventional shellac pressings.

Best wishes, Mark

[Henry]

Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

[FloridaClay]

I recently came across a transcription of a WNYC broadcast of an opera premiered by Hunter College in 1946 on Melotone, discussed in this thread:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... lit=+opera

Clay

[52089]

Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

Some of those tracks can be heard on YouTube, and all of them are on Spotify.

[Henry]

For those wishing to know more about "The Pride of Wilkes-Barre," there is an excellent and, for all I know, accurate entry on FFJ in the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Foster_Jenkins.

Undoubtedly the lady's musical problems were exacerbated, if not caused, by syphilis, contracted from her first husband.

[De Soto Frank]

Slightly O/T, but twelve tracks of FFJ recordings have been issued on RCA Victor Gold Seal CD 09026-61175-2. I don't know whether this is still in the catalogue, but if you're dying to hear the undying voice, it might be worth a try. Can't wait to see the new movie!

Henry, it's a delightful, loving look at Mme. Florence.

If it comes to a theatre near you, I would suggest seeing it ASAP; it looks like it might run a second week at Cinemark Moosic, but I doubt it will run very long anywhere outside a major metropolitan area.


There is an excellent documentary about FFJ on You-tube: "Florence Foster Jenkins: A World of her Own", by Donald Collup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcatZDdaIY