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This is just fascinating. I read it some years ago but the "Charleston" topic of Marc's made me remember it. I figured that since it had to do with records it should go here.

Grab a Scotch and soda and a good cigar and enjoy.


http://www.davidsarnoff.org/soo-editori ... notes.html

gramophone-georg wrote:This is just fascinating. I read it some years ago but the "Charleston" topic of Marc's made me remember it. I figured that since it had to do with records it should go here.

Grab a Scotch and soda and a good cigar and enjoy.


http://www.davidsarnoff.org/soo-editori ... notes.html

Try this link: http://www.davidsarnoff.org/soo-editorialnotes.html When I clicked the link above, George, I got a 404 error. Thanks for sharing; looking forward to reading.

Thanks, Charlie. Not sure what went wrong there... copying and pasting a link ain't rocket surgery...

I've read that several times already. It is an amazing insight into the day to day work life in the early 1900s AND of course gives some perspective to the quality and selection of early recording artists. Someone from the street corner or a colleague who had a nice voice and you got yourself a record. The novelty was so great in the beginning, there wasn't too much competition. Of course that changed relatively quickly when professional performers were recorded, but I bet some careers were born out of pure coincidence then. Thanks for posting the link here.

Andreas

I truly enjoyed reading this. Among the many stories recounted, this one in particular broke me up:

"During the recording of a colored Dance Band, one of the saxophone players could not keep his feet still and the continual tapping to the time of the music could be heard in the records and as he could not play unless he tapped his foot, we decided to put a soft pillow under it. This worked out all right for a while but the continual tapping soon worked the pillow out from under his foot and again the tapping on the floor could be heard and in as much as we disliked to smell feet, as a last resort, we made him take his shoes off so that we could get some records without tapping."