[78-L] Glad you guys are back and Radiex Question

[Steven C. Barr]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Malcolm Rockwell" <malcolm at 78data.com>
> Donna Halper wrote:
>>> Steven wrote--
>>>
>>> (2) Grey Gull was famed for re-recording "hits" using different artists! 
>>> As
>>> well, they usually DIDN'T re-print labels, since that cost MONEY...?!
>>>
>>
>> For the newbies on the list, the owner of GG, Theodore Lyman Shaw,
>> never spent money unless he absolutely had to.  That has always
>> puzzled me, given that he came from a fabulously wealthy upper-class
>> White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family, with a long and distinguished
>> history in Massachusetts.  But I think they all got upset with him
>> because (a) he married a Catholic (gasp) and not just any Catholic
>> but a manicurist... not exactly upper-class, don't ya know.  And (b)
>> he didn't go into the family businesses (banking, real estate,
>> dealing in antiques) but instead sunk some of the family money into
>> creating and maintaining a recording studio and a record company,
>> which at one time had offices in New York and Chicago as well as
>> Massachusetts.  He became the black sheep of the Shaw family.  There
>> was a period of time when it seems Theo did in fact try to promote
>> and publicise his artists, but by the mid-1920s, rumours were
>> circulating about his not paying them, plus the sound quality of the
>> GG family of records was not exactly the best... And yet, he did have
>> a good relationship with Andy Sannella and Mike Mosiello-- both did
>> lots of work for him under a variety of names.  But other
>> musicians... well, they didn't stay with him for very long, and by
>> the late 1920s, just about nobody had much good to say about
>> GG/Radiex/Van Dyke or anything else Theo put out.
>>
>> *******
>
> Seems Grey Gull also liked avoiding paying writer's royalties whenever
> possible, as well. Many of the dance band sides featuring Sannella and
> Mosiello were thinly disguised hits of the day copyrighted under their
> names or a pseudonym. They'd change the melody line slightly or alter
> the chord structure a bit  and retitle the tune. Since these were dance
> band sides there were no lyrics to have to revamp - there was no singer!
> So, as a theoretical example, "The Sheik Of Araby" becomes "Son Of The
> Sands" and GG collects all the money. Impossible to promote, though,
> except by word of mouth. It's only now that Sannella & Mosiello's odd
> sense of musical humor can really be appreciated. Steven Abrams and I
> play "Name That Tune" with Grey Gulls when I go a-visitin' San
> Francisco. I believe he has a little list of all the adaptations
> (perversions?) he's been able to find. I'll ask next we speak. Great fun!
>
Malcolm doesn't note that these "royalty-avoiding" sides were used
as B-sides for recordings of hit tunes (although there WERE a few
series that coupled such sides)...!

...stevenc