[78-L] Story of the LP (queries)

[David Lennick]

Michael Shoshani wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-11-24 at 21:05 +0000, fnarf at comcast.net wrote:
> 
>> Of course, the late great John Peel was famous for playing records at the wrong speed for the first few seconds, then switching it up or down in mid-play, often with a muttered "oh, christ, I've done it again" on the microphone.
> 
> There's at least one story of a prankster shifting Wolfman Jack's
> turntable from 33 to 45 while he wasn't looking; when the record began
> at obviously the wrong speed, WJ shifted the turntable down to the
> correct speed as he opened his mic and said "Hallelujah, let's hear the
> SLOW version!".
> 
> Quick thinking makes legends, even if apocryphal...
> 
> MS
> 

The difference between 33 and 45 is a 4th..unless you know the music really 
well or there's a MAJOR difference in timbre, you may not notice the difference 
at first. I can remember starting a 45 at 33 and potting down and making the 
switch at an appropriate place in the instrumental intro (it was a Petula Clark 
song) and nobody noticed.

In the early 60s, one or two companies tried 45RPM LPs..one of the labels was 
called Quarante Cinq. Pierre Monteux was sent a test pressing of something he'd 
recorded and his only response was to ask if he'd really conducted the music 
that slowly. I don't think this is one of those apocryphal "idiot conductor" 
stories..I remember reading it in High Fidelity (or equivalent) at the time.

The Lazar Berman disc I mentioned earlier, a 7-inch pressing with a large hole, 
was a very poor dub of a 1930s 78..the key of the music wasn't given on the 
label and the transfer was so dull that the disc sounded much better and more 
natural at 45. But it was a 33....!

dl