[78-L] I CAN HEAR IT NOW

[Michael Biel]

The fourth volume was NOT the Cronkite 60s set.  Actually the first 
pressings of the Churchill album, ML 5066 calls it Volume IV in the 
forward in the bound in booklet.  "This is Volume VI of the I CAN HEAR 
IT NOW series, Volume I dealing with the years 1932-1945, Volume II 
dealing with 1945-1949; Volume III is an attempt to cover the years 1919 
through 1932, when Volume I began."   That should mean that the Ben 
Gurian ML 5109 and Nassar ML 5110 discs with the cover style that 
matched the Churchill would be Vol V and VI but neither the sleeves or 
labels give volume numbers, but the albums ARE called I Can Hear It 
Now.    But these are not what the slipcase Dave has is referring to.


Murrow and Friendly HAD put together another album for 1949-1957 and 
finished it the week that Sputnik was launched.  They went back into the 
studio and redid the opening and closing to philosophize on the event.  
But then they started to mull over the contents of the album.  They had 
spent something like 11 minutes or more on Joe McCarthy and kept 
trimming and trimming it but felt they needed all the time they had used 
to properly tell the story.  But they KNEW they would be castigated by 
the right wingers for over-kill.  Then as the space program started to 
launch more and more satellites and they didn't want to keep on having 
to update it.  So the album never got issued. 


There is a dub of the master in the CBS Radio News Archive.  Back in the 
early 1980s Marty Werber, who was CBS's rep at ARSC got permission from 
Fred Friendly to play it to a special evening session at an ARSC 
convention, possibly the 81 at Chapel Hill  where I was on a panel about 
Murrow that was supposed to include one of Murrow's writers, the one who 
compiled "In Search Of Light" but he got ill the night before.  We all 
agreed that it should be issued, and Marty took the message back to 
Friendly, but nothing ever happened.  In the meantime, CBS and just 
about everybody else thought that audio documents like these albums were 
passe because VIDEO was the thing!!  Marty had described how they had 
put the Cronkite 60s album together, and when 1980 rolled around I asked 
him if they were working on the album for the 70s.  No interest, he 
replied. 

Go back and take a look at how they describe Volume III as "an 
attempt".  They already had grave doubts about it.  The front cover was 
supposed to read "Events Real and Re-Enacted" but the first printings 
had a type "Events Read and Re-Enacted."   It now turns out that there 
are several re-enacted recordings on the original Vol I.  Remember that 
the March of Time was ALL re-enacated, so it was not unusual for this to 
be done during that era in radio.  

I am very interested in this slipcased version Dave found.  What record 
or set numbers do they use, have they re-numbered Vol 3 to Vol 1 like 
they did do when they issued it as a three disc box set, and are the 
individual covers the same as the revised one with Murrow's drawing, the 
original ones with the photos, or something different.  Are those gold 
labels pressed in or glued on?  Are they shiny foil or dull gold like 
the Adventures In Sound series?

> By the way, has anyone come across an odd LP I found on Columbia Special 
> Products, with all the clips from ICHIN Vol. 1 but with Murrow's voice
> replaced by a different narrator?   dl


I have two copies of it right here, In the Columbia Musical Treasures 
series, D560, Ralph F. Colin narrator.  Who he???????


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

David Lennick wrote:
> King Daevid MacKenzie wrote:
>   
>> djwein at earthlink.net sez:
>>     
>>> Hey all, > > > > Recently got an elaborately slip-cased edition of the three original LPs in> this series, as a special souvenir from CBS Laboratories, "to our friends> and neighbors in Connecticut," celebrating the November 1957 groundbreaking> ceremonies of the new CBS research center in Stamford. The records have> special gold labels - the thing that surprises me is that the cover notes> say that a FOURTH album in the series covering 1948-1957 will be released> shortly and the slipcase has extra room for this last volume. I am sure a> Volume 4 was never issued - am I right?
>>>       
>>  
>> ...well, a fourth volume *was* issued, just not dealing with '48-'57. It was titled I CAN HEAR IT NOW: THE SIXTIES, a three record set narrated by Walter Cronkite. That album was reissued on green-label CBS Records circa '82 as THE WAY IT WAS: THE SIXTIES...
>>  
>>  
>> kdm
>> ___________________
>>     
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