[78-L] Echo records

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Does anyone know anything about Echo Records?  I have one set on this label called "Canada's Favorite Barbershop Quartets", (yes, they use the American spelling of "Favourite"), and features The Cowling Brothers, Those Harmonic Gentlemen and The Regents.  The album of four records has no number and the sides are numbered E1 to E8, there are no other numbers on the labels, (very plain blue with silver writing, similar in style to the Old Fashioned Revival Hour Quartet record label).  The Barr book doesn't mention this label at all.  Googling the three quartets, only The Cowling Brothers had a passing notice that they performed somewhere in 1951.

Also, does anyone know where the Canadian National Exhibition Chorus made their six sides in 1928?  It says on the label that they were recorded during their performance at the Toronto Exhibition but unless they performed outside, (perhaps at the Grandstand), they would need a huge room for 2200 voices and a band.  

It's too bad that these recordings are so poor, even by 1928 standards.  It seems that Canadian recording engineers were not up to speed with their American or British counterparts.  Even the 1942 Toronto Symphony recordings, (which I think I've heard were actually done by American engineers), are not near as good as other Orchestral Victors from the same period.

db