[78-L] the Lost Recordings of...

[Rodger Holtin]

We've all heard stories about various "lost" recordings.  Thew was an album in the 1960's called "Tom Edison's Greatest Hits" that was purportedly the just-found records of an Edison representative named Frederick Kolb; including the other-wise-unrecorded voices of Wild Bill Hickock, Jenny Lind and others.  I bought it, taking it at apparent face value for the historical treasures that these must be and found out only when I played it that it was a sit-com record.  Took me years to get over that, and finaly with middle-aged maturity could read the liner notes and comprehend the tongue-in-cheek nature of it.  The notes ramble like some old recluse collector whom we all know/knew about.  So much for the humor value.  But I gather that this project was based in some fact that there we cylinders made of some of these or similar personalities that have not turned up.  Can anybody tell me any specifics about that?

There are other instances where things turn up that nobody knew existed, or they vanished and finally re-surfaced.  Can anybody name some of those and tell the stories - short versions, OK.

This question is prompted by a CD that I'm working on for the university I work for.  For over 45 years, (1953+) the college chorus sent out reels or cassettes of a weekly 15-minute program.  At the peak they were sent to some 200 radio stations, primarily in the South, but scattered all over incluyding Canada.  Forty-five years times 52 weeks is way over 2,000 programs. There is not a single copy of any of the masters - or any of the programs  - anywhere on campus.  

Last month one of the old chorus members from the class of 1960 sent me a couple reels that he's kept as souvenirs of happy college days.  There's going to be a story in the alumni magazine about this, and the idea is to have other folks look in their closets for this stuff and send it in - kind of a localized take on the NPR series of the early 1990's called Lost and Found Sound, which many of you will remember.  

Anyway, and finally, here's the question, I want to draw a comparison to the lost college recordings and those of - you tell me - Edison?  Glenn Miller Army band?  Elvis?  etc etc

Rodger



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