[78-L] Limited edition Miller

[Jeff Sultanof]

The way I understand the story, Miller had nearly all of his radio
broadcasts transcribed by the Harry Smith Recording Company because he
claimed he could not hear the band from the stand. These recordings were
stockpiled in his office long after his death, and were finally sent to RCA;
initially they were thought to be worthless. The first releases from these
sources were two 10" LPs entitled "Glenn Miller Concert." The two 5 LP sets
supposedly were both limited editions to be sold for $25.00 each, and RCA
didn't expect big sales. Of course the movie of his life probably helped big
time, and the resulting huge sales caught them by surprise. The first set
was a mix of commercial recordings and live performances, the second is all
live, highlighting many titles never commercially recorded by Miller.
Sometime in the sixties, the second set was repressed on Dynacrap, using
both old and new stampers. I was told that RCA had hundreds of extra albums
in one of their warehouses, and making a new pressing seemed to be the best
way to get rid of them - the labels read "Second Pressing." I'm sure that
there are a few of these floating around; I bought mine at Korvette's for
$12.98 and wore out every side.

RCA also transcribed a number of NBC broadcasts, and these are true
airchecks, in that they were professionally recorded as reference and then
filed away. The Artie Shaw 5 LP set from the mid-fifties is made up of
these. Much of the remainder of what RCA took off the air turned up on
various Reader's Digest CD sets in the eighties and nineties.

Jeff Sultanof

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:34 PM, Ron L'Herault <lherault at bu.edu> wrote:

> I'm going to be digitizing a bunch of stuff on tape that is Miller
> broadcasts.  I'm sure they had a lot of studio stuff but the live stuff is
> quite interesting.  You hear tunes they didn't commercially record I
> imagine.
>
> Ron
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of William A. Brent
> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 6:30 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: [78-L] Limited edition Miller
>
> for the longest time, I've had 2 multi disc Glenn Miller albums -
> they seem to date from 1954.
> the first set is on EPs (45s) the second is on LPs. most of the
> tracks seem to come from
> radio broadcasts. Does any one know the history of these? was the mid
> 50's a special time for
> releasing radio broadcasts (Decca was doing this with Jolson) - then
> again, RCA did this in
> the 60's with Lanza.
> But did RCA not have enough studio material in 1954 to release sets
> of this size?
> did these sell well?
>
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